Our new theater opened its doors for the first time on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 and through the miraculous work of Matthew McGill, Carol Fischer and an amazing student team, we opened our first production: The Giver just two days later on Thursday, December 2, 2010! The new theater was officially opened a few weeks later in February 2011 and we LOVE our new home!
The first musical in our new space was Kander and Ebb's Curtains and it was a smash!
We continued by presenting the World Premiere of Jonathon Dorf’s Just Add Zombies, and also hosted the Northern California Premiere of Making Magic Defying Gravity, in which Westmont students performed and worked alongside singers and stage managers from the Broadway tour of Wicked. The next year, in 2012, we performed Thank You For Flushing my Head in the Toilet and Bang Bang You’re Dead, during class for Westmont students in light of recent national events.
We kicked off 2013 by presenting the Northern California High School Premiere of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, the Musicaland the nationwide High School premiere of The Great American Trailer Park Musical. That summer, Ali Arian Molaei became the very first Westmont Drama representative to attend the International Thespian Festival in Nebraska, as well as the first student choreographer for an all-state production.
In 2014, Westmont entered a 30-minute production of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd to the State Wide Thespian Play Festival competition where it won first place and performed main stage at the 2014 California State Thespian Festival. Later that year, Westmont also won TheatreWorks’ 24 hour play festival, under the team name, “Boyz 2 Women.” Their play was praised by three of TheatreWorks’ artistic staff, including Robert Kelley, TheatreWorks’ artistic director.
Now, our department continues to reach out to our feeder schools with our Musical Theatre class and main stage productions. This year, Audrey Marie Twilleager became the first student co-director of a main stage production with Noises Off!. This spring we are the Northern California High School Premiere of Andrew Lippa’s Big Fish.
We plan to continue to produce the best theatre we can and we look forward to sharing our love of theatre!
Productions: Year By Year, continued
2010 / 2011: Haunted House IV, The Giver, DramaFest 7, Curtains, One Acts 12, Pinkalicious, Caged Women, Cave Dream & Property Rights
2011 / 2012: 12th Night, Just Add Zombies (Premiere), Haunted House V, Bullshot Crummond!, Drama Fest 8, The Wiz, Jungle Book, Our Town, One Acts 13
2012 / 2013: The Man Who Came to Dinner, Haunted House VI, Drama Fest 9, Thank You For Flushing..., 9-5 the Musical, Aladdin Jr, Great American Trailer Park Musical, One Acts 14, Bang-Bang You're Dead
2013 / 2014: Macbeth. Alice in Wonderland, Haunted House VII, DramaFest #10, My Favorite Year, 15th Annual One Act Festival, Xanadu Jr, Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Wild Oats
2014 / 2015: 50th Anniversary ALUMNI CABARET, Noises Off, DRAMAFEST #11, Spring Awakening, Big Fish, 16th Annual One Acts
2015 / 2016: Romeo & Juliet, the Comedy; Westmont's Got Talent!; Westmont Horror Movie Nights; Argonautika, Singin' in the Rain
2016 / 2017: Dracula, Winter Wonderland, Message Play: “Acceptance 2,” Leader of the Pack, 18th Annual One Act Festival
2017 / 2018: Me, My Selfie & I. Fright Nights, The Laramie Project, TheatreFest #14 “Heroes & Villains,” Seussical, the Musical!, 19th Annual One Act Festival
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