Hope Rison, a senior in Northview High School, has been an active member of the theater department for three years.
The most recent musical she has performed in is the Theory of Relativity, the summer musical. It was performed in the first few weeks after school started with a smaller, but more close-knit cast. They only had five weeks to learn and perfect everything, so a lot of hard work was required.
“I don’t have a piano at home so I had to go online and find a virtual piano,” Rison said. “I would play the record track in the back and sing my alto part over it. Then I would send it to all my alto buddies in the show so that we could all learn the music.”
She also faced other challenges including working on singing while dancing and perfecting the technical parts of the show. Rison had to practice singing outside of the choir room to get prepared to sing while dancing. Each day she and the other cast and crew members had to work through new ideas and figure out what were the best ways to work.
“I had a lot of fun,” Rison said. “I’ve grown so close to the cast and it’s just such a great experience.”
Rison started her theater career in her sophomore year of high school. She was inspired by the first official high school performance she watched, which was A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. She was a fan of many of the student actors in the play, and was encouraged to sign up to audition for a show herself. After, she originally intended to audition for My Fair Lady, but she ended up dropping out due to a large amount of homework and work. However, her focus changed slightly during her sophomore year, leading to her auditioning for her first theater role.
“I decided, you know what, this year I want to focus on the things I love,” Rison said.
So, her sophomore year she took a few less honors classes than she had been taking the year before to give her more time to focus on theater. She auditioned for a role in the cast of Pippin, and ended up getting a pretty large role.
“After that show, people I didn’t know where coming up to me and saying how great I did,” Rison said. “It was a great experience.”
Rison enjoys playing different types of characters, as it gets to show a different side of her than people normally see. Now, she is working on her role as one of Joseph’s brothers in Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. She is thankful for all the opportunities she has had, encourages everyone to try out theater, and looks forward to all the amazing experiences she will have in the future.
