Dive in with ‘Little Mermaid’ at Nation Ford High

Students at Nation Ford High School are excited to take audiences under the sea beginning Thursday as they present Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.”

The show is a massive collaboration that crosses several classrooms. Theater, art and marketing students had input on everything from the posters and programs to costume design. It’s an opportunity for those who aren’t so theatrically inclined to get involved in the school’s spring musical. Nation Ford drama teacher Cheri Addison said it’s a really big undertaking, but she knew it would be a great fit.

“Based on the group of kids I have this year in particular, it seemed like this was a perfect match – and it’s Disney,” she said.

“Who doesn’t like to do Disney?”

That’s the sentiment she’s hoping to stir in the community as well.

Addison said the show is a challenging one that will meld the Disney movie with a bit of Broadway and the Hans Christian Andersen tale. Audience members will follow the story of Ariel, a princess mermaid who desperately wants to live on land. She makes a deal with a sea witch to trade her voice for a pair of legs – but with the condition that she must receive true love’s first kiss within three days or be doomed forever.

Those familiar with the Disney movie will love all the familiar songs, and they will get a little more back story on the characters as well – including what happened to Ariel’s mother. Addison said morphing students into characters was challenging.

“You want to make it realistic in the sense that the kids aren’t playing caricatures, they’re playing these real things and at the same time it’s a story and it’s still a fantasy and you have to bring that cartoon element to the stage as well,” Addison said.

“So (we are) trying to mold both of those together.”

There are 32 cast members and more than 40 people have worked behind the scenes to ensure a smooth show. Addison said it has been just as much work behind the scenes as it is on stage.

“The show is enormous with set changes and moving things and flying things in and out and moving things on and off the stage that it becomes a very intricate choreographed dance itself,” she said.

The show was cast in January and since then, Addison said it’s been nonstop. She said one of the largest obstacles to this year’s production, besides just the sheer size of it, is getting time to work in the school’s shared auditorium.

“I’m glad we’ve allotted ourselves this amount of time because we had to deal with conflicts,” she said.

But problems aside, she said she’s been given an excellent group of students to work with and they have really put their hearts and souls into this production.

“We were working on the set recently and we came into some issues and we were brainstorming, and there’s so much creative thinking and problem solving and working as a team,” she said.

Addison has spent the better part of the past decade teaching drama at the school, which opened in 2007, and said this year, her largest group of theater students will be graduating. She said she hopes that she’s taught them skills that will stick with them.

“I have students that come back to me now and say this has helped with their life, and it has nothing to do with theater at all, whether it’s self-confidence or team play or working independently,” she said.

Being able to give students the opportunity to learn those skills has really been rewarding for Addison.

“They take a lot of pride in what they do (and) I take a lot of pride in the program that I run,” she said.

The theater department receives no budget to produce plays, so ticket sales are really crucial. Addison said through productions like this she hopes to show her program is just as valuable as any other funded class or extracurricular club – or sport.

“You want to keep doing what you’re doing, but you want others on the higher end to recognize the importance of it and to say ‘Yes, we need this,’ ” Addison said.

The show is appropriate for all ages. By offering earlier show times, a Sunday matinee and character meet and greets after the show, there’s plenty of opportunities for younger children to get a good taste of musical theater.

This story was originally published April 11, 2016 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Dive in with ‘Little Mermaid’ at Nation Ford High."