Pine Valley Central School’s drama club will be performing “Thoroughly Modern Millie” on Friday and Saturday, April 12 and 13 at Pine Valley High School.

SOUTH DAYTON — Pine Valley Drama Club has been hard at work for the past couple of months working on getting their musical, “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” ready for audiences.

Millie is about a young woman in her twenties who moves to New York City from Kansas in hopes of marrying rich by living the life of a “modern.” There’s always a catch, though, and along the way Millie ends up meeting friends at the very shady Hotel Priscilla and dealing with everything from friendship and love, to the hardships of unemployment, crazy supervisors, betrayal and sinister plots linked to white slavery. Through all the twists and turns of New York City living, the music flows endlessly throughout the musical, showcasing the wonderfully talented singers and dancers in the cast.

Lyric Westlund (grade 10, Millie Dillmount), Jaiden Fadale (grade 9, Jimmy Smith), Emily Pfleuger (grade 12, Miss Dorothy) and Matthew Cadle (grade 12, Trevor Graydon) recently sat down to talk about the fun and challenging aspects of being a part of a musical.

“So I sing bass, and I’m a true bass,” Matt said, speaking to the challenges that he has faced in the show, “so I’m not used to singing up two octaves and, in my songs, I have to sing pretty high.”

Jaiden mentioned that becoming a new character is a challenge. “You have to watch a lot of stuff to study them (the characters,)” he said.

Lyric agreed with him. “Yeah, embracing the character and putting yourself into a new person is hard,” she said.

Emily talked about the dancing aspect. “Definitely the tapping was hard for me to learn. I guess keeping all the dances straight,” she said.

When it came to the parts of being in “Thoroughly Modern Millie” that the cast members found the most fun, they all answered at once about how much they love the dances. Jaiden mentioned that he likes the first number of a show, a high energy, dance-and-song-heavy opening number that involves the whole cast.

The trio was asked what audiences should expect coming through the doors when they come to see the show. Lyric and Jaiden jumped in expressing how high energy and exciting Millie is to watch. Emily talked about the comedy and the various characters. “(Audiences should expect) good laughs. There’s multiple different story lines. Like each character has their own thing going on,” she said.

Matthew commented that there is something in it for everyone. “Sad moments, cheesy moments, funny moments, all in there!”

The cast cannot wait to perform the show for audiences and as more and more pieces fall into place, the cast gets more confident and the excitement is catching. Lyric and Jaiden are eager for their first full run-through, ready to put everything on stage, the cast, the costumes and the set pieces.

Emily finds herself reminiscing and thinking back as they continue with the season. “It’s exciting that it’s my senior year but it’s also kind of sad. Wish I would have stuck with it when I was younger instead of coming back to it last year so I got to enjoy it longer,” she said.

Matthew is a little less eager for the season to move forward because as a senior, he knows what is coming ahead. “I don’t know if I’m really excited for it (the performance) because it’s my last one,” he said.

“Thoroughly Modern Millie” runs Friday and Saturday, April 12 and 13 at 7 p.m., at Pine Valley High School. Students in grades seven through 12 are participating under the direction of Mary Kay Himes and Allison Mullin. Tickets are $3 for students and $6 for adults and can be purchased at the door.

If you are interested in purchasing an ad for the program to help support the show or want to know about presale tickets, please email dkelly@pval.org for more information. Hope to see you there!