On Friday and Saturday, March 22nd and 23rd, Renton High School students performed High School Musical in the IKEA Performing Arts Center, directed by Sara Khelghatian, choreographed by Ayanna Omar, and musically directed by Jerry Lim.

For those who aren’t familiar with the plot of High School Musical (HSM), it follows the basketball team captain of East High School and a new girl who brings him to recognize his love for singing. This leads him to question the social structure of the high school, eventually leading the cliques to dissolve and teaching them to not “stick to the status quo” any longer. Along the way, he encounters the pressure of parental ideals, crazy teachers, brainiacs, and drama kids. All in all, it’s a fun and relatable coming of age story.

Rehearsals began in late January, starting only days after the Multicultural performances. Many of the cast members had participated in Multi as well, so they had almost no turn around time before HSM started, and in many cases, sports began as well. Thankfully, this didn’t affect the audition outcome too terribly.

Drama club president Elliot Nedd confirmed this by saying that this year had the best turnout out of any shows he’s done here at Renton.

This year, the drama club decided to try something new and entered The 5th Avenue High School Theatre Awards, an award show/competition modeled after the Tony’s. The award show is hosted by The 5th Avenue Theatre, located downtown Seattle. Representatives from the theatre attend each of the participating schools’ shows and judge them based on various aspects before compiling the best performances and nominating them for the different awards. The list of nominations will be released in late May and the award show will be held in June.

“Even saying we were a part of it is pretty cool, and it was a great motivator to make people do better than they might’ve otherwise,” said Nedd.

Auditioning may seem intimidating or high-stakes, but in reality, it’s a fun experience where you get to show off your skills and enjoy singing and dancing with friends. So if you’re considering trying out but are worried about looking stupid- don’t! It’s not as scary as you may think, and believe it or not, you may do better than you expect.

“Although you have to put time and effort into the play, the cast and the environment makes it worthwhile…” Says cast member Mizpa Gamilla, who played Taylor in the show.

Thinking about auditioning but have questions? Have an idea for next year’s show? If so, let us know on the RHS Instagram drama account @renton_drama_club!