After three long months of the Horizon Honors Theater program’s work, their production of “Seussical” is now arranged to open April 24! The show follows the journey of Jojo, a Who child with a ginormous number of thinks and Horton the Elephant who believes that there is a whole planet of people on a dust speck. The show follows Horton who is ridiculed and judged for this unusual idea leading to the point of a court case to determine what to do with the dust speck on top of a clover and Horton. Though, one word saves the whole Who planet from destruction. 

The show premiers on April 24 at 7 p.m, with the show closing on May 2 at 7 p.m. To see the exact times, show prices, and tickets, go to Go Fan! Tickets range from $13.60 for kids, students, and staff to $16.75 for adults. 

“Seussical” celebrates the astounding class of students that all put in their hard work to make an incredibly interesting and fantastic play. The Horizon Sun was able to interview four actors about their time during the show. 

Editor’s Note: Responses have been edited for clarity

The Horizon Sun: What role do you play?

Lennox Arevalo: I play a Fish, [a Hunch], and a Who adult.

Shaia Yardeni: I’m a Bird Girl.

Lyla Lammers: The Baby Kangaroo and a Hunch

DJ Sharr: In Seussical, I play the role of General Genghis Khan Schmitz.

Rishabh Ramakrishnan: I play a Wickersham, a monkey brother who mocks and belittles Horton [the Elephant].

Matthew Greco: I play the Grinch and I play one of the hunters. 

‘Via Ward:  I play Jojo

Isaiah Aljets: I play Horton, he’s one of the three kinds of [main parts] in this show.

The Sun: What has been the most enjoyable part of creating the show?

LA: Probably seeing it all come together in the end and… with the lights and the stage and stuff…it’s going to be really cool.

SY: Lowkey…I like being with my friends and dancing and singing.

LL: Sets Up was really fun because I didn’t sit down for like four hours and I wasn’t tired at all… and it’s just really fun to be lifting heavy stuff, making costumes, painting, and doing stuff you wouldn’t do on a normal school day. Even if it’s on a Saturday. Honestly, I’d waste all my Saturdays if they were like Sets Up.

DS: My favorite part about this show has been working with all these different people with so many different kinds of characters that are so different from each other and I think finding a way to make the show work together with all these different types of characters is what makes it so great.

RR: The most enjoyable part is seeing everything come together and how scenes, [that] I’m not present in, work and connect to the rest of the show.

MG: I love seeing all the costumes and I also just love hanging out with all my friends.

VW: The most enjoyable part of this show so far has probably been being able to do things that I never thought I could do. [I don’t know] if that makes sense, but I have loved seeing others grow and see the show come to life.

IA: The most enjoyable part of creating the show, for me, is putting it all together and experiencing new things and just that moment where I’m on stage, I know my lines, my singing is well, and I can focus on how I want [portray the role of Horton.]

The Sun: What’s your favorite part of the show? Your own scene or someone else’s?

LA: …I like the Hunches.

SY: “Havin’ a Hunch” is so good.

LL: My favorite scene that [I’m] in is for sure “People Vs. Horton The Elephant” because I get to jump up and down in a circle saying “boil it!”. Then my other favorite song [that I’m not in] is “Notice Me Horton” cause I love it how it goes from like torture and loss to I love you so much Horton! Notice me! And then to Horton’s getting kidnapped. 

DS: My favorite part of the show, personally, is my part in “The Military” because I love that song so much and everyone in that song has done so well and I just love performing it because I love my character so much. Other than that my second favorite has to be “Biggest Blame Fool” because of the Sour Kangaroo. 

RR: My favorite part of the show is the community that we all build and how the dynamics play [out] on stage. 

MG: I love the choreography and music for “Amazing Mayzie” and “Havin’ a Hunch”.

VW: My favorite part of the show is in “It’s Possible”, when the Fish sing and I get to be in the [bath] tub. 

IA: So my favorite part of the show is two scenes. There is “Alone in the Universe Reprise” and then it leads into the song “Solla Sollew” and the reason why I love these two scenes is [the] vocals, they sound beautiful and the meaning of the two scenes because my character he’s talking to this egg that he decided to take care of and because my character values are… “An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent” and that means a lot to me because being faithful is one of the values that I like to have in my life.

The Sun: What’s your advice for anyone wondering if they should be in theater?

LA: Honestly just do it. It’s really fun and you probably won’t regret it even if you’re on tech crew. I feel like it’s really good cause you still get to be involved in the show in some shape or form. But just do it, don’t give it a second thought, just do it.

SY: You just have to throw yourself into it. I mean you have to find the right people because it’ll definitely be unenjoyable if you don’t have the right people, like, good people. You just gotta find your people.

LL: If you’re questioning it, maybe do tech first just to see how the actors portray [their roles] and if you like tech then you can stay in tech and try to work up [to higher roles such as director or costume designer] and if you don’t like it and you wanna try to be an actor, go for it and don’t be shy. Go for the biggest role you can because there’s no guarantee that you won’t get it.

DS: My advice for someone wondering if they should be in theater is probably look at a show and see if you like it because there’s more to a stage than just actors there backstage. [Backstage] is like a whole other world there’s backstage people [like] prop master, there’s a whole lot there is spotlight, there’s front of the house, there is so much that you can do outside of acting and you can decide which one is best for you if you want to but definitely go for it.

RR: Listen, everyone in theatre will tell you to do a show, but there’s a good reason we say that. There’s something for [everyone] to do. Even if you regret doing it, and it was “the worst time in your life” [promise you it won’t (be)], it still looks good for future applications and you gain skills you can do in life. 

MG: Just go for it because a big draw away, for me when I did it, is just I didn’t have time to do my homework but I found out that it’s not true and I have time to do homework in between scenes. It’s just time consuming.

VW: My advice for anyone thinking about joining theater, please do, you only live once. Theater has been the highlight of my high school and middle school years and I’m so glad that I tried it out, because it became my favorite thing ever. 

IA: Theater is a wonderful experience even if you can’t sing and act. New experiences are wonderful and I feel like why people should join theater is because theater is like a big happy family, it can be a sad or mad family to, but we’re like family and we really care about each other and that’s why people should join theater because we’re like a family and new experiences and there’s a lot of fun experiences like “Wether the Weather”, the games we play at the start of rehearsals if we have time, the theater traditions we do, and the stuff we do to bring each other and ourselves [up].

The Sun: What’s one moment you’ll always remember from theater?

LA: Probably the amount of new people I met and the amount of new friends I made.

SY: The time I was in ”Midsummer Night’s Dream” and my friend kept flinging me off a bench.

LL: When Keegan put on Shaia’s pink dress in “Cinderella”. 

DS: One moment from theater that I’ll always remember is back in 5th grade we did “Wizard of OZ” and the elementary school were Munchkins and I just thought that whole experience was just wonderful because we were learning early what it’s like in a secondary production and I think that was a special experience and I met so many people there and there’s memories that I will have forever from that.

RR: I remember all the bloopers [from] my death scene last show [“Romeo and Juliet”]. 

MG: I think I’ll remember when I first, during costume parade, when I first got into my Grinch outfit, the full thing, I’ll remember it because it was fun to slide around in and laugh with everyone. 

VW: One of my favorite specific memories was being pushed around in the bathtub after it’s possible!

IA: So back in “Bye, Bye, Birdie” I remember I just started theater, I was stage crew and I was in 7th grade, and I remember just being backstage stage and creating new memories and one memory that I do remember is one of the leads in the show…she was a girl who during one of her scenes, she actually fell of the platform, fell face first into the floor and I just remember them rushing her into a room and making sure to check immediately if she was okay and if she was injured and then I remember after she found out she was okay, people were like talking to her and giving her hugs and people were like really concerned and what happened was she turned out to be okay and they just moved onto the next scene, obviously. But when she was on stage for the next scene she was in and returned to the stage, everyone started clapping for her… So people were clapping for her and she still continued the show through and I think that’s really important in shows.

Don’t miss your chance to see all these lovely actors on the stage of “Seussical”!