After months of practicing the drama department had their opening night for their production of High School Musical on Thursday, April 4 at 7pm in the auditorium. They aren’t quite done yet. The cast and crew is still preparing for two more shows on Friday, April 5 and Saturday, April 6. They cast and crew feel confident that they will only improve with each new show.

“I think they are going to be better than this one,” co-student director Nikita Melton-Singh said of the upcoming performances. “The nerves will be gone, [The cast will] be excited, they’ll be used to the craziness of it and I’m extremely excited to see how the next two days go.”

Senior Matt Miller, who took on the role of the male lead, Troy Bolton hopes that his performance will improve for Friday and Saturday as well.

“I was sick and the singing was very difficult for me and I don’t think I did the best but the cast as a whole did amazing,” Miller said. “The next two performances, I think, are going to be really good as long as I go home, drink lots of tea with honey and don’t talk.”

Though the cast and crew hope to improve, they’re happy with the performance that made up their opening night. Despite a few issues with microphones and speakers among a few other small tech issues, they managed to put on a show they were proud of.

“I think [everything] went fantastic even though we had a little bit of technical difficulties. We pushed through it and the show must go on,” Melton-Singh said. “I think that we could have been a little louder and maybe had a little more energy in some parts. And of course, some technical stuff. Other than that, I think we did pretty dang good.”

Since January, they cast and crew have been putting in long hours before school, after school, and outside of school in order to get to the performance they gave their opening night. Seeing all their hard work pay off made them proud of one another and excited to do it all over again.

“All the hard work coming together was just breathtaking.” freshman Marissa Meyers, who plays the female lead, Gabriella Montez said. “We just put the pieces together and it felt like a puzzle piece and it just made a beautiful puzzle piece, I think.”

Even though the long practices could be grueling and the students could be heard walking through the halls talking about how worn out they were from all the dancing and singing, they all seem to have enjoyed themselves and the progress they’ve made.

“For the past two and a half weeks we’ve had five hour rehearsals and just seeing everything come together and finally all their hard work paying off,” Melton-Singh said. “It feels fantastic. I’m so proud of everyone in the cast.”

Their performance wasn’t the only thing they felt good about. Just being on stage was enough for Meyers.

“It’s a rush on stage, always,” Meyers said. “I love singing and I love High School Musical and I put the two together and I was like ‘This is great.’ Like ‘this is going to be the start of something new.’”

The enjoyment the audience got out of the cast’s performance was just another reward that everyone involved in the musical got to enjoy.

“It was really fun to see the hard work go together and then to see the entire crowd like really enjoying themselves and clapping along and stuff. It was a lot of fun,” Miller said.