The theater department at Emporia State will be performing “9-5 The Musical” as the annual Homecoming musical next week. The musical involves three female leads in the workplace during the late seventies or early eighties.
“It’s about people who are the underdog, who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Fran Opheim, stage manager and senior theatre education major. “(It’s) about people in power who can’t grasp that concept and about how those people should be taken out of power. We should put more understanding individuals in power.”
The play focuses on women’s empowerment, according to Abbi Timmermeyer, who will be portraying Violet Newstead and senior theatre major.
“Well it’s definitely a very big feminist show, the three leads are all female,” Timmermeyer said. “To me it’s just kind of a woman empowerment musical.”
Since the piece takes place in an alternate time period, Susie Williams, assistant professor of theater and costume designer for the show, had to do some research to make sure the wardrobes accurately reflect the time period and the multiple costume changes that will take place throughout the show.
“I have been working on (costumes) since the very beginning of August,” Williams said. “(For) a musical usually you have about six months of design and prep time. This has been like a month and a half of design and prep time, so it’s a lot more crammed into a short amount of time.”
They will have rehearsed the show for over a month, starting with the music, and then moving on to the music numbers and other parts of the musical.
“The rehearsal process is just a lot you know, singing acting dancing all the time,” said Rachel Muirhead, who will be portraying Judy Bernly and senior speech and theater education major. “We’ve been rehearsing for four weeks.”
They are working on details for the lift that will be used to raise one of the actors in the musical.
“We can’t use the one the theater offers to us, because it is too old,” said Olivia Nunnelley, who will be portraying Doralee Rhodes and sophomore theatre major.
The musical will open to the public at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 2 in the Bruder Theatre in King Hall and stay open until Nov. 5. There will be a matinee on Sunday, Nov. 5 at 2 p.m.
“We’re sort of in an era of change where maybe we don’t understand that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and with respect and it’s a musical that kind of reinforces that idea,” said Opheim.