Last year, both the musical theater department and choir department dealt with uncontrollable circumstances that held back their programs from succeeding. While musical theater students lacked any professional training in singing and dancing, the choir students didn’t have enough people participating for it to truly thrive. That all changed, though, when theater director Catherine Gaertner and choir director Sarah Fruge came together and found a solution that would solve both of these issues at once.
“Last year, we muddled through, but nothing really happened. I think we were all sad and frustrated with that, so I approached Mrs. Fruge with the co-teaching idea and changed the name to show choir,” Gaertner said.
In short, the two combined musical theater and one of the choir periods together, and they renamed the class ‘Show Choir’, so it would count as a choir class but also have a theatrical twist on it. This solved both issues, since there would be more students participating in choir classes, and the students from last year who stuck around would be getting professional singing lessons from a trained teacher.
“I’m looking forward to learning how to sing more in tune with the notes and how to recognize notes by ear,” Senior McKenzie Jacobs said.
So far, it’s been smooth sailing for the show choir students. The class has been systemized where on Tuesdays and Thursdays, students will show up to Fruge’s for singing lessons, and on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, they’ll come over to Gaertner’s for theatrical lessons. They plan on doing this until students are trained enough in both singing and acting to combine the two for upcoming performances.
“This year, we’re going to have more of an opportunity to actually perform,” senior Dakota Martin said. “I’ve been wanting to start singing in front of audiences for a long time, but I never got the chance to until now.”
Both directors expressed that they’re looking forward to seeing how the program changes and hopefully grows.
“I think being able to combine choir and theater in the same class will be a very exciting change of pace. Singing is a tremendous amount of fun,” Fruge said. “but when you add the creative side that theater brings with acting and even costumes, I think it’ll make it even more fun.”
Another great part about witnessing these two departments teaming up together is also getting to witness the two directors working together and interacting with each other.
“We could not be more opposite!,” Gaertner said. “Mrs. Fruge is a planner. She wants to know exactly where things will end up. I love that. I’m more of a ‘We will find out when we get there’ person who likes to see where the creative process takes us. I think we will balance each other out well over time.”
This program is definitely going to be an interesting addition to the variety of electives we have at KHS. If you’re interested in joining, it’s recommended that you take a year of choir before joining, but if you just want to support the show choir, keep an eye out for concert dates.
