Sophomore Tyson Scott has a passion for University Prep musicals. He has performed in the past three.
“I like being on stage and the cast becomes a family in the end. I also love learning the music,” Scott said.
Unfortunately, the musical occurs at the same time as tennis, the fall sport that he plays, which forces him to choose one or the other. This year he decided to play a month of tennis before he left to do the musical.
UPrep students struggle with this decision because the musical starts after school rehearsals in early October, which conflicts with high school fall sports.
Scott has recently found success on the court and likes tennis for the challenge.
“It’s been a blast. This year during tryouts, I ended up making varsity,” Scott said. “I started out playing exhibition [a friendly match] and then I went to the starting lineup, where I won my first match.”
Scott reflects on the challenges of missing the last month of the season.
“It is going to be a lot harder to leave before postseason, especially now that I see that I am not terrible at tennis and I can keep up,” Scott said.
While he enjoys both activities, he rationalizes his decision to pick the musical over tennis.
“I know I am not going to go very far in tennis, and it is not what I am going to do for the rest of my life. But music has always been a passion for me, so I chose what I really love, which is music and performing,” Scott said.
Senior Mira Hinkel faced the same decision. She performed in the musical as a freshman and played UPrep volleyball for four seasons. This year, she really wanted to do both.
“I had talked to Ms. Moe and Fleming when I was signing up for classes in the spring to see if there was a way to do volleyball and the musical. I got a ‘I think we are going to try and make that possible,’” Hinkel said.
Her new desire to participate in the musical emerged when she realized what the show was going to be.
“Part of the reason why I wanted to do the musical was because I love ‘Mamma Mia.’ I am also a singer outside of school so I knew I had the ability to do it,” Hinkel said.
Unfortunately her hope to participate in both disappeared as she was notified that she would not be able to do it.
“A week before volleyball practices started I got an email from Joel that said that I had a scheduling conflict and that there is no way to work around this. It said that I had to choose between volleyball or the musical,” Hinkel said.
Having to think quickly, she settled on playing fall sports.
When the time comes for the performances, Hinkel thinks that she will be bummed all over again.
“I have good friends that are in it and I think that they are all going to do a fantastic job,” Hinkel said. “But I think I will feel a little sad that I wasn’t able to do it.”
While this conflict can be a difficult decision, fine arts teacher and theater manager Paul Fleming explains why they need the actors to not do fall sports during the rehearsals.
“We want people to be able to give a full commitment to what they do,” Fleming said. “You need the whole team there to practice because you can’t build and work together without everyone.”