Spring mu­si­cal ‘Jane Eyre’ a hit on cam­pus

The spring mu­si­cal "Jane Eyre" showed five times this last week­end. It opened Thurs­day morn­ing and was on stage through Sat­ur­day night. Sig­nif­i­cant ef­fort went into mak­ing a huge pro­duc­tion like this pos­si­ble.

Bethel’s dress­ing rooms were full of makeup, cos­tumes, wigs and top hats. In the wings of the Earl Reimer stage, there was barely room to get past all of the props. The stage was busy with peo­ple check­ing lights, work­ing on the set and run­ning gaff tape. It was the busy week be­fore the pro­duc­tion, but smiles and laugh­ter abound as the cast and crew of the spring mu­si­cal pre­pared.

Jane Eyre is a young or­phan who had a rough child­hood. She is raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel and wealthy aunt. A ser­vant named Bessie pro­vides Eyre the few kind­nesses she re­ceives, telling her sto­ries and singing songs to her. Eyre goes to school and learns to be a teacher, but af­ter teach­ing for two years she yearns for new ex­pe­ri­ences. She ac­cepts a gov­erness po­si­tion at a manor called Thorn­field, where she teaches a lively French girl named Adèle. Her em­ployer at Thorn­field is a dark, im­pas­sioned man named Rochester, with whom Jane finds her­self falling se­cretly in love. She sinks into de­spon­dency when Rochester brings home a beau­ti­ful but vi­cious woman named Blanche In­gram. Jane ex­pects Rochester to pro­pose to Blanche, but there is a se­cret in his past that could keep a mar­riage from oc­cur­ring,

Last week­end the the­atre de­part­ment gave the op­por­tu­nity for peo­ple to see this story as a mu­si­cal. Ju­nior Bea Eisen­hour, worked as stage man­ager and on cos­tumes for the show, said "it’s a good show be­cause it has good themes." Mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Der­rick Pen­nix said that love and for­give­ness rise "even un­der the most ad­verse con­di­tions."

"The mu­sic is sweep­ing and pas­sion­ate and is pre­sent in nearly every mo­ment of the show." Pen­nix said.

"There is­n’t a page in the script on which there is­n’t singing of some length," Eisen­hour said.

Sopho­more Nate Jack­son said the sched­ules of the in­volved stu­dents are hec­tic, run­ning from morn­ing to late nights, but he "would­n’t trade this life for any­thing."

For Se­nior Alex Cox, "this is the first show in which [he has] had to learn two roles."

Ac­tors re­ally tried to con­nect to their char­ac­ters. Cox and Jack­son each have two char­ac­ters to get into. The two men are play­ing both Rochester and St. John.

"This forced me to ap­proach two mind­sets from the van­tage point of one," said Cox. "I found the ex­pe­ri­ence to be ex­cit­ing and chal­leng­ing, and I en­joyed [it]."

"We have two ac­tors on [these roles] be­cause Rochester never stops talk­ing or singing," Eisen­hour said. "Any­time he’s on stage, he’s mov­ing his mouth."