West Potomac Gears Up for First Weekend of Starlight Express
Beyond the Page Theatre Company will be performing Starlight Express Apr. 28 – May 7. Link to schedule and tickets below.
(Courtesy @Westpotheatre on Twitter) The Starlight Express Cast on their opening night.
Beyond The Page Theater Company will be performing their rendition of Starlight Express this week. Philip Clark, theater director, talked about how the cast has grown into the challenge of putting on such a large-scale show over the past few years.
“I think over the past five years we’ve grown so big, and my students have been getting a lot of experiences with many different shows, and so their skill sets are perfect to put on a production like this, but it’s taken years to come to this,” said Clark.
Senior Delaney Claussen also discussed the spirit week that has been occurring in the week of the show’s opening night. She discussed how she came up with the ideas for the various themes of each day that comprise the spirit week.
“We have certain traditions for our theater department. So the day before opening, we always wear our show shirts, and then the day we open, we always dress really nicely, so with that one [“Fusion Friday” spirit week], I just needed to come up with a catchy name.”
Claussen discussed how the themes and names of the various spirit days are directly inspired by the show itself.
“We took ideas from the ideas from the different types of trains from the show, and we wanted to incorporate that. So we had international Tuesday because there’s a whole bunch of international trains, and they go to race [in the show],” said Claussen.
Claussen also mentioned her belief in the success of the spirit week, saying that it helps bring visibility and interest to the show.
“I think [the sprit week campaign has] been pretty successful because we’re walking around with our show and 80’s gear on, and they don’t quite understand why, but then they ask us about it and we say ‘Oh, we’re in Starlight Express!’,” said Claussen.
“This show would not be as successful if we hadn’t worked so hard to get here,” said Clark about the effort it took to bring the show to WestPo. “The students right now are right for this show. The level of expertise is perfect to put on something like this.”
For show times and tickets, click [here].
