When it comes to LSU student organizations, fewer are tougher to upstage than the Musical Theatre Club at LSU.
The club, now 240+ members strong, has been around for decades and is dedicated to sharing and growing the art of musical theater.
“I could call it a really fun family that spends a lot of time and care into ensuring the success of any student who is interested in theater,” said senior social work major and club intermediary Jasmine Garrison. “It’s just a big happy family of people that love to sing and dance on stage.”
Kylee Broomfield, the MTC board chair and a sophmore in arts administration added that everyone, no matter what skill and major, is invited to join MTC.
“I feel like our club is a bridge between the School of Music and the School of Theatre. We have professors from both involved, musicians and actors,” said arts administration and vocal music junior Isabella Siddon, who is also the MTC’s assistant board chair. She continued by saying the club, to her, feels like a stepping stone to introduce others to music or theater.
Each year, the club starts out with a cabaret followed by a stage reading, but this year they will be performing High School Musical after their cabaret. The spring is when they typically have their musicals, putting on Little Shop of Horrors last year, with this year’s yet to be announced. Then to close out, MTC has their annual Singeaux performance.
These events may be the show stoppers for MTC, but they are by no means all they do. They also hold regular general body meetings, hangouts and workshops for students. The real goal of the club, according to them, is to bond and to create a space where people can grow and succeed.
This year, the cabaret is “Haunted Hallways,” and will be held on Oct. 5 with free attendance. Siddon described it as “something that the board and the production team put a lot of work, and a lot of thought into” and praised the collaborative effort the team, board and actors put in to create something they’re very proud of.
“I think it is going to be a really fun and creepy show,” Siddon said.
Hunter Nastasi, a junior arts administration major, the board secretary and the assistant director for Haunted Hallways spoke highly of the project and its production. “It has been a really fun journey going through this because this is my first time being in a production team role for any show. It has been such a fun and unique experience.”
Garrison agreed, complementing the team’s resilience and flexibility, something she played a unique role in shaping.
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As an intermediary, Garrison’s job is to advocate on the part of the actors to the production crew, an uncommon role in theater that the MTC only recently adopted. Garrison described that after some bad experiences with production team members in the past, she decided to speak out for herself and on behalf of her fellow castmates.
“Seeing the immediate change that happened just from me speaking up, not only for myself but for the other people who were feeling the same way, I was like, ‘I really like this. I feel like this should be a role,’” Garrison said. “There should never be a moment where people in a cast have to feel uncomfortable with somebody on the production team.”
Shortly after, she created the intermediary position on the board and was voted in. “I am just so happy to continue to bring my knowledge of social work into MTC and constantly ensure the comfort of not only everyone in shows but the organization as a whole.”
The hope is to continue the strong spirit of collaboration past Haunted Hallways and into future productions like High School Musical, which according to Broomfield, will feature an interactive twist allowing the audience to have props and even join in with the characters.
But that comes later, now MTC is all in making Haunted Hallways the best it can be.
“It’s been really awesome getting to know these talented people. We had a lot of new people audition for the show. I was nervous seeing how many new people there were, but then I saw their auditions and said, ‘This is going to be a great show!’” Siddon said. “They’re so talented, so talented. We have such a big group of hard working and talented people, and that’s all I could’ve asked for.”
Haunted Hallways is one night only, on Oct. 5 in the School of Music Recital Hall, at 7 p.m. The show is free and open to all. MTC’s upcoming show, High School Musical, will be Nov. 21 and 22.