‘Little Women’ on stage at Southwest High School

Green Bay Southwest High School will open its production of Little Women next week — the school’s second musical of the year.

“We just have so many students that are interested and excited about doing this that we thought, ‘You know what, let’s try it. Let’s do two,’” said Brent Brayko, co-director of the show. “They were both cast last fall so the leads kind of balanced it out — if you’re leading one show you’re more of a support in the other show — to try and give kids different experiences within the theater.”

This year’s two-musical season has garnered so much excitement that Southwest is already planning to do two next year, as well.

“The interest has gotten so high that we announced we’re doing two musicals for next year and the place just erupted….” Brayko said. “So we’ve already got next year’s shows planned. It’s pretty exciting that the kids are that into it. Musicals are a lot of work so the crew is tired by this time of year, but they are just excellent.”

But it’s not just the students on stage that are needed to make two musicals in a year work.

“It couldn’t be done without a huge team of supportive teachers and adults that are behind the scenes and supporting,” Brayko said. “[It’s a big deal] to have everyone commit to two shows — not just the directors, but sound and lights and we have a lot of student leaders that help run each of these areas, too.”

After putting on a production of Spongebob the Musical earlier this year, Brayko said he hopes Little Women gives the students involved a different kind of experience.

“What’s really kind of cool about theater is that we can create these worlds that are so totally foreign from each other and different from each other,” Brayko said. “What I really cared about was giving these kids a chance to dig into character work and acting as a craft and to do a period piece — something that they haven’t been used to doing. The trend now is to do contemporary shows, right? Everyone does contemporary shows. This one is period, but ironically it’s somewhat contemporary because it was just written for Broadway not too long ago.”

The show is based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, following the March sisters — Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy — and their experience growing up in Civil War America.

“I really hope that [audiences] feel the love of family that stands out. I think that they will be amazed by the set and the sound. The singing is just gorgeous. I think that those things will really stand out and they’ll really feel sucked into the show,” Brayko said.

Performances will take place April 23 at 6 p.m., April 24 at 7 p.m., April 25 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 2 p.m.

Tickets are available at trojanmusical.ludus.com/index.php?sections=events.