‘Bye Bye Birdie’

There’s more riding on Creston High School’s performances this weekend of classic musical comedy “Bye Bye Birdie” compared to previous shows.

“This is the first year we’ve entered ourselves in the Iowa High School Musical Theater Awards through the Des Moines Performing Arts,” said Jane Warner, CHS vocal music teacher and “Bye Bye Birdie” co-director. “It’s almost like an ‘Iowa High School Emmy Awards Show’ that happens in June.”

After CHS requesting to be a part of the competition and sending a fee, the Des Moines program will send judges to one of the CHS performances this weekend, which will be 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Cost is $5 at the door for general seating and $7 for reserved seats, which may be purchased at CHS in advance of the show.

While Warner knows which show the judges will attend, she said the students don’t want to know because they don’t want to be overly anxious.

“There will be four judges that are professional theatre people in the audience with notes and rubrics to judge our kids,” Warner said. “They’ll consider us to perform at the awards ceremony. It’s really neat because even if we don’t get to do that as a cast, we do at least get to send, I believe, five of our students to the awards ceremony and they’ll get to dance with a professional choreographer. I think last year, it was a guy from New York.”

Warner said she selected “Bye Bye Birdie” as the musical this fall because it’s a “dynamic, fun show” that fits the student cast well. There are more than 60 cast members in total.

“It’s the story of a rockstar named Conrad Birdie (David Qualseth), who is being drafted in the ‘50s. It’s kind of a parallel to Elvis Presley going into the Army,” Warner said. “His agent composes a new song called ‘One Last Kiss,’ hoping if they do a promotional stunt and have Conrad Birdie kiss one of the girls from his fan club in this small town in Sweet Apple, Ohio, that will generate so much interest with Conrad’s fan club that they will then buy the record.”

Conrad seeks to give this one last kiss before going into the Army to a teenage girl, Kim MacAfee (Maya Struhar), who has recently begun going steady with her boyfriend, Hugo Peabody (Jake Hitz).

“Hugo doesn’t like the idea, of course, that she’s going to be kissed by this rockstar,” Warner said. “There’s also a subplot with the manager, Albert Peterson (Tyler Peters), and his secretary, Rose Alvarez (Livi Hartman), who is his love interest, and they’re trying to work their way into having a relationship with one another despite problems with the business and Albert’s over-bearing mother, Mae Peterson.”

Also, a large portion of the plot focuses on the reactions of Kim’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. MacAfee (John Reasoner and Bailey Hopkins), to their daughter’s interest in the rock ‘n’ roll scene.

“Mr. MacAfee is really tightly wound, and he’s very strict. So, when this Conrad Birdie character comes into his life, it upsets the balance he’s created in his house, and he’s really on edge for almost the whole show,” said Reasoner, CHS junior. “He’s very exaggerated with all his emotions, and I think people, especially parents, will really connect with him. It’s been fun to bring out the crazy, wild, angry side of someone like that.”

The show is co-directed by Jerry Huffman of Crest Area Theatre with choreography by Leslie Tyler of Leslie’s Dance and Tumbling.

Warner said the cast has enjoyed emulating the ‘50s-era rock music and styles of the all-ages show. Before opening night Friday, a main focus will be ensuring the costumes correctly portray the time period.

“It does have some classical, typical kind of musical themes, but then it has two or three places where it’s just straight-ahead 50s rock, like rockabilly music,” she said. “The audience will love it.”

One strength Warner sees for this show is the set. Her husband, AJ Warner, built a two-story, rotating platform for set changes.

“It’s pretty spectacular, really. I don’t know how he managed it,” Warner said. “One of the challenges to this show is ... the scenes are so large and critical that you have to be able to show each scene and move between them easily, so I brought that to AJ, and he was excited for the challenge.”

Another strength with “Bye Bye Birdie” is character development, Warner said.

“Conrad Birdie is a hard character to play. It’s tough to do an imitation of a 20-year-old Elvis Presley and have that attitude, but David Qualseth is doing a fantastic job,” she said. “Tyler Peters, Conrad’s manager and a momma’s boy, is a triple threat – he can dance, sing and act. ... And, Livi Hartman plays Rose, and she has a phenomenal voice.”

“Rose’s character really develops throughout the musical,” Hartman said. “I’ve had a lot of fun playing her, and I couldn’t have asked for a better show to end my senior year.”

Reasoner agreed, noting “Bye Bye Birdie” is different than shows they have done in the past.

“It’s a lot more of a straight-up comedy than what we’ve done before,” he said. “It never has a boring moment. It’s always just zipping along.”