musical – AHS NEWSPAPER

Theater Guild Presents You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Time Crunch

May 18, 2025

AREETA FAIZ || STAFF WRITER

The cast and crew of Andover High School’s You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown grappled with a tight deadline typical of a musical in the spring. This year, they performed their yearly show on May 8th, 9th, and 10th.

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a musical based on the popular comic strip Peanuts, featuring familiar characters and a relatively small cast. Auditions ended up being held at the end of March, leaving about a month for the group to finalize their set, blocking, lines, and choreography.

According to the show’s director Susan Choquette, there are several reasons for this turnaround.

“When we participate in the Drama Festival, we never know how far in the process we’re going to get, [which] delays the start of the spring show,” she said, adding, “The Collins Center gets very, very busy in the spring, since a lot of dance studios do their recitals here.”

Other seasonal events include AP testing and junior prom. “It is a challenging time to put a show together, no matter what you choose,” Choquette said.

The last time the Theater Guild performed a spring musical was 2021, slightly off schedule due to the pandemic. “We do a musical in the spring every four years, and other times we usually just do a regular play,” said Nina Bond, a longtime theater participant and sophomore playing Sally Brown.

“A regular [musical in the fall] takes about three months to rehearse and put together,” said sophomore Grace Armstrong, who took a break from her typical athletics to pursue the role of Lucy Van Pelt. As a principal character, Armstrong and others are required to stay at school for up to four hours nearly every day of the week. “I had to be off-book very, very quickly,” she said.

“I’ve been going over my lines, every day, every night, and making sure I’m prepared for every rehearsal,” Bond said prior to the show’s debut.

“There’s a lot of material, but we’ve been good about it,” said Gall Shapira, a sophomore who played Marcy in the ensemble. Shapira brought up another challenge regarding their roles: “We’re playing children, so we’ve been told that they move differently. Their facial expressions, their mannerisms are different, and we have to sort of embody that.”

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AHS Spring Show Announced: Selection Process Revealed

May 6, 2025

Janaesa Macasaet || STAFF WRITER

Andover High School’s anticipated spring production has been announced to be You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Susan Choquette, Director of Theatre Arts, revealed the process of selecting a production. For the spring show, whether a musical or play is chosen is dependent on several factors, including the results of the Drama Fest.

Preparation has recently begun, with the show taking place mid-May. The Theatre Guild always produces a musical in the fall, and a play for Drama Fest—an annual competition between schools—in the winter. The spring show, however, can either be a play (10-minute, one-act, Shakespearian), or a musical, which is largely impacted by the results of Drama Fest.

Kai Cruz, a senior who has been in the Theatre Guild for four years, said, “I think that making it to finals, because it extends so much of our time in the Theatre Guild to focusing on the festival, eats into some of the time that we have for the spring show.”

Time constraints for the spring show not only include time from the Drama Fest, but also time taken away due to the Collins Center being rented out almost every weekend to dance companies. Licensing and budget also play a role in the choice, with musicals costing more for royalties and the rental of orchestra scores each night.

In general, however, Choquette approaches her process of choosing a production with a four-year cycle, where a different type of play or musical is done each year to ensure students of each grade experience a variety of shows.

“I want them to look at the list of shows that they have participated in and look at a very diverse list,” said Choquette. “I feel that’s my mission as an educator—to make sure that kids get lots of exposure to different kinds of theater.”

Choquette also looks for different themes and messages when choosing a production. When dealing with more serious topics, the administration’s approval is always taken into account, though it has rarely been an issue.

“Our administrators have always been super supportive…. One of my mottos is if we can talk about it in health class, we can put it on the stage. If these topics are not forbidden in our health and wellness classes, then we should be able to tell stories that involve those themes,” said Choquette.

Choquette also aims to choose productions that best fit with the Theatre Guild, and make changes when necessary. In the fall production of Into The Woods, roles were added to the story, though a few actors were cut, which is not a common occurrence.

“There haven’t been many changes to how productions are run lately… They only really cut people once every ten years or so,” said Anna Bacchi, a senior in the Theatre Guild. “I don’t have many things that I would change because I think our creative team does a really good job with running things.”

While students are not directly involved in the decision-making process, they are able to make suggestions. For the seniors, the spring show is more than their typical production.

“This spring is a time for celebrating, and for the graduating seniors, it’s their last show, so it’s always just a bittersweet moment, but I think that this spring show is sort of the culmination of everything that we’ve done as a guild together,” said Cruz.

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Showstopping Musical Rent, Returns to AHS

November 19, 2023

By Samantha Sun
STAFF WRITER

“Rent,” Andover High’s autumn musical, is coming back to present a rendition of Johnathan Larson’s take on the mid-90s AIDS crisis.

The musical follows the story of eight artists who, in a year, learn to navigate the AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) crisis while also learning about human connections throughout a single year. It is an all-time favorite of Susan Choquette, the AHS drama director, who is returning the musical to AHS from thirteen years ago.

The play is loosely based on La Bohème, an opera about a poor seamstress and her friends. One of the musical’s themes is how time should be measured, more specifically in a year. The musical is set on December 24th and ends the same day a year later. “It’s not about dates or months. You measure [a year] in love, you measure [a year] in relationships that people have, it’s about people you know and love within a year,” Choquette remarked.

STAFF PHOTO / Samantha Sun
Nick Tuminowski, who plays Roger, and Kate Price who plays Mimi, captivate emotions to portray their characters during their rehearsal for Rent.

Today’s high schoolers didn’t experience the AIDS crisis, but the drama crew and cast aspire to bring it to life on stage. “If we can talk about these topics in our health curriculum…there’s no reason we cannot address them in our dramatic literature on stage,” Choquette said. “There’s a lot of history to be learned about the mid-nineties and what was going on in our country at that time.” Larson’s play was a groundbreaking musical of its time, addressing themes of friendship, community, and how the epidemic affected America.

Senior Abinaya Ganesh added, “The show is truly so beautiful. It’s both a heartwarming and heartbreaking story.” This year, Ganesh is taking on the role of assistant musical director by helping out Lauren Peithmann, the AHS choir teacher. “It’s almost entirely music,” Ganesh added. “It’s almost like rock opera.” With lots of music and moving parts, the cast and crew must work extra hard to cover the entire script. Thankfully they have the help of Marathon Sounds helping with audio and Tech Crew who have created the miraculous set being used. Everyone involved has been working hard nonstop to prepare a sensational show for everyone to see. Notably, it’s different from last year’s Cinderella production as Rent introduces more mature themes.

Audrey Fiore, a junior playing the role of Maureen, noted that “[Rent] was coming out of the golden age of musicals; it came out of nowhere. [The music] has things like electric guitar, heavy drums, and [it’s similar to] artists like Led Zeppelin and The Who.” Fiore is a dedicated Vice president of Drama Guild and works hard as a main actress in Rent.

Choquette added as a final thought, “It was a ground-breaking musical at its time. When John Larson wrote it there was nothing like it at its time. I hope that People walking away from the show really appreciate the work that Jonathan Larson put in and the actor’s performances. I hope they think more about what’s important in life.” Fiore offered a similar statement, “It’s going to be such a good production and we [hope] people [will] appreciate it as much as we do.”

Upcoming show dates: November 19 (2:00 p.m.), Tuesday 21 (7:30 p.m.)

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Theater Guild Presents You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Time Crunch

AHS Spring Show Announced: Selection Process Revealed

Showstopping Musical Rent, Returns to AHS

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