{"id":213304,"date":"2026-03-10T16:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213304\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T16:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:13:09","slug":"bye-bye-birdie-takes-center-stage-at-patrick-henry-high-through-march-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213304\/","title":{"rendered":"Bye Bye Birdie takes center stage at Patrick Henry High through March 14"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\tOverview: Bye Bye Birdie<\/p>\n

\u201cThis production showcases some extraordinary talent, and I cannot wait for our community to see it,\u201d Silva added.<\/p>\n

If you want to take a few hours to get away from all that is going on in the world right now, a visit to Patrick Henry High School<\/a> might be a good idea. <\/p>\n

That idea is even better if you are a fan of musicals.<\/p>\n

The school\u2019s performing arts team is putting on its version of Bye Bye Birdie<\/a> through Saturday.\u00a0 Shows are scheduled for March 12-14 at 7 p.m., with a matinee also taking place on Saturday at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

This is the second production for the team this school year, following their production of Radium Girls<\/a> last November.<\/p>\n

Teacher Alex Silva, who directs and produces the musical, is in her first year at the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been so happy to call this place my work home,\u201d Silva said. \u201cI cannot say enough about the amazing theatre students and performing arts teachers I work with. Our production of Bye Bye Birdie has been a fully collaborative process.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Silva, technical theatre students have been building and painting sets, and performance students are on stage and playing in the orchestra pit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis production showcases some extraordinary talent, and I cannot wait for our community to see it,\u201d Silva said.<\/p>\n

The shows wouldn\u2019t take place without many dedicated students chipping in with a variety of roles and tasks. That includes newcomers and others who have been around for a while.<\/p>\n

\"Bye<\/a>Members of the Patrick Henry High School performing arts team at a Plays by Young Writers produced by Playwrights Project event. (Photo by Alex Silva)<\/p>\n

Freshman Lily Thomson said the team rehearses four to five days a week. This includes work on memorization of lines and songs. According to Thomson, there are some 75 students, cast, crew, and orchestra members involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has put a lot of work into making everything come together, both on stage and off,\u201d\u00a0Thomson said. \u201cEspecially collaborating on the set and staying late to get things painted, rehearsing their songs and dances in their downtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

A student at the other end of the spectrum is senior Isabelle Chase, taking part in her final production on campus.<\/p>\n

Chase played Grace Fryer back in November during the production of Radium Girls.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was about\u00a0the girls who worked in the watch painting factories in the 1920s, and their struggles with getting justice for essentially being poisoned at their workplace,\u201d\u00a0Chase said.<\/p>\n

Taking part in her final school production, Chase has come to love all that it has involved over her four years on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally have been in theater all four years and done a musical each of them, so I\u2019ve genuinely spent more than\u00a012\u00a0hours at school in a day because of theater, but I really do love it,\u201d\u00a0Chase said. \u201cThe people I\u2019ve worked with this year have all shown\u00a0such amazing dedication and have put so much hard work into our productions, and I\u2019m so proud of all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow senior Melody Montoya echoed the sentiment about how much time students and staff have put into this production.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent quite a lot of time staying late after school and committed\u00a0four\u00a0Saturdays to learning and rehearsing song, dance, and blocking,\u201d\u00a0Montoya said. \u201cWe started rehearsals back in January and have committed well over 250 hours, pouring into the town of Sweet Apple, Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montoya said that the students have bonded and connected over Bye Bye Birdie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are exhausted but so excited to share our love of musical theatre with the world,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overview: Bye Bye Birdie \u201cThis production showcases some extraordinary talent, and I cannot wait for our community to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[97959,6569,97960,20495,25368,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-213304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-bye-bye-birdie","tag-exclude-homepage","tag-high-school-theater","tag-musical-theater","tag-patrick-henry-high-school","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}