By Liam Andell
Photos by Ryan Snyder

The Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush continued their yearly tradition of holding musicals in 2018, this year tackling on the classic story of Cinderella. Theater teacher Ms. Wojcik and Vocal teacher Ms. Spencer began the four-month-long stretch in November to fit all the pieces needed to put this show together. Directing and designing an entire musical is a very strenuous time process that takes a headstrong group of people who are determined to fulfill their duties, staying after school several days throughout the week for months just to get work done. Even with all the preparation leading up to the musical, nobody could account for the forces of Mother Nature; unexpected snowstorms raged on during the final week of the musical, cutting them short a rehearsal day and a whole day for dress rehearsal. Still, at the end of the day, the amazing group of students was able to take the stage Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.

Cinderella is a classic story originally told by the Brothers Grimm, which has been turned into a Disney princess movie and formed into several renditions by many other authors. Ms. Wojcik and Ms. Spencer ultimately went with the rendition of Cinderella written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The script had been slightly altered to highlight the important lessons told in the old tale like the act of giving kindness towards all and not letting negative forces affect you. It was also written in favor of a younger audience as opposed to the the original Grimm fairy tale because of the much looser script originally used. As the musical opens you see Cinderella hustling around the house and being forced to complete many tasks for her demanding stepmother and her two stepsisters. They criticize Cinderella for everything and let her know their true feelings on how they think she is nothing but a servant to them, and that she’ll never experience the opportunity to feel like a princess and go to a ball.

When the stepmother and two step sisters step out for the Ball and leave Cinderella at home to clean she begins to envision herself at the ball. Cinderella is soon blessed with the presence of her Fairy Godmother who encourages her to go to the Ball but to make sure she is home by midnight. The Prince sits at the Ball bored when all of a sudden Cinderella appears in this beautiful new dress, and this brightens his spirits giving him the confidence to go on and dance with her. They have a wonderful time dancing that Cinderella loses track of time and had to rush out unexpectedly without even giving the Prince her name. As she rushes out her glass slipper falls off and that’s the only piece of her that the Prince has left. The Prince uses his slipper to his advantage and has every girl try to fit the slipper to see if he can find his lost love. At the end, of course, he finds his Cinderella with the help of the Fairy Godmother and the two live happily ever after.

We were all blessed with senior Ambria Hartie’s performance in her leading role as Cinderella. The character Cinderella starts off as a poor unhappy girl that is constantly discouraged by her stepmother.  As the play progresses Cinderella’s whole morale changes and liveliness is brought into her soul. In a performance one of the key parts to acting is your character development. Ambria amazed the whole crowd with how fantastic her character was, being able to show her love towards the prince with pleasant countenance and humble mannerisms all while singing, dancing and acting. With every princess, there comes a fairy godmother. Junior Ahyanna Navarro-Foreman took on the role of Cinderella’s fairy godmother. Her loving attitude and personality towards Cinderella helped her fulfill the gentle and sweet godmother role.  With her excellent performance in this year’s musical, hopefully as a senior next year she will take the torch and handle another lead role during her final year at Rush. Other than those two actresses, a huge shoutout goes to all of the Ensemble members and the musicians who added in extra layers to the performance to make it what it was. The musical, as it has been every year, was a huge success. I want to give a big thanks to all the seniors who spent a large portion of their stressful senior year to give it their all in the Cinderella musical.

In simpler terms the musical was great. All throughout whether it was the acting, directing or designing of the play it all worked great together. I’ve seen each of the past few musicals and none before them compare to the work of art displayed on stage in Cinderella. I give it two thumbs up and say that I highly recommended Cinderella. While the musical has already passed, we hope you enjoy the variety of pictures and an entire recording taken from the show.