By Daisy Moriarty ’25
There were fifteen new cast and crew members in this year’s winter musical, Urinetown. This new group consisted of five freshmen cast members: Poppy Mand, Siena Castonguay, Oliver Severino, Dylan Ram, and Julie Dowden. Grace Harlow, a junior, and Ava Hu and Liz Watt, both sophomores, joined the winter musical for the first time this year as well. Julie Dowden revealed, “I chose to do the musical because I sometimes find it hard to get out of my comfort zone and will find it hard to make decisions. So I find acting a great way to get out of what I’m used to and not overthink. I also find it to be a great way to try and step into another person’s shoes and see what they might be thinking in those situations.”
Three students from Washington Montessori School, Summer Castonguay, Vivian Burnham, and Sarah Spannhake, also joined the Urinetown ensemble. Summer’s sister, Siena, is a freshman at Gunn, and her father, Mr. Castonguay, is The Frederick Gunn School’s Director of Arts and Gunn’s Music Director. She was joined by Vivian, whose father is Mr. Burnham, The Frederick Gunn School’s Theatre Director and the director of Urinetown. Sarah is a close friend of Vivienne’s, and Mr. Burnham knew that these three middle schoolers would be a great addition to the Urinetown cast. Luckily, Poppy, Julie, and Siena graduated from WMS just last year, so they already knew and had worked with the WMS students who joined the cast!
Mr. Jiang, a math teacher at Gunn, also made his winter musical debut, playing a UGC worker and Mrs. Millennium. He also played Old Man Strong on the closing night of Urinetown, because Ezekiel Hatcher, who played Old Man Strong in rehearsals and the first two shows, was out sick. Before playing Senator Fipp in Urinetown, Oliver Severino was the understudy for Peter Shaw in Silent Sky, the 2023 Fall Play. Before playing Tiny Tom in Urinetown, Ava Hu had been part of the Student Design team in Men on Boats, the 2022 Fall Play. For Grace and Liz, Urinetown was their first time working on a show at Gunn.
The members of the student design team who had not worked on a musical before were Jade Vu, Giovanna Liu, and Joanna Jin. Jade, a junior at Gunn, had worked as a designer for Silent Sky, but seniors Giovanna and Joanna had not worked on any Gunn productions before. Having new perspectives in the cast and crew of the Winter Musical made the experience of working on Urinetown more interesting, and these new perspectives brought so much to the stage.
