By Renae Elsaesser, Staff Writer
The River Hill Theater and Arts performed Matilda at River Hill on March 3-6. For seniors, this was the last musical of their high school acting career. The cast and audience shared their opinions on the musical now that it has come to an end.
Jaelin Born, a senior in Matilda, was proud of the team for what they accomplished with little preparation time. “At first I thought that the show wasn’t going to go well at all because we had three months of preparation. But after opening night, I was like, wow, we have a really good show and it went really well,” Jaelin shares.
Jaelin said she formed a close bond with the cast and had a great time with everyone, and shared that her “experience was really great, even though it was my first year doing anything theater.”
Jenna Bernstein, who participated in theater for all four years, explains the stress building up to the opening night.
She felt that “rehearsals were really stressful and everything was complicated because of snow and COVID, but it ended up turning out really good in the end.”
Due to the pent up anxiety, for many actors, opening night was a stress reliever.
Jaelin claims that“the audience was really receptive and it was just truly a magical night.”
After Covid stopped the musical from happening during the 2021 school year, students were happy to return.
Jenna emphasizes that “it was really nice to finally be back doing theater in person.”
Ria Krishna, a student at River Hill, enjoyed watching the play.
“The singing and acting was great and I never realized what happens behind the scenes and all the work that goes into the play,” Ria says.
Matilda was a great opportunity for seniors to be involved in high school for one of their last times.
Jaelin Born says that “now that it’s over I’m super sad because it was a really nice distraction from reality like schoolwork and the fact that we’re leaving ‘cause I’m a senior”
The cast of Matilda now has to part ways, but we will see what the future will hold for River Hill Theater and Arts!