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Press Release

TO: All Media

FROM: Green Canyon High School Drama

CONTACT: David Sidwell: 435-764-2006 (text first; I usually don’t answer if I don’t know who it is)

RUN THRU: Feb. 15, 2020

Bells Ring for Green Canyon’s Hunchback of Notre Dame

Green Canyon High School’s award-winning team of directors and actors is presenting The Hunchback of Notre Dame: The Musical, Feb. 6-8, 10, 13-15 at 7pm in the school’s auditorium theatre. The musical roughly follows the events of the Disney animated film, but with additional songs, deeper and richer characters, and a few other changes. The work is based on Victor Hugo’s novel of the same name. Tickets can be purchased at greenwolfproductions.org. While content is family friendly, it is not meant for smaller children.

Inspired by Victor Hugo’s gothic novel and songs from the Disney animated feature, this version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame was adapted for the stage by the creative team of Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz, and Peter Parnell in 2014. Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of the Notre Dame Cathedral, has spent his life locked in a tower by his guardian, archdeacon Dom Claude Frollo. Longing to be with other people, Quasimodo escapes to spend one day ‘out there,’ which leads to his chance encounter with the enchanting gypsy, Esmeralda. Quasimodo isn’t the only one captivated by her free spirit though. The handsome Captain Phoebus and Frollo are equally enthralled. As the three vie for her attention and Frollo attempts to destroy the gypsies, powerful forces propel each of them toward their fate, be it malevolent, graceful, loving, or heroic.

Four choirs from the school lend their voices to the production’s lavish music. All in all, nearly 150 cast and company members work to create the show. The cast includes last year’s Utah High School Musical Theatre Awards finalist, Sam Teuscher, in the role as Quasimodo. Trevan Draper, who played Gaston in last year’s production of Beauty and the Beast, takes on another villain this year with Claude Frollo. Esmeralda is played by award-winning vocalist and actor, Audrey Bailey. Jaeden Tueller plays Captain Phoebus, and Beau Jensen plays the gypsie, Clopin.

Over the past hundred and eighty-five years, Hugo’s masterpiece has been adapted numerous times. In fact, it’s been made into 13 films, 5 movies made for television, 5 non-musical adaptations, 8 musicals, 6 operas, 5 ballets, and a video game. Clearly, this universal story of unrequited love and a yearning for acceptance resonates as powerfully today as it did when Hugo created it. “Our production really focuses on the heroic power of courage and friendship and love,” indicated Sidwell. “Three of the characters grow and make changes that help others; one, Frollo, goes kind of backwards. But in the end, the hope of a better future is clear and evident.”

In an interview with PLAYBILL, composer Alan Menken spoke to the character of Quasimodo, saying, he’s the perfect example “of ugly on the outside and beautiful on the inside. That strikes a chord with everyone.” In the same interview, lyricist Stephen Schwartz agreed. Quasimodo “resonates very much for me. I write a lot of shows with outcasts in the lead.”

What’s more, Schwartz was so determined to connect to Quasimodo’s perspective on the world that he wrote the lyrics to “Out There” in the bell tower of the Notre Dame Cathedral. “I brought my little yellow pad up there with me and scrawled lyrics,” Schwartz recalls. “It was very helpful just for getting a feeling of what it must have been like for the character of Quasimodo to have lived his entire life up there.” “This story has been told countless times. People keep trying to do it in various forms – a film, a television movie, a musical, an opera,” Schwartz explains. “The story, as they say, has legs.”

This adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame uses the age-old convention of “Story Theatre,” a theatrical device in which an ensemble of storytellers not only narrate the story but also take on various roles. “I find this style of theatre particularly captivating,” Sidwell explains, “Because it asks the actors and the audience alike to journey together into a realm of shared imagination.” In telling this epic story of “love rendered impossible,” the musical features theatrical elements of melodrama, medieval pageantry, religious ceremony, musical theatre, opera, and of course, Disney.

Tickets for adults are $12, seniors: $10, students and children: $5. Tickets can be obtained at greenwolfproductions.org .