After being in the newly built Union Middle School for one year, Union drama teacher Brooke Grant is experiencing a challenge.

“We’re trying to figure out routines for the new auditorium, from where do we store certain things to how we perform on a smaller stage,” she said.

That’s because the new auditorium was completed months after the school opened; last year’s musical, “UMS Musicals: Awesome Mix Vol. 1,” was performed throughout the school.

“This is a good thing; we have a space and we’re grateful,” she said. “I prefer this stage size; it’s smaller which fits for middle school performances, because their little bodies don’t fill up the whole space and when you’re making sets, you think that they’re big, but on our old stage, they looked miniscule. That stage was bigger than most Broadway stages.”

However, with only 630 seats to the previous auditorium’s 1,200, the cast of the upcoming musical will perform two shows per night.

“The good thing is our show, ‘Schoolhouse Rock Live, Jr.’ is a shorter show, right around an hour,” she said.

The cast and crew will present the family-friendly musical at 6 p.m. and again at 8 p.m., Nov. 13 through Nov. 15. On Nov. 16, there will be noon and 2 p.m. shows on the school stage, 615 E. 8000 South. Tickets will be available on the school’s website, unionmiddle.canyonsdistrict.org, or at the door, if seats are available.

The show is directed by Grant along with music teacher David Christensen and dance teacher Roxanne Paulsen and with blocking assistance from Kaylie Short.

“The show is fun, and because most of the parents remember from Saturday morning cartoons, it’s nostalgic for the community,” said Grant about the Emmy Award-winning 1970s cartoon series. 

The musical introduces Tom, who turns on the TV to overcome his nervousness about his first day teaching. Through the timeless collection of animated songs that taught multiplication tables, grammar, science, health, American history and government to an entire generation through the concept, “knowledge is power,” Tom becomes ready to face his class.

“I like it introduces something to the kids that is genuinely valuable, like learning the ‘Preamble’ song. It will help them and now, they’ll have it memorized. There are other songs, like ‘Circulation,’ ‘I’m Only a Bill,’ ‘Conjunction Junction’ – so they’re learning more than one subject area,” she said.

She said the 130 students, who are double cast, are rehearsing, “getting into the kind of playfulness of it; we remind them ‘you’re playing cartoon characters, essentially.’”

To go along with the original morning TV-watching, Union’s advanced theatre class is “working on filming Saturday morning commercial throwbacks replicating commercials. I reached out to parents and said, ‘Tell me the commercials you remember from that time period.’ So they’ve given me Doublemint gum and Life cereal and Trapper Keepers (school binders). Our plan right now is to have them play as the audience is coming in to help everybody get in that time frame and what it was like to watch this show at that time because these kids are not used to commercials,” she said.

Those 42 advanced theatre students will have several 30-second spots to highlight their commercials, which will be projected with the help of a 25-member stage crew.

Another fun element will be the cast wearing bright colors.

“We’ve gone with color blocking, so every item of their clothing is a different bright color to make them stand out as cartoony looking characters. Then there are a few costume pieces some of them will put on for different numbers, like a conductor’s hat and a bill costume,” she said. “We’re trying to stick with the iconic animation style from the original show for a lot of the props and the costume pieces.”

One thing Grant discovered while researching the 1973 show created by David McCall and Bob Doro was the number of people who wrote the original music went on to write Broadway musicals.

“Lynn Ahrens is one who stands out to me the most. She wrote ‘Once on this Island’ and ‘Seussical,’ she said. “A lot of people know they’re fun songs from a cartoon, but once you realize who has written some of these songs and been a part of it, you realize this is why it translates so well onto the stage.” λ