Students in Murphy High School’s combined band, dance, chorus and theater program are pressing ahead with their annual gala fundraiser this week, staging a Renaissance-themed showcase despite having lost their auditorium to storm damage more than two years ago.
The performance, which raises money to help fund the following year’s school musical, will be held in the Murphy cafeteria rather than the school’s traditional performance space. A tornado that tore through the Mobile campus in December 2012 badly damaged the auditorium’s roof, sidelining the venue that once housed the program’s lights, sound system and large stage. Repairs remain incomplete more than two years later, forcing students to adapt their fundraising performances to whatever space is available.
This year’s show leans into an old-world theme, featuring a king-and-queen pageant format paired with comedic bits, an approach the program’s fine arts teacher said was chosen because the Renaissance period offers rich material to draw from. About 40 students are expected to take part in the production, which organizers hope will raise roughly $3,000, an increase over the roughly $1,500 typically brought in during past years.
Without a dedicated auditorium, the program has had to redirect some of its fundraising dollars toward renting outside venues and lighting equipment for larger productions, cutting into the budget available for costumes, sets and performance royalties. The lack of a home venue has also limited students’ ability to hold full rehearsals ahead of competitions, though that hasn’t stopped them from succeeding: the group’s chorus students recently advanced from district competition to the statewide contest.
Faculty who run the program say they’ve worked to instill a resilient, audience-first mindset in their students despite the setbacks. The school’s chorus teacher said the students have responded well to being reminded that their performance matters more than the challenges behind the scenes, crediting that mentality with much of the group’s recent competitive success.
Fundraising remains an uphill climb for performing arts at the school, instructors say, since community sponsorships and donations tend to flow more readily toward athletic programs than toward theater and music. Still, faculty describe a fierce sense of pride among the roughly 40 students preparing for Wednesday’s show, many of whom have grown accustomed to putting on ambitious productions in far more modest settings than a proper auditorium stage.
Tickets to the gala, held in the school cafeteria starting in the early evening, are being sold for just $5, with organizers hoping strong turnout will help close the gap left by the ongoing auditorium repairs.