ANDOVER – A couple of years ago, Taylor Brown disappointed her theater students by not selecting a show they desperately wanted to perform.
As the director of the Pymatuning Valley Theater Department, Brown shocked her students in notifying them that the 2026 school production was going to be “Footloose,” the very show they were so disappointed to miss out on performing.
“It was not on the list of options, but it was actually on my radar a couple of years ago,” Brown said. “Then, the Ashtabula Arts Center did it so I took it off. This year, the reason I surprised them and brought it back was this show has so many character opportunities and I have such an amazing group of talent right now that I wanted to give as many opportunities to these kids as possible. It was the right show and it was really fun to surprise them completely.”
There was a reason Brown wanted her students to perform “Footloose.”
“This has probably been the most fun I have ever had directing a show,” Brown said. “I match their energy, they match my energy, and it’s just been full-throttle since the beginning, and I’ve loved every minute of it.”
The Pymatuning Valley High School theater department will perform “Footloose” on Friday, March 6, and Saturday, March 7, at 7 p.m. and on Sunday, March 8, at 2 p.m. Tickets for adults are $12 and $10 for students and seniors. Concessions will be available.
The cast will include Justin Summers as the Rev. Shaw Moore; Isaac Varela as Ren McCormack; Karis Peyton as Ariel Moore; Baylee Fogus as Wendy Jo; Loretta Nutter as Vi Moore; Davon Lowe as Lyle Bickle; Donovan Warner as Cowboy Bob; Mason Spencer as Jeter; Nathan Jernigan as Willard Hewitt; Elizabeth Jernigan as Urleen; Mya Huffman as Piper; and McCamey Compan as Rusty.
The cast includes 38 students. The crew includes nine students and a small rock band will provide the soundtrack.
“It is a lot of work,” Brown said. “Our cast size is about 40 this year, which is pretty large for us. This is also the first year that I have had multiple athletes. I have a lot of basketball players, boys and girls. I have wrestlers this year. We have had to kind of double down a lot on Saturday practices, because I don’t ever want anybody not to be able to have the opportunity to be in this because they’re in other things. I just adapted and did what I could. Those Saturdays were long days, but everybody was always here.”
Brown is the director with music conducted by Justin Dye. The show was adapted by Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie.
Though the story of “Footloose” is well known through two movies and it has been performed by theater departments everywhere, the PV theater students have freedom to make the characters their own.
“I always try to present my actors and actresses with the opportunity to develop their own character and then show me what they have,” Brown said. “I try not to micromanage, as hard as that can be sometimes, because I want to see what they want to bring to their character. We’ll go from there. These kids have delivered. I’m just so proud of how much thought they’ve put into every scene, every costume piece, every emotion. It’s been amazing.”
The energy of the show helps the actors in some ways.
“As soon as that pit starts playing that opening number, you can’t help but feel the energy,” Brown said. “We had our first rehearsal with our pit, and it was just radiating out of everybody. All the pieces are starting to come together and their energy is just unmatched. It sucks you in. You want to be a part of it, and you’re on the edge of your seat with everything that they do in this show.”
One of the iconic moments in the original “Footloose” movie was the opening scene and the PV students have emphasized getting that scene perfect.
“We’ve spent a long time on the opener and the closer, because it sets the tone and ends the tone,” Brown said. “We spent a lot of time because it’s high-energy singing, it’s high-energy dancing. It’s a lot and it’s a lot of people moving.”
“Footloose” will feature a lot of dancing and singing for the cast.
“It makes things 10 times more exciting, especially when that curtain opens for the first time,” Fogus said. “I’ve done four high school productions, including this one, and I know how it is every time that curtain opens. Last year, it opened with more of a very soft and elegant kind of setting. This one’s very in-your-face and jumps at you. It’s vivid, bright, and it’s so fun. I get to do so many things in the opening and that makes it more fun. That kind of bright in-your-face part of it stays with you the entire time. That part of the show does not go away, not even a little bit, even when you’re in Beaumont. ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ is definitely a very in-your-face song, which contrasts the part of Beaumont that’s not in your face. (The energy) keeps everything rolling along.”
The actors can’t help but enjoy that aspect.
“It’s just so much fun,” Peyton said. “You have all these fun songs that are really iconic, but then when you actually look deeper at the story, there’s so much more to it than meets the eye. When you’re actually looking at these characters and why they’re doing what they’re doing, it’s just so interesting.”
Some of the actors like that the tone of the show shifts from scene to scene.
“It’s pretty fun,” Summers said. “I’m the pastor. Obviously, I don’t dance that much and dancing is my favorite thing. The contrast in the show itself is amazing because you’ll go from like a really high-energy song, and then it’ll push you into like the next scene that will be slow and laid back.”
Summers found a kinship with the character of the Rev. Shaw Moore.
“He’s a pastor,” Summers said. “I’m Christian and people swear in the show all the time, and I don’t like to do that. My character doesn’t, so that’s good. Two, he’s a hurting man because his son died and he is coping with it. Ren coming into town just makes him start to think about that stuff. I like how, throughout the story, he heals. He goes through things. Once he heals, the town heals. ‘Footloose’ is about small-town healing.”
Varela was indifferent to which role he would portray.
“Honestly, when I auditioned, I just told them, give me whoever,” Varela said. “I guess they decided that it was Ren that was fit for me. I told myself, whoever I get, I’m going to put my heart and soul into that character. It just happened to be Ren.”
Becoming Ren has been a fun journey for Varela, however.
“I enjoy the songs,” Varela said. “He has really good songs, and the different scenes that he has. There are some scenes where he’s very guarded, very secluded and by himself. Then there are some scenes where he’s so vulnerable and so open and an emotional character. You would never expect that. He has such a broad range of a human being, so it’s really fun to be able to act that out and also just kind of toy around with that.”
Peyton has enjoyed the numerous sides of playing Ariel Moore.
“I like the way that she tries to cover up her own insecurities, what she’s actually feeling,” Peyton said. “The way we’re able to see her open up throughout the show is always so fun to do.”
The complexity of the character has brought enjoyment to Peyton as she performs.
“She has a lot of different masks that she wears depending on who she’s around, so that was really fun to work on as I was acting,” Peyton said. I have amazing co-stars that really helped me getting into different mindsets for when she’s acting different ways.”
That complexity gives Peyton freedom to portray the character the best way she sees fit.
“We were talking about where she has so many different versions of herself and I felt like I had so much creativity to explore different ways to say lines,” Peyton said. “I had Miss Brown and her mom helping us figure out certain lines that they were telling me, ‘She’s angry here.’ I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t see that,’ but I totally understand what they’re saying. It was really fun to get to explore.”
Wendy Jo allows Fogus to explore a different side of herself.
“She holds a lot of harmonies,” Fogus said. “She is in a very gossipy friend group, which is a very fun and interesting character to play, because it’s not what my friend group is in real life. I love the song ‘Somebody’s Eyes,’ because it’s such a powerful song, because we get to take Ren through all these disagreements and arguments and really show the audience the conflict that Ren has faced in Beaumont. My character is one of the characters that gets to do that, and gets to take him to those places. It’s fun to kind of show Ren what he’s doing and what he’s causing. That’s kind of what drew me to her.”
