By Melissa Thorud

RIVER FALLS – River Falls Meyer Middle School will be presenting their spring musical in early March. This year’s musical is “The Little Mermaid Jr.” The cast will perform twice during the first weekend of March, at 7 p.m. March 4 and March 5.

The cast and crew is made up of 120 middle school students, a mix from sixth through eighth grade.

The co-director of the musical Jacy Walker said, “We have 80 middle school cast members and 40 middle school crew members; this comes out to being approximately 16% of the MMS student body. We also have four high school directors and a handful of high schoolers involved in costumes as well!”

One of the cast members, Ben Jaeckel, an eighth grader at Meyer Middle School, will play Sebastian. He said that this last performance in middle school is bittersweet but he is excited to continue performing in high school.

“I’ve been in all three shows and my favorite part is just the people that are a part of it,” Jaeckel said. “You kind of create a family and it’s not like your average family and it’s really cool because you get to build relationships and connections with them and that’s what makes it special and I’m really excited to go into high school and keep doing this.”

Another eighth grade student, Lara Chaffee, a stage manager for this performance, is excited to work on the crew during this last middle school production.

“I’ve been on the crew for all three years and I’ll most definitely do this in high school too; the best part is just the people that you meet and the relationships that you build is a really cool experience,” she said.

Many of the cast members have been in other musicals and productions at the middle school in previous years. Eighth grade student Emma Shepherd, who plays the mersister Andrina, has been in other performances as well.

“I’m going to miss this a lot because it’s my last year doing musicals because I’m not going to be able to do this in high school because I’ll be doing some other things, so it is bittersweet because I love doing musicals,” Shepherd said.

Co-director Walker has been helping to lead this group of middle school students to the final product alongside a team of other directors. Although they help guide them to the final performance, she said it is a very hands-on experience for the students.

“This is such a student-lead production, from having middle school backstage managers that put together props lists and lead a team of students, to middle school dance captains who choreograph songs and teach to their peers, to middle school techies who design light cues and run the spotlights and the light board, to high school students coming back and volunteering their time to give back to the program they came from, to everything in between, that's the true magic,” Walker said.

The show gets put together in a span of about nine weeks; auditions start for students right before winter break in December. Then once the students return, they begin rehearsals.

Walker said, “We do auditions prior to the winter break but have been in regular rehearsals for the months of January and February, so we basically put on the show in nine weeks.”

The students have put in nine weeks of hard work to put on the finished performance and they are ready and excited to share it with the community.

“We have nearly 130 students who are just so thrilled to be a part of something that is bigger than themselves individually and to rally around supporting one another – they cheer for each other constantly and are always ready to celebrate the successes of each other. They are now ready for a live audience and to share their hard work with our community,” Walker said.

Tickets can be purchased online at https://rfpa.ludus.com/15508 with a suggested donation of $6 for adults and $3 for students and children.

Abby Filkins (Ariel) and Edy Johnson (Flounder) on stage for “The Little Mermaid Jr.”Photo by Melissa Thorud