On Sunday March 9, 2008 Shorewood Intermediate School and Messmer Preparatory Catholic School put on their production of Willy Wonka. The cast of sixty performed all shows in the Shorewood High School auditorium.

The best part of the whole process for Anne Krings, the music teacher at Messmer, was the students “understanding what it means to work as a team on, and off stage.” They started out with a cast of over seventy. Although some students quit the performance, Krings observed the increased commitment to the show with the remaining actors and actresses. “The ones who really wanted to be here stayed.”

They used a projector to show different backgrounds, and to create the atmosphere of the infamous chocolate factory. Along with their scenery projections, their performance also included several dance numbers.

Shorewood High School Alumna Megan Kaminsky was the dance choreographer. Kaminsky, who participated in drama when she was in high school, studies theater at UW-Milwaukee and takes dance classes. Although she had fun, it was a challenge to teach dances to such a large cast. “There was a good amount of big dance numbers, so we tried to keep it simple,” she said. In her opinion, dances got better every performance. “All the dances went well. There was a lot of energy.”

Ellen Gough, an eighth grader at Shorewood Intermediate School, was a part of the chorus. “This was my first play at SIS. It was really fun. It was different from the ones I was in at Lake Bluff,” she said. One of Gough’s favorite parts was “getting to know all the Messmer kids.” Many of the other students expressed that getting to know people from the other school was one of the best parts in the whole process.

“It was neat to see the students from two different schools work together,” said Kaminsky. This is the third year that Shorewood and Messmer have done a co-production. Judging from the large amount of people in attendance, the play and the combination of the schools turned out to be very positive.