Hanes Theatre’s production of the spring musical The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical premiered the weekend of April 25, bringing back nostalgic memories of the Percy Jackson book series for students and cast members.
Senior Ellen Cruickshank played the title role of Percy Jackson, with seniors Simone Rosenthall and Oliver Powell taking on the main roles of Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood, respectively. Annabeth is the daughter of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. Grover is a satyr, a half-goat, half-human creature assigned to be Percy’s protector. The script and score were based on Rick Riordan’s 2005 novel Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
The story follows a twelve-year-old Percy Jackson, who turns out to be the son of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon. He is led to Camp Half Blood, a summer sanctuary for demi-gods to stay safe from mythical dangers and learn the true identities of their parents. As the son of one of the big three gods, Percy has a prophecy to fulfill with a quest to recapture the stolen lightning bolt of the Greek god Zeus.
Theater teacher Thomas Drago stated that Cruickshank was an “outstanding performer” and has a “natural feel” for the role of Percy Jackson. He shared that Hanes Theatre productions cast color and gender blind and always choose the most fitting student actor for each role.
Cruickshank has participated in Chapel Hill High School’s spring musical for four years but had to adjust to her first lead role as Percy Jackson. “Playing a lead role was intimidating at first as I do not have a lot of experience with a character that barely leaves the stage,” Cruickshank said. “We had rehearsals so often that memorizing all my lines and choreography was not as bad as I thought.”
Cruickshank said that the performance of “Put You in Your Place” was her favorite scene from the show. The song details a capture the flag battle between two teams in Camp Half Blood, led by Rosenthall’s character Annabeth Chase and junior Amaya Rice’s character Clarisse La Rue.
“We had almost the whole company on stage, and people were fighting on each of the platforms of the set,” Cruickshank said. “People were fighting with swords and there was hand-to-hand combat; it was just really fun.”
The original script of the musical contains roles for seven cast members, but Drago was able to expand Chapel Hill High School’s version of the play to include 22 roles for students. Drago created the concept of a Greek Chorus for the musical, a group of four students that commented on the action of the show without dialogue.
A student rock band—seniors Andrew Dunn and Hazen Johnson and juniors Graham Hallquist and Tara Soule—sat onstage on the uppermost platform of the set for the entire performance.
Having an all-student band was a requirement for The Lightning Thief to be submitted to the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC) Rising Star Awards program, an award show that “celebrate[s] outstanding achievements in high school musical theatre throughout central North Carolina and focuses attention on the meaningful work being done both on and off stage by dedicated teachers and students,” according to the organization’s webpage. Cruickshank, Rosenthall, Powell and junior Josh McEwen were nominated to receive awards. Senior lighting designer Eileen Jiang was also nominated for a technical theater award.
Senior Micah Elia was the stage manager for the show and was selected to be a stage manager for the award show after an interview process. The award show will occur on May 29 at the DPAC. Elia will be backstage and perform similar stage managing duties to their work on The Lightning Thief.
As stage manager, Elia communicated notes from each rehearsal to the cast, made sure all cast members were in the right place at the right time and ensured that all special effects ran smoothly. Elia previously has taken on many roles for Hanes Theatre productions in the technical theater realm. Elia said that their favorite part of being the stage manager is getting to be a part of the theater community. “I’ve spent hundreds of hours with the people in theater, and the most important part of theater is building community with these peers,” Elia said. “I am good friends with everybody in the program and know that they will have my back throughout the whole production.”
Drago chose The Lightning Thief because he wanted to bring a family friendly show to the Hanes Theatre stage and commented on how the book series was popular with his children.
Senior Lillian Middendorf saw the play and commented on her own nostalgic feelings. “I loved the Percy Jackson series when I was a kid, so it was cool to see the whole universe portrayed on the stage,” Middendorf said. “The special effects were well done, and the whole cast was amazing.”
Powell found the nostalgia that came from the show made the role of Grover exciting. “I read all of the Percy Jackson books growing up, so getting to be on stage going through their adventures was a fantastic experience,” Powell said.
Jiang has been involved with lighting and special effects for Hanes Theatre productions for four years and will be attending the University of North Carolina School of the Arts to study lighting design in the fall. Jiang started her theater career in acting class in middle school but quickly jumped on an offer to perform technical theater for the middle school musical.
Jiang’s inaugural show was Hanes Theatre’s production of Mamma Mia! in 2022. She has also worked lighting design for productions of Clue! and Young Frankenstein during the 2023-2024 school year. She stated that she is mostly self-taught as a lighting designer but said that theater director Allison Frimmel was a “great mentor” for all things technical theater.
Jiang stated that working on Clue during the fall semester of the 2023-2024 school year and the specific colors assigned to each character in the play inspired her to use the lighting as symbolism, a technique that she brought to the design of The Lighting Thief. “I do an exercise where after I read a script and listen to the music, I assign color schemes to all the characters and use them to create the lighting design,” Jiang said. “You can tell when different characters are the focus of a scene because the colors change to match them.” Greek God murals seen on the sides of the set also reflect the color assignment by Jiang.
The Lightning Thief sported the challenge of lighting an extra tall and open set crafted of scaffolding that Drago designed in order to create a “presentational feel” for the show. Drago hoped that audience members would feel immersed in a fantasy as soon as they sat down to see the play. He cited the moving parts of the set and various places to act as other elements of the presentational feel.
Senior Em Mitchell played multiple roles as an ensemble member: Thalia, Katie Gardner, and Mrs. Dodds. She commented on how she was able to manage playing four separate roles as well as such an interactive set. “I try to make sure that all my characters are very distinct from each other and have different mannerisms and voices,” Mitchell said. “It’s really hard to not always be reacting to effects that are going on, but I am adjusting to it.”
Mitchell stated that she “loved” the Percy Jackson book series as a kid and that it even inspired her in the academic realm. “I took Latin all the way through Latin Five because of Percy Jackson, so it was really special to be a part of the show,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell, along with senior Nicole Taxman, visited Culbreth Middle School before the show in order to speak to young performing arts students and raise interest in high school art enrollment. “Some arts programs, like orchestra, have lost a lot of people entering the classes,” Mitchell said. “With the new block schedule, those classes might end up getting cut, which is really unfortunate.”
A special performance for middle school students was held on April 23.
Cruickshank stated that her favorite part of working with the theater community is getting to see others shine at what they do best. “Many different talents have to work together in unison for the show to be really successful,” Cruickshank said. “It’s so nice to see people who are really talented in certain aspects of the show and how they take leadership in those roles.”
