Upper School students performed in this year’s spring musical, “Into the Woods,” last week at Blackford.

“We were all nervous [before the show], but it all turned out to be pretty good,” Anika Banga (9), an ensemble member, said. “Overall, it was a great experience, and the audience was really into it.”

The cast will also perform “Into the Woods” at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland this summer with the American High School Theatre Festival (AHSTF).

Out of around 2,000 nominated schools, AHSTF chose the Upper School as one of 40 across the nation that will represent America in Scotland.

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s biggest arts festival, and this is Harker’s third time performing there, after “Urinetown” in 2007 and “Pippin” in 2011. Because of this achievement, Harker’s Performing Arts Department was featured in a San Jose Mercury News article earlier this month.

In addition to their own show, attending students will see both professional and other high school performances; in previous years, they have seen up to 15 in a single trip.

“It’s really fun to see how we hold up next to the other high schools,” Laura Lang-Ree, Director of Performing Arts K-12, said. “We [also] see a ton of professional theater when we’re there.”

Caroline Howells (12), who plays Cinderella, discussed what she personally looks forward to doing at the festival.

“[I look forward to] exploring what it’s like to be at the greatest arts festival in the world,” she said. “It’s definitely going to be a lot of fun to be part of such a huge arts community.”

The 30 cast members worked on “Into the Woods” from February to April, and most rehearsed for approximately two to three hours a day, four to five times a week.

Lang-Ree chose “Into the Woods” this year partially because it’s one of her favorite musicals.

“[The musical is] charming and it’s funny, but it’s dark, and there’s a very, very big moral to the story as well,” she said. “It is one of the hardest musicals for performers that there is.”

Over spring break, the cast and Lang-Ree went on a group bonding trip in Los Gatos. They all hiked a nearby creek trail and then were split into groups according to their characters in the musical and went on a scavenger hunt.

Just as the baker and his wife had to find and deliver a specific set of items to a witch in order to have a child in the musical, students had to find a young couple with a baby or a pair of golden slippers.

“It was a lot of fun,” Zoe Woehrmann (12), who plays Little Red Riding Hood, said. “We did part of the show in the woods, and that really gave us a sense of what it would be like when we got the whole set.”

The three-week long Festival Fringe will take place from Aug. 7 to 31, with the show venues scattered throughout Edinburgh.

Additional reporting by Kaity Gee.

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on April 22, 2015.