PINEDALE – It’s a classic girl meets boy story. A young waitress named Millie falls for Adam Pontipee one fateful day and, following a brief courtship, the couple decide to get married. Millie leaves town to make a new home with her husband.

There is one catch, however.

Adam lives with his six unruly, rough-around-the-edges, bachelor brothers, much to Millie’s chagrin.

“Millie marries someone she just met and their marriage runs into problems because he lied to her from the start about his brothers,” said Pinedale High School (PHS) senior Ally Moller, who plays Millie in the upcoming musical production “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”

Millie hatches an idea to civilize the man cave inhabited by Adam and his brothers.

“Millie decides to get Adam’s brothers married off, so she tries to set them up with her friends from town,” said Moller.

Cue the dancing, singing and drama.

“The brides get angry at the brothers,” Moller continued. “Eventually, they make up, but there’s more drama because the townspeople don’t like the brothers at all.”

The story strikes a familiar tune – could it take place in Pinedale?

“Definitely – 100 percent,” said senior Cade Covill, the actor portraying Adam.

“Pitchforks, torches and all …” Moller added.

“… and dancing,” Covill noted.

Actually, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” takes place in a small frontier town in Oregon during the 1850s, said senior Camilla Scanlon. Scanlon plays one of the brides, Sarah.

Scanlon also stepped into the challenging role of choreographing the entire production, from musical numbers to fight scenes. She drew from her experiences studying at WYLD Dance Company in Pinedale.

“The musical has been fun and also hard to choreograph because most of the cast are not experienced dancers,” Scanlon said. “There is a lot of falling apart and laughing when I show them a step and they’re like, ‘What did you just do with your feet and your hands?’”
Musical choreography is a different world from the classical movements of studio ballet or a modern dance routine.

“In musical theatre, the movements have to be really big, really exaggerated, and you have to act through everything,” Scanlon explained. “It is its own separate style of dancing.”

The cast members are falling into step.

“The brothers and brides get to do a lot of the dancing,” said Covill. “They’re doing great with it and they’re picking it up really well. It looks like they have fun with it, too.”

Moller, Covill and Scanlon agreed to hold a brief interview following the first dress rehearsal in late February – “that point between where the musical is super rough and when the show is polished and ready to go,” said Scanlon.

“That little space in between – that’s the most fun, because you know what you’re doing but you’re far away enough from perfection that you can still have fun with it,” Scanlon added.

For Covill and Moller, preparation involved countless hours memorizing lines.

“I read the script over and over again to the point where the lines echoed off the walls in my brain,” said Covill. “I have to give a lot of credit to my mom, because she actually reads over the script with me. She knows the whole plot of the play.”

Because the production is a musical, a significant proportion of the lines are sung.

“I’ve done choir since middle school, so singing is what I’m used to,” said Moller. “I play the songs over and over again on the piano and also spend a lot of time singing in my car. The musical is different for me, because I’m usually not the one to say, ‘I’m going to go sing a solo right now.’ It’s been a lot of fun.”

Learning to project the songs at a high volume proved a challenge, said Covill.

“I can sing all the notes, but singing them loud is the hardest part,” he added. “It takes practice, practice, practice.”

The show is quickly coming together for opening night on Thursday, March 16, in Pinedale High School’s Sheppard Auditorium.

“It will be a fun night out,” said Scanlon. “There are a lot of jokes – physical gags for the younger audience and layered jokes for the older people. It’s great for all audiences. Anyone who comes can expect to see some top-tiered dancing, singing and acting.”

The musical is directed by PHS music teachers Gregory Allen and Justin Smith. Gene De Paul composed the music for “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and the book by Lawrence Kasha and David Landay.

Ceili Fallon is the stage manager with Jess Nichelson serving as the assistant stage manager. Keegan Nance and Dylan Covert designed the lighting. Sydney Wise and Addy Davis produced the sound.

The pit orchestra includes J.J. Huntley on piano, Chandra Stough and Evalyn Smith on violin and Journey Jess and Big Piney High School (BPHS) student Karla Montes on flute. Jaylee Bousman and BPHS band teacher Travis Swanson play the clarinet and bass clarinet with Holden Saxton and Aarika Smith on trumpet and Delaney Day on oboe. Additional members of the orchestra are Chase Dorrity and Kasey Turner on trombone, Garett Scobey on horn, BPHS choir teacher Angela Swanson on guitar and banjo, PHS teacher Luke Myczewski on tuba and Zac Later on percussion.

Allen thanked community volunteers Jenna Prior and Ellie Brown for their tireless work on costumes and props, respectively.