North High School has had a long standing relationship with theater arts. From last year’s musical Matilda, based on the book by Roald Dahl, to last year’s plays, the Giant Rat of Sumatra by Don Nigro and These Shining Lives by Melanie Marnich, North has always done its best to bring the arts to life. This year is no different, with our musical, Catch Me If You Can based on the movie of the same name, and our plays, Copies by Brad Slaight and Our Town by Thorton Wilder.
The fall play this year will be Copies by Brad Slaight. The play is about Camp I.M.U. where the clones (or, Copies, as they would prefer) of the Originals are made to order. A bright new teen, Micheal, enters Camp I.M.U. with a positive outlook, but soon realizes that his stay in this camp would be much longer than he hoped. Through befriending other Copies, Micheal is informed of escape plans, and plans to fight for possible “copy rights.”
North’s production of Catch Me If You Can will perform on February 13-16 for the public, and have a few student performances for the elementary schools around Oshkosh. Auditions for the show will be on November 4th and 5th, soon after the fall play wraps up.
Copies will be performing on November 1st at 7 pm, and November 2nd, with a matinee and an evening performance. Auditions for this show are already over and rehearsals will start on Friday September 27th.
Catch Me If You Can follows the story of con man Frank Abagnale. The original 2002 film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Hanks) tracks Frank (DiCaprio) around the USA. The musical originally premiered in 2011 at the Neil Simon Theater in New York City, and would get four Tony nominations, including a nomination for best musical. Although Catch Me If You Can lost best musical to Book of Mormon, it won best performance by a leading actor for Norbert Leo Butz’s performance as Carl Hanratty.
If you missed auditions for the fall play, you can catch rehearsals of the spring play later this year in late February or early March! Our spring play this year is Our Town, a classic American play about the everyday lives of the fictional town, Grovers Corner. Quoted as ‘the greatest American play ever written’ by Edward Albee, Our Town tells a story of growing up, loving, and learning from the past. This production is looking for a very diverse cast of people to help bring this story to life! Performances will be between May 1st and May 3rd, with specific dates and times to be announced later this year.
