As the lights started to flicker in the Triton High School Auditorium all of the people took their seats in excitement to see this year’s spring musical.

All week the cast and crew of the spring musical had been immersed in tech week, making costumes and running through the show as many times as possible. This years show was a musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail known as  Spamalot, a British comedy about King Arthur and his knights of the round table.

In the musical, the leading actress, the Lady of the Lake, played by Kendale Sicard, gives King Arthur, played by Quentin Callewaert, the famed sword, Excalibur. She then tells him he is king of England and he needs to gather a bunch of knights to make up his army.

King Arthur travels all over with his trusty companion, Patsy, played by Jonathan Riley. In this show, he gathers four Knights: Sir Galahad, played by Brayden Toth; Sir Lancelot, played by Kameron Sicard; Sir Bedevere, played by Olivia Valley; and Sir Robin, played by Madison Butler.

Once Arthur has his Knights of the round table, they are given a quest by God to find the Holy Grail, which is the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper. The rest of the musical is the story of how they try and find the holy grail.

The first three nights of the show have garnered positive reviews.

“I think it was really well put together and it was fantastic,” said senior Kelley Frithsen. “The part where Robin sang about needing Jews was my favorite.”[ The song  is known as“You Won’t Succeed on Broadway”].

Gallery • 12 Photos

Triton High School Theater (past and present).

Players begin the first act of Spamalot with dancing.

However, on March 4, less than a week before the show’s opening night, both the cast and crew were nervous that the show was not going to be ready. Most of the cast felt unprepared. The Triton Voice interviewed some cast members and asked if they had felt the show was ready at that time.

“Absolutely not,” said senior Olivia Valley. “However when opening night hit I was pleasantly surprised at how well everything went, and everyone’s ability to create solutions on the spot.”

In a similar way Kendale Sicard spoke about how she felt during the week leading up to opening night.

“I was a little worried,” said Sicard. “But we made it. The beginning of tech week is always stressful, but we always pull it together.”

“This show was really one that came together suddenly. Much of the show had not been carved out and rehearsed extensively in the two weeks leading up to the show,” added senior Quentin Callewaert. By the time of opening night, I was unsure that everything would go as it was meant to, as it was the first time we ran the show without pausing. However, the cast remained focused throughout the shows, and delivered every single night.”

During the tech week rehearsals, cast members were missing scenes and forgetting lines, and the set was far from being complete. There was only a rough outline of a castle and there was a big chunk of props that were still not made.

“In this particular show, we had to be conscious of the space we were occupying, so that we would have a substantial area to play scenes on,” said Callewaert.

On Thursday, March 7, the crew, cast, and supporters of the program worked all day to get ready for that night’s show. They painted bricks and wooden posts and painted the stage one hour before the show.

“Helping the crew was more frantic than I thought,” said junior Glory Trelfa. “We were doing everything last minute, like the day before the show. But it was fun overall because I normally don’t do that stuff.”

It looked like all the basics were covered for that night. (Director and drama teacher Ms. Sharon) Riordan said that there would be no set dressing, which means no extra scenery to make it look pretty. It would just be a castle and whatever props that the cast already had been working with.

Suddenly, everything was running smoothly, the cast was getting hair and makeup done and the crew was presetting props.

But then the cast had their microphone check. During this time, everyone in the cast who uses a microphone in the show lines up at the front of the stage and they test there mics to make sure they are all synced to the right channel in the booth.

Most of the mics worked, but some

did not. The crew scrambled to figure out what the cause of the problem was. The time was getting closer to opening the doors. With 20 minutes left to get ready and do hair and makeup the crew finally figured out the problem with the last three mics, and the show was finally ready.

One of the stage managers, Amanda Bowman, who runs the booth, shared her thoughts regarding how the show turned out after all the stress of tech week and even opening night.

“Honestly watching it on

Wednesday, it was terrifying,” said Bowman. “When it opened on Thursday and they just came out and it really pulled together last minute, it made me really proud of everyone.”

The cast and crew were excited about the outcome of the show, and for the seniors it was a bittersweet moment. Closing night was March 10, leading up to that, Triton’s theater program had performed three shows. On Sunday Triton Voice reporters talked to most of the seniors in the show. The reports asked how they felt about this being their last show.

“Amazing,” Valley said while putting makeup on for that night’s performance. “Though I’m sad to leave Triton’s theater program, im very happy to end it with this funny and vibrant show.”

“It’s been very fun with high energy,” said Sicard

. “Everyone involved has made it a really enjoyable experience.”

“I’m very grateful that my last show was one that I enjoyed so much,” Callewaert said. “I got to spend it with so many wonderful people. It’s certainly a strange feeling that I won’t be

participating in another musical at Triton, but I’m proud of the shows I’ve been in through the years.”

At the cast party later that night, one of the most common quotes used in the cast gifts and on cards was a line from the show: “Always look on the bright side of life!”

Each of the seniors gave speeches and all of them said they couldn’t wait to see the students in the grades below them step up and put on an amazing show next year.