WOHS taking “Ragtime” to state thespian festival

West Orange High School’s thespians in Troupe 1983 had a big task ahead of them last week when they had to pack up every single prop and costume and accessory to take their performance of “Ragtime” to the Florida Senior Thespian State Festival.

The students had experience packing up the entire show, though, so it was no big deal. They already had taken the musical to the stage at Lake Buena Vista for multiple nights in November because the WOHS auditorium was undergoing renovations.

The West Orange theater troupe is in Tampa this week for the statewide event, taking place at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, the Tampa Convention Center and the Tampa Theatre.

WO theater director Tara Whitman applied for the opportunity to present “Ragtime,” and she said winning and taking the show to the festival stage is the equivalent to winning a state championship.

“This is the highest competition,” Whitman said. “And we did have two students who won All-State Cast (J.T. Klinker) and All-Star Crew (Olivia Mosback).”

ON THE ROAD

The thespians are performing the entire two-and-one-half-hour, full-length production.

“We take very element with us — costumes, sets, wigs, lights, sound, props,” Whitman said last week. “We have to reconstruct our set there. We have been spending this week starting to label and catalog everything, I’m talking every glove, every sock, every safety pin, and starting today (Wednesday, March 12) we will start to disassemble things and pack and label everything as to where they go. Friday, kids have the day off, but my kids will be at the school at 9 a.m. We have a semi truck coming to the school.”

Students spend the day Friday, March 14, packing the truck with everything “Ragtime.”

“We’ll have from about 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. to get everything we’ve spent the entire year building and painting up on the stage so when the show starts at 7:30 we’re ready to go,” Whitman said. “When the show ends at 10, we have until midnight to get the truck loaded up.

“We’ve done this before, so the ones who have are telling the new ones, ‘You’re running on adrenaline,’” she said. “The upperclassmen have done this before. … They understand what it takes to move the show.”

The Florida Thespian Senior State Festival provides the opportunity for students to participate in a variety of workshops, one-act performances, master classes, individual Thespy events, mainstage performances, and technical theater events led by theater professionals from around the country. The festival is an educational event for high school students and troupe directors.

WOHS originally staged “Ragtime: School Edition” in November and presented three encore performances earlier this month before taking it to the festival.

“Ragtime: School Edition” tracks three diverse families in pursuit of the American dream in the volatile “melting pot” of turn-of-the-century New York.

Set in the early 20th century, the show tells the story of three groups in the United States: black residents, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; upper-class suburbanites, represented by Mother, the matriarch of a white upper-class family in New Rochelle, New York; and Eastern European immigrants, represented by Tateh, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia. The show also incorporates historical figures.

“RAGTIME”

“‘Ragtime’ is sort of a bucket list show,” Whitman said. “The story of it is set in the early 1900s, and it follows three groups of people, and the message is really beautiful and … the score is one of the most well-loved ones in musical theater, but it’s tricky. The music is hard, and there’s no rule, you can’t just put someone in it who can’t sing it. There (are) 10 male roles that have to be sung well. You have to have students of different cultural backgrounds.

“This was the perfect group of students to perform this show this year,” Whitman said.

Stage manager Olivia Mosback, a senior, enjoys working with all the technical elements that make the show come together and being able to call the show and help the story translate to the audience.

“I am looking forward to performing ‘Ragtime’ at Morsani Hall the most,” she said. “I am excited that we get to experience performing our show for other Florida thespians.”

Kyndall Nix, a West Orange junior, plays Sarah in the show. She said she loves the set and costumes and wanted to be part of “Ragtime” because of the music.

“My favorite part is getting to tell a story of high and lows that aren’t always seen in musicals today,” she said.

She said she is looking forward to performing “in one of the best theaters in Florida for other students from around the state.”

Coalhouse Walker Jr. is portrayed by Dillon Todd, a senior thespian. He said he was excited to take on a show different from the typical happy-go-lucky performances he previously has done.

“I love the journey my character goes through and the emotions I'm able to portray,” Todd said. “I love the musical complexity and the historical context.”

He is looking forward to performing in Morsani Hall in front of thousands of his theatrical peers.

J.T. Klinker, a WOHS sophomore, portrays Tateh in “Ragtime.” He said his favorite part “is being able to portray a character “who goes through such struggles that can even relate to similar situations even in modern day.”

He feels this is an amazing opportunity to tell an important story, and he is looking forward to hitting the Morsani stage.

Senior thespian Chandler Smith portrays Mother, and her favorite part of the role is playing a character who has so much growth throughout the story.

“I love how Mother’s character arc shifts for the better,” Smith said. “The part of the production I liked the most was definitely the beautiful set and, of course, the extremely powerful music. I wanted to be a part of the ‘Ragtime’ cast so that I could have the opportunity to be a part of such an extraordinary show with an amazing message and spread that message.”

The idea of performing in Morsani Hall is thrilling to Smith.

“It’s especially exciting because my freshman year we started off strong performing our mainstage ‘Pippin’ in Morsani, and now the senior class gets to come full circle and perform our last mainstage in the same place we performed our first.”