Springs School Stages First Musical For Middle School Students In Nearly A Decade

Broadway musical fans first heard the words sung by Little Orphan Annie in 1977: “It’s the hard-knock life for us!”More than 40 years later, on Thursday, March 22, the sixth, seventh and eighth grade students from the Springs School will be singing those lyrics at East Hampton High School. And it will be the first time that the middle school students from Springs are putting on a musical in nearly 10 years.

The students’ production of “Annie Jr.,” a version of the classic Broadway musical cut down to reach a run time of about 60 minutes, is different from the student-produced opera staged each year at the school. However, the fourth grade opera is a big reason why this middle school production is taking place after so long.

Meghan Lydon, the co-director of the show, said that the adult staff working on the production had been involved in the previous two Springs School operas.

“Last year we said, ‘This was great, how about we do more?’” Ms. Lydon said. “Middle school kids in other districts have the chance to dip their feet into doing a musical, but Springs hasn’t for a while. It’s just been the opera for the fourth-graders.”

Ms. Lydon went on to explain that “Annie Jr.” was selected because it was the most popular among available choices with staff members and interested students. She also noted how many of the students acting in the show are sixth-graders, since most of the seventh- and eighth-grade students play sports.

“This is one of the first extracurriculars that sixth-grader kids can apply to,” Ms. Lydon said. “We’re hoping that with the success of this year we can get more seventh- and eighth-graders next year.”

The production of the opera smoothly segued into the making of the middle school musical, as the opera ran in December and early auditions for the musical started that month. Rehearsals started in January, and props and sets came from the school and local parents.

“We’re already excited about what’s next,” Ms. Lydon said. “We wanted to see more and do more with the school, so it was nice to be able to provide more.”

Many of the students participating in the show worked on the opera, including the show’s star: sixth-grader Emma McGrory as the curly-haired Orphan Annie. Between rehearsals for the show, Emma took time to talk about her experience in musical theater. She said that she helped apply makeup and practice dancing with students acting in the opera, on top of her work with the YMCA Arts Camp in the summer. For this particular role, Emma said it was difficult for her to stay in character from scene to scene.

“Annie has two sides: she’s very motherly and very bossy,” Emma said. “It’s hard because there are a lot of emotional parts in the show.”

Despite the difficulty of the character, Emma admitted that she always sings the musical’s songs in her head during the school day.

“I think about how I’m lucky to do this. Things have been going good and I’m surprised at how far we’ve come in a few months,” Emma said.

“Annie Jr.” will be performed at East Hampton High School auditorium on Thursday, March 22, at 7 p.m.