It's a Wednesday night in late October and the Thomas G. Crone auditorium inside Woodland Hills High School is a hub of activity. In a small room just off the auditorium, packed floor to ceiling with hats, shoes, pants, dresses, and more, senior Calise Cowans and junior Summer Curtright scour discount shopping sites on the hunt for costume pieces. Across from them, senior Mackenzie McPherson carefully plots out scenery details on a meticulously detailed mock-up of the stage.
In the chorus room down the hall, sophomore Cayden Bristow sits at a piano and runs through music scales with a protege. In the lobby, Hayden Crum and Jae Saunders work on a dance scene with two performers. And on stage, senior Livia Rocco and recent Woodland Hills graduate Gia Zinn plot out the choreography of a scene.
This is the life of the student interns for the Woodland Hills Performing Arts Department’s junior musical. Before the department brings Mel Brooks’ hilarious “Young Frankenstein” to life in the spring, it will stage the Broadway classic “Guys and Dolls” on January 15, 16, and 17. Starring seventh through ninth graders, the junior musical is pint size in name only. It's a full production, and over the last few years, upperclassmen student interns have taken a larger role in whipping these productions into shape.
“Junior high is a tough age group in general, but to get them on stage and performing in front of other people, especially their peers, it's a very difficult thing for them to get over some of the self-consciousness that they're experiencing at that point in their lives,” junior musical director Mr. Robert Carr said. “Having these high school mentors around really gives them an outlet. It's somebody that they can view as a mentor, but also someone who is a friend and an ear.”
The junior musical has long been part of the performing arts department, but the role of student interns has expanded over the last few years. This year, 31 high school students in grades 10-12 are serving as student interns across 12 distinct roles. Each intern had to fill out an application that detailed why they’d fit their preferred role and shared their goals for working with the junior cast and crew.
Interns sign up for a variety of reasons. Rocco loves performing, but working behind the scenes as a student director has further fueled her passion for the performing arts.
“It's a totally different dynamic between watching myself back on a video versus actually sitting here watching the thing that you created,” she said. “It’s a great feeling.”
“I can see a lot of myself and a lot of my friends in these kids,” added Crum, who is also serving as a student director, “and getting to see them do something that they find out that they love is very rewarding and fulfilling.”
Spring musical costume designers Darcy and Riley O’Neil pulled Cowans into the costume room to help out during the production of “Annie” in 2024. Cowans is now considering pursuing something related to fashion and theater in college.
“I loved it,” Cowans said. “I'm really happy that they pulled me in that room and needed that help, because I found something that I never would have known I was so passionate about.”
Senior student stage manager Payton Frederick first joined the stage crew in eighth grade and forged an immediate connection with longtime stage manager Ms. Jamie Glasser.
“She just made me feel very safe. When I needed her, she was there,” Frederick said. “I kind of wanted to continue that with our younger kids and make sure they knew that they're being heard.”
For senior student producer Aubrie Moon, being part of the junior musical helped her form important friendships.
“I felt like if I could continue that and help other kids feel like they had a safe space and a place where they could be themselves, that’s what I was going to want to do,” she said.
Bristow’s decision to become a student vocal coach was inspired by his own journey. He started singing more as a freshman, earned a lead role in “Something Rotten,” and decided to work on his craft.
“They always say one of the best ways to learn how to do something better is to teach it to somebody else,” Bristow said. “I figured if I'm trying to teach somebody else how to sing, I can take my own advice at the same time and kind of help them out with that.”
These aren’t stereotypical office internships where the bulk of the work is coffee runs and filing. Student interns take the lead on the look, feel, and flow of the show, right up to the moment the curtain rises on opening night. They make key decisions and have a direct impact on the young performers and crew members.
“Our acting coaches and vocal coaches have been working one on one with the kids to develop character choices and help them with their vocal technique,” Mr. Carr said. “So, they're doing a lot of the work, and the staff is here to support them and do the overarching elements.”
The interns encourage budding performers to join the junior musical to not only hone their skills, but to help adapt to the scale of Woodland Hills’ productions.
“Junior musical seems like a lot at the moment, and then you join the high school show and you're like, ‘Wow, like, I wasn't even getting the half of it,” Cowans said.
“A lot of people in middle school don't have self-confidence, and they don't have the security to be on stage in front of a bunch of people,” Moon said. “Having the opportunity to start younger gets you to be a stronger performer by the time you get to high school.”
“It teaches you a lot of important life skills,” Crum added. “The amount of patience I have learned, both with other people and with myself -- you're not going to be good at everything you do, and that's OK, but you there's always room to grow.”
There is another reason students become interns for the junior musical: Tradition. Mr. Thomas Crone has been the only director of the spring musical since Woodland Hills High School formed in 1987. Many of the staff are alumni. The internship program is another way to pass that tradition on to the next generation.
“No one really has a connection like our school,” Moon said. “Maybe I'm biased, but I do Student Summit, so I work with a lot of other schools from several different districts, and I've never seen anyone as committed to a program as I think the high schoolers in the school are committed to this program.”
“A part of the reason we have such great tradition and such a great program, and why kids keep wanting to come back, is because of the staff,” Rocco added. “I think it gets kind of funky at schools when the staff keeps changing. To keep that tradition alive and to keep the same people around you, not trying to change things, I think that helps a lot.”
“It really is like a family,” Crum said. “We have such a bond between us and our staff. It forms such a support system that even the art schools in the area don't have that with their classmates or with their staff, because nobody's making the effort to make that bond.”
And at an age of personal discovery, when life can be its most confusing, the stage can feel like the one place a student belongs.
“There is a very strong sense of community between high school and junior,” Frederick said. “This is people’s safe space, on or off stage.”
“Guys and Dolls” hits the stage on January 15, 16, and 17, with performances each night at 7:30 p.m. and an additional matinee on January 17 at 2 p.m.
GUYS AND DOLLS, JR. INTERNS
Student Directors – Hayden Crum, Liv Rocco
Assistant Student Director – Adore McFadden
Student Producer – Isaac Lott, Aubrie Moon, Cameron Peretti
Student Social Media Manager – Sonny Davis, Elizabeth Ansell
Student Vocal Directors – Sabrina Bender, Noelle Brubaker, Cayden Bristow, Adam Steiner
Student Choreographers – Alexia Abernathy, Caitlin Burke, Caroline Elston
Student Acting Coach – Olivia Safran, Jae Saunders
Student Scenic Designers – Emilee Bellows, Mackenzie McPherson
Student Lighting Designer – Abigail Boone
Student Technical Directors – Jasira Lee, Colton Matthews
Student Stage Managers – Beckett Ciocco, Roo Horst, Brycen Filus, Kaylee Filus, Payton Frederick, Ellie Willson
Student Costume Designers – Calise Cowans, Summer Curtright, Zuri Rue