With 4 shows in total, the Broomfield Eagle Way Theatre will be presenting Nickelodeon The SpongeBob Musical on March 9th, 10th, and 11th. Putting on this production requires hours of teamwork, and rehearsal. To get a better understanding of what it truly takes to put on a musical like this one, we sat down with Miss Bryner, the theatre director, to get a rundown of the behind-the-scenes magic.

1. What is the process behind picking a show to put on every semester?
“It is actually a long process. As far as putting on a musical, I have to sit down with the music team. For this particular musical, I had to sit down with Miss Rotman and Miss Beri and we had to make sure we had the right musicians and the right singers to put on Spongebob. So we had to make sure that the right musicians could play in the pit and the right singers could sing the parts for this musical and the right actors could also act in the musical, so that was where my part came in. We were really excited because we did have the particular people who could play for this particular musical, so that was really exciting. So, it’s actually a big process when it comes to picking the shows and deciding what we are going to do.”

2. How long has this musical been in the making?
“So actually, we were intending on doing a different musical this year. We were going to do The Little Mermaid, but Disney denied our rights and so we had to kind of change directions. Since we still wanted to do a children’s show, I believe it was in September, we decided we were going to do Spongebob. I don’t think that’s very long to go from September to March, so only about six months. I don’t think that’s very long for us; usually, we have about a year — because we picked the Little Mermaid last year in March, but because our rights were denied, I felt like this one is a little more rushed, but that’s okay we’re still doing awesome.”

3. What does the audition process look like?
“To audition, the students were required to sing, dance, and act. They were each given songs that they could choose from; they could either sing a SpongeBob song or a Sandy song. Then they were given some different monologues that they had to act in. Then, we had a dance audition day where they all had to learn a dance that was taught to them by our Poms team because our Poms team here at Broomfield High School does all our choreography for us.”

4. How many hours of prep go in per week?
“For an average week, I would say about 12 hours a week, but when we get closer to the show, it’s more like 20-25 hours. It’s a lot of hours. We are here all the time.”

5. What does a typical rehearsal look like?
“During tech week, students come in right after school gets out and they immediately start getting into costumes, makeup, hair, and they have to get mic’d up. We have our tech students sweeping the stage making sure our lights are aimed and the batteries are all changed, making sure that the board is all set up for our lights, setting up all the props, setting everything up, and it usually takes about an hour and a half to two hours to get all that ready. We don’t usually start our “gos” until about 5:30/6 o’clock.

You also have to keep in mind that we combine that with live musicians and our live musicians are also students and so they’re also learning the process. Those musicians are also warming up and are learning. About 6 o’clock is usually when we’re able to start the actual rehearsal and the show is about 2 hours and 15 minutes. So if everything goes perfectly we’re done maybe at 8:30, but usually, during rehearsals, everything doesn’t go perfectly and so you know we have things we have to work out. You know, sometimes a prop doesn’t get put where it’s supposed to or things don’t happen right and so that’s why we have rehearsals to make sure things can happen when they’re supposed to happen. It’s a lot of repetition, a lot of practice, a lot goes into making sure that it happens correctly every time.

Live theater is amazing in the fact that it changes every night. That’s what is beautiful about live theater. You never know exactly what you’re going to expect, it’s going to be different every single night which is one of the things that I absolutely love about it.”

6. What is something that most audiences do not know about putting on a show like this?
“I don’t think they understand the time commitment that actually goes into putting on a show like this, that it takes an exorbitant amount of time. We are here for about three months out of the year, we are here nonstop, we are here every single night, and we have to come in on the weekends. We have to build the set — that it takes actors, dancers, musicians — it takes all of us to put this together. It takes our entire performing arts community. We have over 100 people involved in putting on this particular performance. We have to build our costumes, we have to put it all together, and I also don’t think that most people know that we get zero funding from the school to put this on. It costs probably about anywhere between 10-20 thousand dollars to put on a show and we don’t get any funding which is why we have to charge for tickets.”

7. Why should the student body come to see The Spongebob Musical?
“The student body should come to see the musical because I guarantee that they know somebody involved. They should come and support their friends because their friends come and support them in basketball, football, volleyball, or whatever they’re involved in. So they should come and support their friends in something they’re involved in and passionate about.”

Join Broomfield Eagle Way Theatre for the Best Days Ever on March 9th, 10th, and 11th to see all of their work on stage in Nickelodeon The Spongebob Musical!

Look for tickets on RevTrak or at the sale’s booth the day of performances. Admission is $10 for students & seniors and $15 for adults.