Seniors Final Musical

Photos by Ava Simonsen

Christian Kennedy 

In her 29th show, Christian Kennedy will perform a male role in Seussical the Musical: General Schmitz. As an alto two Kennedy has the ability to belt it out in a strong lower voice.  Kennedy is ready to depart from her usual stern, motherly role like Mrs. Webb in Our Town, the fall play. According to Kennedy, as usual she will be wearing her hair in a low bun that Capello jokingly assigns to her in every role.

Throughout her four years in theater, she’s taken part in fall plays and musicals, sat on the exec board and directed and participated in Frequent Fridays. Kennedy is planning on majoring in musical theater education. Theater helped Kennedy learn the value in being apart of something bigger than just the role you play.

“I definitely took for granted Cinderella last year. I think that looking back it has opened my eyes to see the beauty of a family like East theater,” Kennedy said. “This year I am going to take every second that I can to appreciate everyone around me.”

Kylie Ledford

Kylie Ledford will perform her first lead role in her last East performance as Gertrude McFuzz, a bird more comfortable being a wallflower than craving attention. Ledford is ready to take on the many personalities and high octave songs of Gertrude.

Ledford said that Gertrude is the awkward, dorky character that she identifies with in real life. Ledford is aiming to become nominated for a Blue Star Award for Outstanding Actress in a supporting role. In order to win this award she is judged by various people from Starlight Theater in the Kansas City area.

“I have been waiting for a part like this for a long time,” Ledford said. “I am just ready to work as hard as I can for both my character and other people if they need help. I want this show to be something where I look back on it and can say that this show was phenomenal and will be proud of that.”

Haley Lynch

For the third time in her life, Haley Lynch will be playing the Sour Kangaroo. Lynch is looking forward to see how she has changed from when she performed the role when she was in sixth grade to now performing it as a senior. Lynch will be pursuing commercial music at Belmont University next year, so this will likely be her final performance in musical theater.

“As a senior I definitely have more ability than I did in eighth grade and in sixth grade when I performed it before,” Lynch said. “My character is pretty mean and sassy to the main character, so it will be interesting to see how my ability has improved compared to my two other performances.”

The theater department has been a great community to be in where different groups of friends can be made, according to Lynch. As this is the last show Lynch will be participating in at East, she plans on working extra hard to nail her part perfectly.

Bria Foley

Bria Foley is playing the mayor’s wife as her final role. Formerly looking to the seniors for inspiration, Foley is now the example and plans to go all out. Watching the curtain drop for the final time will be difficult for Foley as she says goodbye to all the memories East theater has given her.

“Since I’m not going into anything music related, I will miss the whole thing – even just choir,” Foley said. “It’s unique that people who aren’t going to be doing this as their career can be involved in something like this together.”

Although the mayor’s wife is not the most difficult role, according to Foley, it still holds an important part in the show being leader of Whoville.

“I can have fun with being the leader of the Who’s and being motherly while not having to worry about memorizing so many lines,” Foley said.  “At the end of this I can say that I put it all out there and that is all that really matters.”

Jacob DeSett

Yertle the Turtle may only appear twice – but Jacob DeSett plans to make it his best show yet. DeSett has been in various musicals and plays in his four years at East, including the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Shrek and Cinderella . After this year, DeSett plans on focusing on opera and classical music as he pursues his music education career.

DeSett excited to show off his vocal range. DeSett says this role is the perfect one to finish off his musical theater career and show off everything that he has. Yertle is a very sassy character that DeSett mirrors his own personality. Yertle the Turtle very different than other characters that he has played in like Chip Tolentino, an awkward boy scout, in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

“I get to be a character who is a lot like me but I also get to belt a lot and show off a lot what I can do,” DeSett said. “It is a very good way to end my musical theater career.”