Lights, Camera, Action. Terms everyone associates with movies, plays, and so on. We know the actors and the characters, but rarely do we take the time to consider how the actor themselves see the character that they’re playing, we don’t consider the steps they take or the things they go through to get to what we see. We see the final product, not the in between. The theater team put on the musical of Little Woman this year, with much effort from behind the scenes staff and actors, we are once again showing the talent that Mansfield has.

“I’m a 34 year old professor and I’m German. My significance to the story is that when Jo moves to New York she meets me, and I kinda help mentor/tutor her and then my character falls in love with her, and goes to meet her and proposes at the end of the musical. I’m her love interest,” senior, Seth Moran, said of his character Professor Friedrich Bhaer. “He’s definitely arrogant which he’s accused of in the play and but denies it, he’s very snobby thinks he’s better then everyone, through out the musical you should see a change in who he is a little bit going from the guy that everyone kinda hates to a little bit more likable.”

Another important role is Margaret “Marmee” March, played by Senior Haleigh Hatfield. Margaret is the mother of the young woman leading this musical forward, she is their rock and the person that will always be there for her girls at the end of the day.

“She’s bascically living the life of a signle mother because her husband is off at war, so shes raising these four woman on her own but shes like super proud of her girls shes proud of who theyre becoming but shes also incredibly lonely and she cant deal going day in and day out without having someone to lean back on or she feels like shes not raising her girls right. Shes just trying to be incredibly strong for her children,” Hatfield said.

Actors in the musical found help amongst instructors and fellow students to help them get into the role they were playing.

“I’ve definitely liked working on him [the character] with the directors, the directors have been awesome with working with me and helping me figure him out because its really hard for an 18 year old to figure out what a 34 year old would think and do and how he reacts to different things. And so the directors they’ve just helped me figure out how I would present this character a little bit better then what I could come up with on my own,” Moran said.

As easy as the character seems to be to play from the audience’s perspective, it can be much more demanding on the actors and crew.

“Very hard to play just because the songs very demanding and just trying to give that strong influenceal character that she is every moment that you’re on stage, trying to channel that, ” senior, Shelby Priddy, said.

The end goal is to have a performance that both the participants and audience enjoy, if the production cast and behind the scenes people agree that the play is good then the audience is sure to enjoy it.

“We are very excited for [the play], I know that everyone here has worked so hard for it, I know the orchestra is amazing, the crew is amazing the cast is amazing, there are many ensemble parts but a lot of them are here everyday ready to go on stage ready to help out and of course the leads are amazing and its just been such a fun show and for my last high school musical,” Priddy said.