A group of Norwalk students will be starring in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church’s annual musical this weekend, “The Little Mermaid Jr.” The musical will be held at 7 p.m. March 23 and 3 p.m. March 24. Attendance is free.
Started by two workers at St. Mark’s, Deb Paul and Stacy Sherman, the musical was a chance for kids who may have felt unseen or ignored at their respective schools to show what they were capable of.
“They just felt like those kids weren’t really participating in musicals at their school because of the competition,” said Karen Scribano, musical director.
With all of the kids at schools like Waukee or Urbandale, students have low chances of getting a good part or even getting in the ensemble, according to Scribano. The way the St. Mark’s musical was organized was that if you audition, you get a part, no matter what.
“We have the luxury of knowing approximately who’s gonna be in it from year to year so we try to pick a show that is geared towards the number of boys vs girls and the number of lead roles vs ensemble roles,” she said.
St. Mark’s will be losing some actors after this year. Six seniors are a part of this year’s musical, and with them graduating, next year’s show will have to be very different.
“I have six seniors on stage,” Scribano said. “When those six leave, I don’t have many juniors and I don’t have that many sophomores or freshmen, so the size of cast is gonna definitely drop next year.”
Scribano, who works at St. Mark’s as the disciple engagement coordinator, has been involved in the musical for 15 years, but has only been directing for 13 years.
“The first two years that I was involved I just helped with costumes and sets,” she said. “And then I took over as director.”
Scribano said the St Mark’s musical is designed to appeal to people of all ages.
“One of the highlights of our shows is that we put blankets down in the front of the pews and we invite all the little kids right up front so that they can have really good seats.”
Scribano does this to help both children and adults, because having a child in the back who can not see the show can be troublesome, so this lets the kids have a front row seat for the show and gives the parents the chance to just enjoy the show.
When asked what her favorite moment in the show was, she spoke about the musical number “Under the Sea.”
“Honestly, I love when the cast is singing ‘Under the Sea,’” Scribano said. “I love the song. I love the music. I love Sebastian’s accent. We have the perfect Sebastian.”
Mrs. Scribano then went on to say that it was one of her favorite moments and how much the audience is going to love that moment as well. The cast members seemed to think differently.
“I think my favorite moment so far has been the interaction between Triton and Ariel at the very end when they embrace and Triton accepts that Ariel wants to be part of the human world,” said Erick Randall, a Norwalk senior playing the part of King Triton.
Meanwhile, Alex Imig, a student at Valley High School who plays the part of Prince Eric, said that his favorite moment in the show is the horrified look on Sebastian’s face while trapped in a kitchen with several chefs making seafood.
The Norwalk students who will be performing this weekend in “The Little Mermaid Jr” performance at St. Mark’s include Adam Larson, Erick Randall, Kaiya Kralik, and Anya Kallenbach.
