By Rhys Baker

Clay Center Community High School’s Drama department will present the musical “Newsies” this weekend at the Martin-Snodgrass Auditorium. Drama teacher and Director Megan Blackburn summarizes the story of the show of the newsboy strike during the Industrial Revolution. “The newsies were mostly young children who sold newspapers, and they had a price hike on what they had to spend in order to sell their newspapers. And they ended up striking against that hike because they couldn’t afford it. It’s a fun show that is focused on the perspective of young people during a turbulent time, and I think that most kids identify with that.”

CCCHS Drama Department has a unique way of choosing which musical to perform each year. Drama students who have participated in three previous shows and have one hundred hours of technical work on productions are dubbed thespians. The thespians form a committee that begins narrowing down potential musicals. Blackburn says this helps to get students involved. “These are kids that are devoted to the program and want the program to be successful and want to invest their time in it. And we start with building expectations of things that we need as far as vocals go. Then they do research on a lot of different shows, and we start to just whittle the list down. And things like we need to have all the accompaniments done on digital for us because we don’t wanna do a pianist or a live band.”

After the musicals are narrowed down, drama students vote for their favorites, and then the thespians have a final vote and pick the musical for the group to perform. Blackburn, along with choreographer Kathryn Tipsword and Music Director Wendy Pettit, have worked with students since September on the musical’s production.

This year’s musical, Newsies, will be performed on Saturday, November 16th, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, November 17th, at 2 p.m.