It’s almost time to say ‘bye -bye’ to Conrad Birdie as he heads off to war in the upcoming musical from the SHS Theatre Department, “Bye Bye Birdie.”
Production for the new show has been going on for months with countless Susky students making major contributions to all facets of the show.
Senior member of both crew and cast Fiona Giffen, who has been involved through all aspects of the production from day one, gives an exclusive sneak peek into the upcoming spring musical.
“The inspiration for the set is similar to 1950s pop art,” Giffen said. “It has lots of blocky shapes and lots of bright primary colors. It really draws your attention to it. And then to define the colors, we used black to outline all of our squares and blocks to just pull it all together, so it looks really cool. As for our moving set pieces, they’re very retro and really pull the whole set together.”
The cast for the musical this year features more than 50 Susky students, including actors, singers and dancers.
“We have a huge cast for this show with it being very chorus and ensemble heavy, which is really cool because we have a lot of different age groups in it,” Giffen said. “We have a bunch of middle schoolers as well as all the different students in all the different grades in high school– so it’s really cool to have that diversity of the younger generation that wants to help with continue doing theatre throughout high school, as well as the kids who wants to keep doing it outside of high school and into college. It’s been really fun getting to work with all different groups of people and meeting new people. Everyone seems to be getting along very well.”
The musical stars junior William Dumm in the role of Albert Peterson, a record executive intent on moving on from his life in show business, held back by his star played by junior Henry Podlaszewski, Conrad Birdie.
Giffen gives an in-depth sneak preview of the plot for the upcoming shows.
“The story follows Albert and Rosie, a couple in New York, who run a family record company. Their hit artist, Conrad Birdie, is drafted into the war,” Giffen said. “As girls fawn over him left and right, Albert springs on the opportunity to move on from this part of his life. Amidst all the attention and media frenzy, featuring a special guest appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, Albert and Rosie work to ensure Conrad’s biggest secret is not exposed.”
Giffen comments on how all areas of the production work together to put on the best show possible for their audiences.
“It’s a lot of communication between a bunch of different people, mainly students, communicating with each other to run the whole production,” Giffen said. “Especially when we get to tech week, it’s mainly the student leaders that are taking over, and the adults are just kind-of guiding at this point. As a whole, everyone’s been doing a really great job with working together.”
“Bye Bye Birdie” will be the final curtain call for many SHS seniors.
“I think this is a really great show for all of the seniors this year, especially when bringing together all the different aspects of the production,” Giffen said. “The show is very tech heavy which is great since we have a larger number of seniors who are crew members. It’s also great for the senior cast to play a great role in guiding the younger actors on their way out into next year.”
“Bye Bye Birdie” will be performed Friday, March 21 and Saturday, March 22 starting at 7 p.m., as well as on Sunday, March 23 beginning at 2 p.m. with tickets being on sale now at susquehannocktheatre.com.
