Some favorite childhood characters will come to life on the Brighton High stage this school year.

The season starts with a beloved, precocious 5-year-old bookworm, Matilda, in the show with the same name based on the book by Roald Dahl. Matilda lives with her brother and parents, who are unappreciative of her. She uses her telekinetic abilities to overcome obstacles caused by her family and school, with the help of her kind-hearted teacher.

“It’s a fun musical with modern music,” Brighton theatre director Makayla Conner said. “The cast loves the dancing in it. This is something they wanted to do and they’re excited to perform it.”

Sixty-six students will perform on stage and another 18 are part of the tech crew. Students help with costuming and design the posters and videos.

The show opens at 7 p.m., Nov. 21 and runs through Nov. 23. There also will be a 2 p.m., Nov. 23 matinee. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $8 for children age 12 and younger and are available on brightonbengals.org. The show is on the school stage, 2220 Bengal Blvd.

“The show has a strong message of empowerment to kids. We live in a world where kids are trying to have their voices heard a lot more, and they have the abilities and the platforms too. This show has messages about kids standing up for what they believe in, and kids having a voice. That’s important for the generation we have in high schools right now to understand how important their voice is in so many different aspects. With social media, they can have their voices heard a lot more, but it’s important they learn how to use their voice in a proactive light so they can be more successful with using those platforms,” she said.

The musical theatre class has been reading the novel as they have been rehearsing.

“There are a lot of connections to the original book, which I was surprised about, because I hadn’t read it before,” Conner said. “We have 35 kids from the cast in that class, but we include everyone who auditions in the musical. With the musical theatre class, we have featured sections of dancers, so they are the ones who learn those ahead of time, and then they can teach the rest of the cast. The same with featured actors. It helps when we have a short time to rehearse before a production.”

During the show’s run, the thespians will have drop boxes for those who want to support their drive to provide personal hygiene and essentials, such as socks, for those impacted by the recent hurricanes. 

The show comes on the heels of success the thespians found at the 48th annual Utah Shakespeare High School Festival.

The school’s Shakespeare team earned second place in the overall sweepstakes and second in their ensemble piece, “Coriolanus.” Senior Kate Cutler won first in props in the Tech Olympics while senior Jeffrey Burnham finished fourth in sound. The Larry Lott Award, the highest acting award at the competition, was given to junior Lucia Glime for her performance as Coriolanus in the ensemble. 

“It was a huge weekend for our Shakespeare team,” she said about the 24 students. “We picked ‘Coriolanus’ because it has a lot of themes of political conflict, and especially in this election year, it brings a modern discussion. The kids have their own personal experiences with political conflict in this modern day, so it’s cool for them to be able to see that those issues still applied when Shakespeare wrote.”

While in Cedar City, the team also participated in team-building exercises.

“It’s important, especially with ensemble work, that every kid understands their role is crucial, even if they feel like, ‘I’m only in the background and I have no lines.’ That’s not the case. Through those team bonding exercises, they bond as a team and see the whole goal as a bigger picture than just themselves,” Conner said.

Those skills will pay off as they plan to perform their one-act play, “Martyrs Crossing” by Melissa Leilani Larson.

“It’s about Joan of Arc and how she was guided by angels to help her make the decisions she did in her lifetime. It’s written by a local playwright and a fascinating idea of even though you’re trying your best to make the outcome correct, it still will end the way that it was supposed to or needed to,” she said.

Pending approval for the show as of press deadline, the thespians will perform the show at 7 p.m., March 6-8, 2025 and again at 2 p.m., March 8 in their black box theatre. They also plan to compete with it in their one-act at region in March. State is in April.

The spring production company show returns to childhood favorites with “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

“I love how fun it is to be in this show and how simple it is. The music’s great, the dancing is fun, we’ll wear traditional costuming. Everyone just loves Charlie Brown; everyone has some kind of connection to Charlie Brown,” she said.

Conner said the tech crew is going to “focus on the artwork in the comic strip for the sets and the lights and utilizing that for inspiration for their set they’re going to design” to make it historically accurate and include “that childhood nostalgia.”

The show will be at 7 p.m., May 1-3, 2025 in the school auditorium. A 2 p.m. matinee on May 3 is planned, with a possibility of a meet-and-greet the cast and photo opportunity in the works.

The season’s theme is from the Charlie Brown musical. 

“The kids picked it. It’s called, ‘Why not fly?’ It comes from the song, when Charlie Brown tries to fly the kite over and over, and it doesn’t work. At the end of the song, he gets it to fly,” Conner said. “The idea sometimes it might be hard to push through a long rehearsal or feel like there’s no way we can, we can. They picked it because they wanted to have the open-ended question of, ‘Why aren’t we pushing ourselves?’ so it’s giving them a motivated idea behind everything they’re doing this year.”

Brighton opens its improv season at 7 p.m., Nov. 1 in the black box theatre. The 12-member team also has three other shows planned on Dec. 6, March 28, 2025 and May 9, 2025. Tickets are $5. λ