The last three performances at Ankeny High School (AHS) were well-known stories: “Pride and Prejudice,” “Mamma Mia,” and “Alice in Wonderland.” However, a lesser-known musical, a combination of humor and tragedy, took the stage this spring.

“Catch Me If You Can” was performed a total of four times from April 10 through April 12. Despite its obscurity, students and staff have waited for this show for a long time.

“This show has been on our radar, honestly, probably as long as I’ve been at Ankeny. It was only on Broadway for a year, but it became really popular with high school students. So students were asking about it for a long time,” Director Mollie Jo Blahunka said. “It’s a tricky show, though, and there’s a lot going on, so we just never had the right blend of voices to do it. We felt like this year, we had a good mix to bring it to life on stage.”

Out of the main 10 cast members, seven are seniors. Like the “Alice in Wonderland” play, this musical has two casts: “Miami” and “New York.” The Miami cast stepped in for four actors from the main cast and performed at the 2 pm show on Saturday. 

“I think it’s just a really fun show,” Blahunka said. “The main character starts to show as 16 years old, and it’s about, like, ‘what do you do?’ It’s not about finding yourself, but creating yourself and finding a place in the world. So, I think it’s really relevant to the high school experience.”

Sharing the show with as many cast members as possible, the department acknowledges how many strong voices and talents they have for this production.

“We have a lot of very talented choir musicians,” sophomore cast member Alexander Haubrich, who plays Rodger Strong, said. “The cast list is pretty good. Especially when you look at a lot of the ensembles, they’re very balanced.”

Growing the theater program

AHS is a 10-12 grade high school building, but the drama department is working to include the freshmen from Southview (8-9 grade building) in the program. Blahunka mentioned the musical is an “extension of the theater program at Southview” because they don’t have that opportunity at the middle school.

“Just last year, we started bringing ninth graders on for the musical, and I’m looking to grow that relationship more. [To] have more of a relationship with Southview and with Ms.Oldenberger, and just to continue to grow the program,” Blahunka said.

AHS has one play and one musical every year. The play is in the fall, while the musical is in the spring. Last year, when the department welcomed freshmen into the musical Mamma Mia, they   also experimented with new lighting technology.

“There’s been a lot of tech changes,” junior Tech Crew member Ellie Repp said. “The LEDs we got last year, but we’re using a lot more this year.”

A lot of new tech has been introduced this year, and unlike in the past, the drama department now has the resources to understand and utilize these tools effectively.

“We’ve had students who are familiar with it, and then we’ve done workshops and things, but we’re largely self-taught. So up until this production, lights were a combination of the students and me kind of patchworking something together,” Blahunka said.

Thanks to Jennifer Poole, the new Technical Director or Tech Coordinator, the department now has a specialized person who understands the sound and light systems.

“She has been amazing,” Blahunka said. “All the sound and lighting is just worlds better than it ever was, because Mr. PJ and I, that is not our area of expertise, and we have not had someone to do that.”

Are the lights on?

Sound and lights can be an overlooked feature, but the cast notices the work the Tech Crew is putting in.

“Ms. Poole has been there every single day adjusting mics, adjusting lights, adjusting everything,” Haubrich said. “As well as our awesome Tech Crew. I mean, they get there at least 30 minutes before, running lights, making sure everything looks good, making sure everything’s down, everything’s the way it’s supposed to go. It really makes rehearsal a lot faster. So all the lighting, all of that success, [is] attributed 100 percent to tech.”

Previously, light had a different purpose in the AHS theater: to help the audience see the stage and actors. With the help of Poole, the drama department has gone above and beyond.

“We have an actual lighting plot. We know where each light is going. We have an intentional design versus just like, ‘Are the lights on? Can we see people?’ So she’s just totally revolutionized our whole department,” Blahunka praised.

Now that the lighting is more coordinated and organized, there is a lot for the Tech Crew to do. Makeup, hair, costumes, set, props, etc, everything comes together during tech week. Tech week is the week leading up to opening night; they run the musical full out while the Tech Crew programs the light cues and tests different looks. 

“There’s a lot of light maintenance,” Repp said. ”We have more we can do now that we have a technical director for that. Programming itself normally just happens during tech week, and it’s quite a bit of work.”

Specifically for this show, the lights have become very intricate.

“There are stairs in the back, and there’s an LED strip of lights on each stair that are individually programmed. So I am worrying about programming those as well as everything else [in] this show. We also have more gels and colored lights and everything, now that we have Ms. Poole, who’s been managing that. So there’s just more to manage,” Repp explained.

Not only is Poole’s knowledge about lights and sound helpful, but she has also been an asset to the department in many other ways as well.

“We joke that she has found more than our salary’s worth of equipment. There were so many lighting fixtures in the auditorium that got taken down and never put back up, or were broken and needed to be tinkered with. So she’s found 1000s of dollars worth of equipment that she’s restored and gotten working again,” Blahunka said.

Poole restored the department’s cyclorama (CYC), which is a backdrop that has smooth edges to make the space seem infinite. Previously, the department was using the CYC as a makeshift scrim. A scrim is a white backdrop that lights can be projected onto or through from the back for different effects.

“The CYC in the back is also new,” Repp said. “We don’t usually use those lights in the back, but now that we have Ms. Poole, she fixed them up, cleaned them off, got gels in them, so we can use the colored lights in the back for a background, too.”

A gel is a transparent sheet put in front of the bulb to color the light. Poole got the CYC bites working for the Tech Crew; now, students can program different colors into the background, using the CYC as it’s intended rather than as a scrim.

Repp explains, “So, there are nine lights above the CYC. There are three of each color, and if you do a little bit of this color and a little bit of that, it’ll mix the colors. So, you basically just have to do different ratios and more colors to get whatever color you want.”

The blended colors are interesting visually, but the colors aren’t just for appeal. The directors use this moldable background to better convey the story.

“Mrs. Poole has done a really awesome job using lights as part of storytelling versus just illuminating what’s happening on stage. So we have some really cool, symbolic colors that represent different characters. Based on the color of the light, you can tell something about the character that’s on stage,” Blahunka said.

The future of drama

The theater department has been expanding for a long time; for example, there are creatively named parent groups that help in various ways: “The Muppet Men,” who design and build the set, and “The Drama Mamas,” who organize meals. They were recently joined last year by the “The Greenroom Guardians,” a group that helped the two directors from the greenroom.

“I have directed the drama department for seven years. We have grown a lot in those seven years because my first year here was the COVID year,” Blahunka said. “So we had a pretty strong program and then basically it just got entirely shut down, spent quite a long time rebuilding that, and we’re back at a place where we’re feeling really good about the program.”

Despite the setbacks, the drama department has made a lot of positive changes in the last few years. There used to be only two directors, Blahunka and Assistant Director PJ Hurley, who are now joined by Poole and Grace Graham as the Music Director. These roles have allowed each director to have their own focus, to better support the department as a whole.

“In the past, if we didn’t have a large set, we would usually order backdrops, and those are expensive. You have to rent them, and those would cost, minimum, $800,” Blahunka explained. “And now we just have a CYC, so we get to be more creative, play around more, and have a more lasting infrastructure.”

Efforts like fixing up the CYC can save the department from unnecessary payments in the future. Little adjustments like this are expected to continue to impact the department in more areas than just lighting next year.

“I’m thinking since Ms. Poole is doing so much maintenance this year for this show, it can be less maintenance-focused next year,” Repp said. “I don’t know how it’s gonna look. Because she’s the technical director, she’s not just lights. Since she has been focusing on just lights so far, next year, she’s gonna do a lot more with sound and lights, and just all together.”

As the department grows its resources and abilities, they have the opportunity to be recognized on a statewide level.

“We get adjudicated for Iowa high school musical theater awards,” Blahunka explained. “And sound and lighting are always something that we have room for improvement on. So we’re really excited to see what they have to say now that we actually have a tech director running all of that.”

The senior backbone

A majority of the class of ‘26 seniors have participated in all six shows. This is also the last group of students who were around for the one-time winter show, which means some of them may have helped with seven shows.

“I love this year’s seniors. I just adore them. I mean, I love them every year, but this year’s [seniors] are going to be really hard to say goodbye to,” Blahunka said. “[They are] kiddos that I’ve known for a really long time. Getting to see them grow as people and performers has been really special. And just the talent is ridiculous. So it will be really, really hard losing them, but I’m so excited to see the awesome things that they’re gonna do in the future.”

Blahunka knows the seniors will come and go, but for the underclassmen who have only experienced the drama department with their presence, next year will be a big difference.

“When the seniors graduate, I think it’s gonna be weird, you know what I mean? You’ve always kind of just had the seniors there as a backbone,” Haubrich commented. “But I think that [the theater department] might take a little bit of a hit.”

Though Haubrich and Repp expressed uncertainty for the future, they have confidence in the positive changes being made and their ability to rise into their upperclassmen roles.

“We have some great underclassmen that I know are really gonna step up and be leaders,” Blahunka said. “So we’ll miss them dearly, but I know we will keep on keeping on.”