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One last burst of winter is blowing through Springwood School this weekend with the musical production of Frozen Jr., which will be performed this Friday and Saturday.

Frozen Junior is a one-act musical adapted from the movie. It runs about an hour with no intermission. The production has third grade through 12th grade students involved.

This year, drama teacher Jessica Morrow chose one play and one musical production. The musical was a comedy meant more for the 7th through 12th graders. With Frozen Jr., she hoped to be able to include younger students who enjoyed the movie.

“With this spring show, I wanted to make sure that we did something that not only included our younger students that we’re trying to encourage to have a love for the theater and to really jump in on things, but that it also is something that they would enjoy seeing as well,” Morrow said.

In addition to the Saturday shows at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., the production will also run on Friday so that the younger students can attend.

“We have a whole bunch of young ones that were just so excited to be in the show, because this is something they grew up watching, which was really exciting,” Morrow said.

The production is an opportunity to develop other storytelling skills involved in the genre like set design, lighting and sound. As for the curriculum this semester, Morrow split the students into a design team, build team and effects and ambience team. 

“What I wanted to do was really give the students hands-on experience with not only the acting part, but what goes on behind the scenes, the technical parts of theater,” Morrow said.

In addition to practicing lines and learning dance moves, the student groups have to make creative decisions about the lighting and justify why their decision represents the mood or sets the tone for a scene.

Morrow said it’s not just about representing a character but about representing the story as a whole. The goal, she said, is to encourage their autonomy to decide.

“I’ll be here for supervision. But I really want this to be something that you guys take ownership of and that you can be proud of,” Morrow said.

She added that the majority of the kids that do theater at Springwood have a true passion that goes beyond the school. Many of them also perform in community theatre. She said she wanted to help build their backstage, technical experience with this musical.

“I think it’s helped them to develop a greater appreciation for the whole rehearsal process,” Morrow said. “Because not only are they learning the on-stage aspect but they’re taking the time in class periods and after rehearsal to make sure all those technical aspects are something that they’re proud of too, which I think is really cool.”

Morrow said she hopes that the students will walk away from the production with a sense of confidence in themselves and their artistic abilities.

“That was something we really pushed with the play is ‘I want you to feel confident in your acting abilities,’ because that was the big push for that show, was your performance abilities, and your ability to do improv and all these other things,” Morrow said. “But for this show, it’s been more of an emphasis on ‘I want you to have that confidence in yourself, that you are able to create something much bigger than yourself.’”

Morrow encouraged parents to bring their young children, older folks and everyone in between to enjoy the show. She said there is something for everyone to enjoy in the one-hour-long production.

“This is a relatively short show. It’s a show that has a lot of fun visual effects with lights and ribbons and stuff like that,” Morrow said.

“I think it’s something that truly all ages are going to enjoy, not just your elementary, but even toddlers, you know, up into senior citizens,” Morrow said.