This year’s director’s notes are really going to be a love letter to my cast and to this brilliant community that has come together to build this show into a reality. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m pregnant and feeling a little extra sentimental, but there is something magical that happened during this production of Footloose at Eden. As I sit here starting these notes, I’m watching a collection of students (both cast and crew) and parent volunteers put their all into building our set. A design that I envisioned last August before we had even announced the show to our students, before auditions, before I even knew Eric Meslinsky would step in to head up our set construction. Now here we are just a little less than a month from our opening night and what was once just a concept is becoming a reality.
The story of Footloose takes place in a small tight knit community. A thing that our students growing up here in Eden can relate to. We’re all connected here; neighbors, friends, family members. The way that so many people have come together to turn this production into a work of art is truly special and not something that you always get in larger settings. My passion from a young age has been to work in theater and I’ve done so in many venues and settings across the country, but there is nothing compared to the support that these Eden productions receive. It’s not even just from the parents and family members of our cast. The whole town was on the lookout for spare denim and flannel shirts to donate for costumes! And for the first time since Covid we have over 100 students involved in our production between the cast, crew and pit. I am so impressed with the way that everyone has come together to make this show a reality.
Our production of Footloose this year has truly been a labor of love by so many people. We have assembled an incredible team behind the scenes, we have amazing parents, a school that supports us and a group of passionate students that I am honored to direct. The final piece of the puzzle is all of you sitting in the audience. I hope that you enjoy our production as much as we have enjoyed working on it. Thank you for supporting the arts here in Eden.
“There is a time for everything… a time to weep and time to laugh. A time to mourn. And a time to dance.”
Warmly,
Kara Sandoval
