The Perry High School Drama Department is gearing up for their spring musical which will tell the story of “Matilda.” 

They will be performing the musical on Friday at 7pm and Saturday at 1 and 7pm at the Perry Performing Arts Center. The musical is based on the famous movie and book that tells the story of a bright young girl that has mind control powers and has to deal with her disruptive family and tyrannical school principal. Junior Alexa Nelson will be playing the main character “Matilda Wormwood,” and she says she is thrilled to get on stage this week.

“I’m most excited for the musical numbers. They are very emotional. They portray a lot of the big events in the musical, and they’re very fun to dance to.”

Teacher and Director Randy Peterson encourages residents to make it out to see the musical because the students have put in a ton of time and effort to perfect their performance. 

 “For example, Matilda has pages and pages and pages of dialogue to memorize here, and Alexa (Nelson) has done a really good job with that. From behind the scenes here, there’s seven different departments that Emily (Dowd) has to run simultaneously here and that’s always kind of a big challenge. And then just being big and flamboyant on stage is really challenging because, again, it’s not something the kids would have ever encountered before this kind of like different way of acting here.”

The Perry Drama Department has 54 students involved in this musical. Tickets can be purchased ahead of time or at the door of the event. It’ll be $8 for adults and $5 for students. Link to tickets here.