Franklin Regional Theatre Guild recognizes emotional weight of 'West Side Story'

Last year, Franklin Regional student actors playing the leather-jacketed T-Birds in “Grease” called themselves a gang.

But it’s quite a leap from the goofy high-school antics of “Grease” to the actual gang violence of this year’s musical, “West Side Story,” which opens March 7.

“‘Grease’ is a fun, dumb show,” said musical director Mark Wolfgang with a laugh. “And the year before that we did ‘The Little Mermaid.’ This is a dark story, based on ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ and the characters have a lot more depth than your typical musical.”

This year’s cast consists of about 80 students, Wolfgang said, along with another 40 or so orchestra and crew members. And everyone will have their work cut out for them.

“The music is challenging on its own, but that also makes it more difficult to choreograph,” Wolfgang said.

In fact, this year’s staff includes not just dance choreographer Jenn Probola, but also fight choreographer Tonya Lynn.

As one might expect, showing high-school boys how to fake knocking each other out is an easy sell.

“It’s been really fun,” said Panther senior Jack Krieger, 18, who plays the Romeo of the story, former Jets gang member Tony. “She showed us how to fall first, and then by the end it was all of us chasing one another around and fake-punching everyone.”

Krieger drove his point home by “hitting” senior Brandon Smith with a fake sucker-punch, with the accompanying “thud” noise cleverly hidden.

Smith, 18, who plays Jets gang leader Riff, said the fight rehearsals helped him fully inhabit his character.

“I think that was a big part of getting a lot of us comfortable with the roles,” he said.

Both Wolfgang and Krieger said the modernized re-telling of Shakespeare’s most popular romantic tragedy is still relevant more than 60 years after the musical first hit the Broadway stage.

“It’s based off ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ but it’s also very pertinent,” Krieger said. “In a lot of ways we’re acting out things that could’ve been happening in real peoples’ lives.”

“It’s difficult for the kids to play these characters,” Wolfgang said. “They’re not caricatures.”

The FR Theatre Guild will be staging the “school edition” of the show, which Wolfgang said modifies the key of a few songs to better suit high school singers, and tones down some of the language, and the racial and ethnic complications that have drawn criticism for the original musical over the years.

“I think it’s an educational opportunity as well, to help the kids try to understand the tension between communities that’s a big part of the story,” Wolfgang said.

Mostly, the cast is just trying to keep up, according to Smith and Krieger.

“Even though the music is tough to learn, with Stephen Sondheim once you get the song in your head, it stays there. But we haven’t even started doing the singing and the choreography yet,” Krieger said three weeks before opening night. “It’s a challenge.”

Smith said the emotional weight of the story gives the cast an additional challenge.

“If we don’t make the audience cry, we probably haven’t done our jobs,” he said.

“West Side Story” will be at 7:30 p.m. March 7-9 and 2 p.m. March 10 at the Franklin Regional Senior High School Auditorium, 3200 School Road in Murrysville.

Tickets are $15 for adults and $8 for students, plus fees. They are available beginning Feb. 19 at FRHSmusical.com/tickets.html.