Students ready to put first big performance of year

George Salter Academy in West Bromwich is putting on a production of Annie, the first time it has been able to put on a full-scale school musical since 2020, between June 21 and June 23.

The cast members, who are all aged between 11 and 18-years-old, have been busy with rehearsals ahead of the first show and head of Drama Josie Clark has said they have been looking forward to being able to perform again.

She said: "We have a history of putting on whole school productions at this school, having done productions such as Sister Act, Les Miserables, West Side Story, Chicago, High School Musical and Little Shop of Horrors, so we have a real range.

"We took part in a global project in November called "Altogether now, which was a montage of some of the most well-known musicals, but this is our first chance to do a whole-school production since 2020.

"We decided to do Annie as we felt like it was a really inclusive production and was about unity and coming together and was just infectiously fun."

Ms Clark said the cast underwent an audition process early in the spring within the different disciplines and everyone who auditioned was assigned a role, with the main roles being narrowed down to those who impressed most.

She said: "We've got Millie Linton-Green and Ivayla Georgeieva in the role of Annie as both fitted the image and impressed in the audition process for their discipline, preparation, creativity and their interpretation of the role.

"The whole cast have shown that as well and everyone has worked really hard to get this production ready and it's just an energetic and engaging piece of theatre.

"I would encourage people to come down as it's a celebration of the return of arts and an opportunity for our young people to revisit this creative platform and have fun."

Tickets are available to buy for all three days of the performance and can be bought by going to yourboxoffice.co.uk/george-salter-academy/804-annie-jr