A rising Needham High School sophomore who fell in love with theater watching "The Lion King" at Pollard Middle School takes the stage July 31 as the lead in a student-run production of "Seussical" — his very first show with the group.
A young cast for a show with more depth than it looks.
PJ Murray plays Jojo in Needham Student Theatre's production, opening Friday at 7 p.m. and running again Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Needham High School auditorium. He's part of a 16-person cast that NST Producer Amiya Tess called one of the youngest she's seen in the organization, with many performers brand new to the group — a student-led nonprofit that partners with Needham Community Education and keeps every member under 21.
Two first-timers behind the scenes, too.
Rising seniors Miles Yountz and Katie Memory are co-directing, both stepping into new territory: it's Yountz's first formal NST production after starring in the group's "A Christmas Carol," and Memory's first time directing after performing in NST's "Heathers." Yountz, also serving as music director, said the Dr. Seuss source material carries more weight than most people expect — pointing to a subplot where a character gets sent to war "for literally no reason, arguing over absolutely nothing, but a lot of people die," and another who undergoes the Seuss equivalent of plastic surgery only to learn what's inside matters more. "At least in my life, I've found that a lot of the songs and a lot of the characters are more than just these wacky Dr. Seuss characters," Yountz said.
Memory pointed to the show's recurring line, "a person's a person, no matter how small," as the anchor for themes of identity and loneliness that tend to surprise audiences who write the material off as childish.
Why student-run matters to the people making it.
Murray said he values that NST is entirely student-run, with no adult producers — a rare environment where young people build a show together from the ground up. He hopes the family-friendly material might even inspire kids in the audience to try theater themselves someday, the same way "The Lion King" once did for him.
A tradition passed down through generations.
Some cast members are children of alumni from St. Joseph Summer Theatre, NST's predecessor organization. Tess, who calls herself "the last remaining SJST-er in the NST," said talking with those alumni "has shown me that I'm not the only one who's experienced this as a life-changing force" — proof the impact of this kind of theater sticks around long after the curtain closes.
What rehearsal actually looks like.
At a recent Friday night rehearsal, actors waved fuzzy fans in front of a line of Truffula trees while running through Act 1, stagehands painted a large pink nest for Horton, and one actor dragged a long blue boa as a tail — the kind of scrappy, joyful chaos that defines a student production coming together.
Tickets:
$15 for adults, $10 for students and youth, available through the NST website.
