Marshall Simonds Students Star in First-Ever Middle School Musical

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This spring, students in grades six through eight had the opportunity to bring a longstanding high school tradition down to the middle school in the first-ever Marshall Simonds musical production, Disney’s Descendants Junior.

Plans for a middle school musical had been in the works for a long time, said the show’s director, Kim Cook, but finally this year the School Committee approved operational funding for an annual production.

This program represents an opportunity for students to develop their musical acting skills while school is in session before they get to the high school, which produces a musical each spring.

Rehearsals for the show, which ran on May 30 and 31, began in March and occurred at least three days per week after school.

Cook was pleased — but not surprised — at the interest in the show; enrollment in the Burlington Educational Summer Theater (BEST) program; a three-week program held in July each year, has doubled over the last few years.

Some students dropped out of the production, but Cook said some attrition was to be expected considering the amount of work a musical demands.

She noted that students who do stick with musical theater and develop a passion in middle school are more likely to stay involved once they get to high school despite the competing demands on their schedules.That level of experience will also serve to strengthen the high school program, Cook said.

Cook said she, along with music director

Emily Northridge and choreographer Jamie Cook, chose Descendants because it was already familiar to many students and had a message they wanted kids to internalize.

“I really wanted to find something current that the kids would be into and know” with costuming that would appeal to middle schoolers, Cook said, adding, “We wanted to pick something that boys might be interested in, too, because we always need boys in theater.”

They also needed a show whose set they could easily create or repurpose, given the short turnaround after the high school musical, Freaky Friday, which drew curtains just a week before Descendants opened.

Cook was pleased with the cast’s preparation and how hard they worked to put on a solid show.

“We did have a fair amount of kids that have been through the BEST program,” she said, “so they knew what it was going to take to put on a show like that.”

BEST veterans also served as role models for the other students, Cook said.

Northridge, who is new to Marshall Simonds, was excited to see this musical come to life, too.

“I'm very excited that my first year here, we're doing our first musical…We're a great team and it's been a lot of fun to just jump in,” she said.

The cast and crew made the most of the short rehearsal time, putting on a show that went off near seamlessly. The show centers on the “villians’ kids,” who have been banished with their parents to the Isle of the Lost, joining the children of fairytale princes and princesses at an elite prep school as Prince Ben aims to show that everyone can be good if given the chance.

The BEST program, which is producing The Lightning Thief at the end of July, has a waiting list, and Cook and her team have already begun planning next year’s middle school musical.