Senior Jessy Voris is playing one of the leads in a Carmel High School musical for the first time and she is plenty busy.
Voris is cast as Campbell in the production of “Bring It On,” at 7 p.m. May 9-10, 2 and 7 p.m. May 11 at the high school auditorium.
The musical features music by Tom Kitt and Lin-Manuel Miranda and lyrics by Amanda Green and Miranda, and the book by Jeff Whitty.
“Last year we did such a classic, ‘The Little Mermaid,’ and this is much more modern with full hip-hop choreography,” director Sam Chenoweth said.
Voris said her character is in a lot of the big dance numbers.
“She is all over the place. She never leaves the stage it feels like,” she said. “It’s definitely the biggest role I’ve had and I’m super grateful. It’s definitely more modern than anything Carmel has done before with the hip-hop take on it. I think it’s something the whole student body will enjoy because it’s set in a high school setting. It’s something everyone can relate to.”
Campbell is named captain of the Truman squad before her life gets turned upside down.
“It’s been a dream of her’s as long as she can remember to be captain of her cheerleading squad,” Voris said. “She gets re-districted to Jackson High School, which is an inner-city school with no cheerleading squad. She still has a dream of competing at cheerleading nationals and she creates a squad at the new school. She becomes unlikely friends with Bridget, another girl transferred from Truman, and creates a squad with Danielle (Laney McNamar), who is the queen bee of Jackson. At nationals, she does have to compete against Truman. It’s kind of the main conflict.”
Voris was a cheerleader for her first two years at CHS. She is one of four performers in the production with high school cheerleading experience.
“My sophomore year I did Ambassadors and cheerleading, and it was a lot to do both,” Voris said.
Truman uses more traditional cheerleading and Jackson is more like hip-hop.
“It did help knowing how stunting works and the safety of it,” Voris said. “The dancing for the Truman part of the squad is cheer-based, so there is sharper movement. My dance background from Ambassadors and a studio has helped me for the Jackson part because there is a lot more hip-hop. It’s cool I get the best of both worlds.”
Junior Natalie Hammond portrays Eva, one of the cheerleaders.
“She’s the mean girl and she is practically the conflict of the whole show,” Hammond said. “I’m used to getting the mean parts and I aways seem to get like the short, mean girl. It’s fun to change from what I do normally during the day and come (to rehearsal) and be mean and sassy.”
