By Lilly Buist / Editor in chief and Mackenzie Arthur / staff writer
The NPHS musical “Dreamland” was generally unknown to students. With the theater department previously producing more well-known musicals such as “The Addams Family,” students were unsure what to expect this year. However, we can safely say that this musical was a phenomenal choice, and the performers executed it well.
“Dreamland” features four honors students named Aurora (played by junior Mya Ebert), Eliot (played by freshman Nathan Morris), Randy (played by junior Taran Pelc), and Rebecca (played by junior Reese Simmons) who are chosen to visit Area 51 to test the safety of the park before it opens up to the public.
They attend with their show choir, New Dawn, who is chosen to perform at the grand opening.
There, they meet aliens and help them get back to their home planet, all while competing for a scholarship and learning more about themselves.
To start off, the musical was genuinely funny. About halfway through the musical, featured alien Puck (played by freshman Amelia Kell) ends up causing both Eliot and Randy to fall in love with Aurora during her attempt to communicate with the humans.
Throughout the rest of the musical, Eliot and Randy compete for Aurora’s attention, even fighting for a scene. While they started off simple, they then played rock-paper-scissors and pulled lightsabers out of their backpacks. Finally, Eliot stole Randy’s inhaler from out of his backpack. All three of these hilarious touches were added by the student actors.
Additionally, the characters had depth and were not simply clichés with names. The Area 51 janitor, Snyder (played by senior Jude Gibbs), always dreamed of show business. However, when invited to join the New Dawn show choir, he ultimately pushes himself into a “lead” position in the choir in an attempt to become the true star of the whole show.
In retaliation, dance captains Quinn (played by senior Maddie Flint) and Sam (played by junior Samantha Eyerman) put him in an alien costume. However, after wearing the glasses that also caused Eliot and Randy to fall in love with Aurora, featured alien Titania (played by senior Sophie Munson on Friday night and Marley Ragsdale on Saturday night) thinks that Snyder is a real alien and ultimately takes him back with her to her planet.
Although the audience generally assumed that Snyder would find his place in the show choir, the musical took this assumption in a completely different direction. It was refreshing for a work to not play into every single stereotype and assumption the audience felt there would be.
In general, the musical definitely had unexpected twists, but it was not overdone. Each character had their own genuine motivations and had true character arcs.
For example, Randy was Rebecca’s girlfriend until he put on the glasses and fell in love with Aurora.
When Rebecca found out that Randy didn’t like her anymore, she felt lost due to her usual state of always knowing what would come next. The following song entitled “Dreamland” communicated this idea.
Despite the many positives of this musical, there were a few plotholes that left us wanting more.
For example, Aurora’s story seemed unended. After being given the rest of the day to collect data, Aurora told both Randy and Eliot to leave her alone and work on their own experiments, as it would make her happy.
However, in the next scene, it was revealed that Randy and Eliot continued to bother Aurora, who didn’t have any data to present.
The fact that Randy and Eliot didn’t have any data to present was logical; they were preoccupied with artificial feelings that had left them by the end of the production. However, Aurora should have collected some, if not most, of her data, as the boys ended the previous scene by listening to her directions.
Additionally, the friendship between Aurora and Puck felt undeveloped. Aurora even considered following Puck to space and leaving Earth completely, and Aurora wouldn’t have done so without feeling a certain level of connection to the aliens.
However, since we didn’t see this from her because she had so few scenes with the aliens, this plot point was slightly illogical and inconsistent with Aurora’s desire to have a connection with a group of people.
