Article by Greg Jaklewicz

Photos Courtesy of Dakota Zagada

Going to the show?

What: “Little Women” musical, based on the Louisa May Alcott novel

When: 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: Wylie ISD Performing Arts Center

Tickets: $10 online at Wylie.BookTix.com; free admission for all WISD employees

A Season Full of Roles

Taylor Wood has been a little busy this fall.

A senior, Wood has been making the most of her final high school year in theater. This weekend, she is Jo in the musical version of the classic story “Little Women.” This will be her fourth performance of the fall - as many as she could do.

She assistant-directed “Silent Sky,” the first show of the season and “I was the pianist and wrote all the music for ‘Picasso at the Lapine Agile.’” She was Race in “Newsies.”

The variety of work will pay off as she pursues her study of musical theater at the college level. She is awaiting callbacks from several campuses.

“Little Women” is one her final shows at WHS. It’s on stage three times - Friday and Saturday evenings, and then again Sunday afternoon, all at the WISD Performing Arts Center.

Bringing the March Sisters to Life

The director is Maddie Jones, who played the part of Jo while she was at Hardin-Simmons University. Jo is one of the four March sisters, the second oldest. The others, in order of age, are Meg (Angel Heinz), Beth (Olivia Farrell), and Amy (Lakely Hill).

“It’s a personal favorite story of mine. It has felt like a passion project,” Jones said of bringing Alcott’s work to life on stage.

The March family lives in Massachusetts with their mother. Their father is a chaplain, away from home during the Civil War, and the girls are dealing with that separation on top of becoming … women. Marmee (Reece Harvey), their mother, and Laurie (Ryan Trahan, who was Crutchie in “Newsies” and, just recently, Freddy in “Picasso”), a wealthy young man living near them, play key roles in their journeys of growing up and dealing with an unsettling time in their lives.

“It’s a small cast but they really have to pull their weight with very specific skill sets, both male and female, acting wise and vocally,” Jones said. “It has been fun to relive it through their eyes. It was such a gift to me, so seeing them bring it to life has been even sweeter than I thought it would be.”

Because the show is so intricate, Jones took time with her students to study the Alcott family, particularly how the author’s life mirrored that of the character Jo.

“They were champions of social justice and education reform,” Jones said of the Alcotts.

They also talked about the turbulent time period and Jones read passages from the book.

Wood said the four Wylie students portraying the sisters are good friends, so creating a tight knit family on stage was not a challenge.

“That’s one of my favorite parts. We’ve been friends all through high school. There is a very real relationship between us and a sisterly way in real life.”

Jones quickly observed.

“You can tell they really love each other and are having a lot of fun,” she said.

Not an Ordinary Jo

Jo, Wood said, is “very ambitious, tomboy-ish. She has a really big dream. She wants to be a writer, and that’s really hard in this era and with the people around her. But she is very dead set on this goal and she is willing to do whatever it takes to get there.

“But her other main goal is to keep her sisters together. She cares about her family so much.”

Without giving away the story too much, Jo is greatly affected by the death of one of her sisters.

“It’s really, really hard for her because she cares about her family so deeply,” Wood said.

Jones said the musical role is a challenge “before you even get to the acting. Taylor has done a great job undertaking that role. It has been fun to see her grow into that.”

Is Wood anything like Jo March?

“I relate to Jo actually a lot,” Wood said. “When I get set on something, I get really set on it. The people that I care about and love are very important to me. I want to go be an actress, which is something that’s not easy to do, but I’m pretty set on doing that.”

Wood has a younger sister, Callie, a freshman in high school.

“We’ve gotten a lot closer the last year,” she said. Both like theater and have taken piano lessons, but Callie is more artsy.

“I can see her going off and doing her own thing,” Taylor Wood said.

Laurie, Not Larry

And then there is Laurie, who meets four little women living next door. He lost his parents, so he is living with his grandfather.

His name is actually Lawrence; “Laurie” is an accepted nickname.

“He is this silly man-child … he still is a teenager, so he’s maturing a bit,” said Trahan, a junior. “At the start, he is awkward. The first time I meet them, I’m just spitting things out. As I get closer to the March girls, especially Jo, you really see more of Laurie's high energy and silly side.

“He’s just a lovable character.”

And is Trahan like Laurie?

“I would say me and Laurie have a lot in common,” he said, smiling. “High energy overall and staying positive. He came from tragedy but found some way to stay so happy. I take pride in trying to stay positive in hard times, so we can relate like that.”

Wood and Trahan both have seen the 2019 movie version of the story, - Trahan just recently because, after all, it is “Little Women.” Wood said she is halfway through the book.

“I didn’t know it was a musical until it was picked,” Trahan said, laughing. ”I was like, “Eh, we’ll see how it goes. But I am loving it so much.”

Like Wood, Trahan has his sights set on a musical theater track in college. But unlike Wood, he still has lots of Wylie theater left.

A Show Worth Sharing

Wood and Trahan like this performance picked by Jones, who said she had the right student actors to pull off “Little Women.”

For one thing, they are on stage with close friends.

“Olivia and I have been doing theater since sixth grade, and this is going to be our last show together,” Wood said. “So every night, when we sing the song … it’s a bittersweet moment.

“This is a great group of people that I’ve known for a long time. Getting to do this show with them, this tight-knit family show, it has been so much fun.”

She also has enjoyed being part of the choreography.

Trahan said the show “has been so much fun. When I found out it was ‘Little Women’ and as a teenage boy, I was, “Hhhhh. We’ll give it a shot.’ Getting to learn and love the show has been awesome. It’s a great show.”

He treasures doing “Newsies” with his real-life buddy Ashtyn Kershner and now “Little Women” with Josh Corrigan, another good friend who has a strong male role as Professor Bhaer.

“So it’s nice with my senior friends, doing a last musical and big roles together,” he said.

Lessons Learned on Stage

Wylie theater is about learning, the two actors have come away with keepers.

For Wood, it’s pulling back a little in her singing and leaning into the quieter moments.

“Let myself be still,” she said. “Learning how to pull back.”

It was a little bit of the same for Trahan.

“In the beginning, I was going from zero to 100. It’s easy to play him high energy the whole time but you do have to tap into the awkwardness of it,” he said.

Jones has worked with understudies, and the relationship between the actors playing the same part has been beneficial to both.

“It has been a great learning experience,” she said.