This spring West Aurora High School will become the first high school in Illinois and only the fifth in the nation to produce “Miss Saigon.”
 
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on May 3, 4 and 5 at West High Auditorium, 1201 W. New York St., Aurora. Tickets are $10.

Students already are rehearsing the musical most nights after school until 5:30 or 6 p.m.  Fifty-five students are in the cast, with another 21 in the pit orchestra and 20 in stage crew, including props and make-up.  The choreographer and three student directors are all seniors. Donna Letzter is the director. Ken Ruffalo is the assistant director and John Proczko is helping him.  Lindsay Townsend is dance choreographer, Meg Papadolias is musical director and John McLear is the pit orchestra director.

Students are learning to do all the make-up themselves. There are several changes during the show for students to go from American to Vietnamese make-up and costumes.  Except for the helicopter and a couple of other pieces, the high school stage crew will construct the set. The crew will run the lights and sound as well. 

It is worth noting that many of these students are also performing in three spring choir concerts and several band performances, in addition to their homework, jobs and other activities.  It is an incredible commitment.

“Miss Saigon” is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr.. It premiered in London in 1989 and opened in New York in 1991.

“Miss Saigon” is a modern adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's opera “Madame Butterfly,” and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her Caucasian lover. The setting of the plot is relocated to the 1970's Saigon during the Vietnam War, and Madame Butterfly's American Lieutenant and Japanese geisha relationship is replaced by a romance between an American GI and a Vietnamese bar girl.