“Little Women” graced the North stage from Nov. 17-19. 

Based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott, the drama  follows the four March sisters played by senior Erin Dow and juniors Ella Schuler, Libby Baumker and Addison Kyrychenko, from childhood to womanhood.

Friends, family, as well as North staff and students came together to celebrate the storyline and the actors. 

“The acting was phenomenal, as they were able to immerse the crowd into the play with ease,” junior Danny Dimartino said.

Kyrychenko, cast as Jo March, believes the play was a success. 

“It was really exciting performing with a full crowd,” Kyrychenko said. “I felt more prepared for this show than I ever have for others, and I felt extremely close with everyone, so we were all able to play off each other on stage. It was such a fun experience.”

The play mainly focuses on the first part of the novel beginning in 1863, and ends five years later with characters Lawrence and Amy returning to Concord as man and wife following the publication of Jo’s first book.   

The story highlights the importance of kindness and is a tribute to the human spirit. 

“It is mainly a coming of age story, one about the expectations of how girls/women are to be and act,” director Kit Crawford said. I find the story both poignant as well as relevant to today; the struggle at times to find and fight for who you are and wish to be, confronting society – especially in a time when society pigeonholed women into roles that restricted their dreams and aspirations.”

Crawford and his technical team put a lot of thought into which play is chosen each year. 

“We always aim to pick a play that has a good story and can challenge the actors and this show does both,” technical director Sean Barber said. “The story takes place over a number of years and has both light hearted moments of joy and moments of sadness.”

The fall play took preparation and sacrifice from both the actors and the crew. The cast dedicated a lot of time towards rehearsals  while the crew managed the logistics such as costumes, sets and scripts.

“Time management is a huge challenge,” Baumker said. “Keeping up with school work and not falling behind lets me go to rehearsal solely focused on the play.”

The crew also had evolving responsibilities to juggle in order to make sure the play opened on time. 

“Given all the parts of the whole, from character work to blocking to set build and costumes, putting a show together is basically managing challenges and adapting, changing, deleting [or] adding until we reach opening night,” Crawford said. “One example, costumes: like for most shows we rent. When the costumes arrive, there are times like with this show where the fit of the costume ordered does not match the person ordered for and  alterations/adaptations and last minute changes are needed.”

Due to the pandemic, previous performances had limited sized audiences. The last major production was fall 2019’s “Charlotte’s Web”.

“Over the past few years, shows have been virtual, with masks or done with smaller audiences as everyone recovered from the effect of the pandemic but with the worst of it behind us it will be wonderful to have a large audience for the cast and crew to show off their work to,” Barber said. 

Typically high school actors must play characters well beyond their years, but the cast found it refreshing to play characters their own age. Dow plays 17-year-old Meg March..

“I love how it embraces who I actually am,” Dow said. “Meg messes around with her sisters at home, but when it comes to being out in public, she changes. It challenges me to switch emotions so quickly.”