Students Explore Musical Villains in “What it Takes!”

May 7, 2024

In the polarizing world we live in today, it is very easy to make quick judgments about who is right and who is wrong. However, it is almost never that clear. The members of Company, the Perpich Musical Theater Ensemble, decided to look at characters in musicals to see if the villains are really all bad and if the heroes are really all good. In their interactive performance of “What it Takes!” on May 2nd and 3rd, 2024, the performers invited the audience to learn more about the characters and then voice their own opinions by voting: Villain or Hero?

“We have a lot of characters that are often seen as bad characters or villains,” Greta Kunene (Musical Theater 2025), told the Sun Post newspaper. “But in the show we really explore if they really were bad or if they were just doing what they had to to get by in the situation.”

“Something I think is really interesting about what we do here, we are an ensemble-based group, so we all collectively create a musical revue show,” Maggie Loxtercamp (Musical Theater 2024) told CCX Media news. “We picked different songs from different musicals. We wrote the script and we wrote the flow of the show altogether as a collective.”

“We are allowed to have so much input,” Ian Garrido-Lavender (Musical Theater 2025) told the Sun Post newspaper. “And with this class specifically, it is all about us creating it ourselves.”

“Quite literally, we do direct the show,” added Abbi McCabe (Media Arts 2025). “Like, writing the patter, figuring out our songs, who wants to do what.”

You can read the full article from the Sun Post here.

View the news story from CCX Media below.

Congratulations to all those involved in the show!