High school musicals, student art award winners are inspiring [Unscripted column] | Entertainment

I spent last weekend immersing myself in art created by high school students — both the kind you find hanging on walls and the kind you see on stage.

On Friday and Saturday nights, I saw musicals presented by the students of Lampeter-Strasburg and Hempfield high schools, and on Sunday afternoon I took in the  in the galleries of two Lancaster city art institutions.

Those who may be naive enough to think all teenagers do these days is sit around scrolling on their devices need to see the results of the obvious hours of work, discipline and talent that are required to produce these inspiring stage productions and artworks.

Theater

In the 40 years I’ve lived in Lancaster County, I’ve watched the level of local youth theater evolve from good to amazing. Or, perhaps, I just didn’t notice the quality of high school artists years ago, because I wasn’t taking advantage of the chance to see more of these extraordinary young performers sharing their talent on stage.

It seems I’ve been attending high school theater all my life, but, from the 1960s to the 2020s, it has mainly been those shows in which friends or family members — siblings, nieces and a great-niece — were performing, working on the stage crew or being part of the creative team. (Plus, I was in the chorus of my own hometown school musical more than 50 years ago.)

I’ve seen a lot of theater in Lancaster County over the decades, but have only gone to a few high school musicals — mostly those directed by friends — and a handful of “Junior,” “Teen” or “Student Edition” versions of shows presented by community theater companies.

Some recent experiences have shown me just how much I’ve been missing out on the opportunity to experience some great theater — often at a bargain price. (Since I’m a senior citizen, my ticket to most high school musicals around here costs me just $10.)

Seeing student productions of shows like “Hadestown: Teen Edition” at Ephrata Performing Arts Center and elsewhere, and “Footloose” at Susquehanna Stage, have reminded me just how lucky we are to have so many talented young artists in the area, and that they have countless opportunities to train and perform at local theater camps, studios and other programs.

Seeing McCaskey High School’s “The Wedding Singer” last year — and then watching it win best high school musical for our region at the Hershey Theatre Apollo Awards — demonstrated again that these students’ performances are of an astonishingly high caliber, and are worth seeing and supporting as often as possible.

Covering the Apollo Awards — which reward high school performances and productions from schools and home-school groups throughout the region — for the first time last May was also eye-opening for me. Young artists delivered moving monologues from their fall plays and spectacular song-and-dance numbers from the spring musicals from Lancaster and surrounding counties.

I thought about those performances for days afterward.

Last weekend’s “Urinetown the Musical” at Lampeter-Strasburg and “Les Miserables” at Hempfield were great evenings of theater, featuring some stunning solo voices, great choreography and choral numbers that caused goosebumps. The cast of “Urinetown” understood the assignment in delivering the dark comedy in this satire of both capitalism and the effectiveness of revolutionary protest. And the “Les Mis” cast captured the passion of a very emotional, challenging show about love, redemption and revolution.

I already have my ticket for McCaskey’s upcoming Shakespearean spoof, “Something Rotten!” and I plan to take in a lot more youth performances this year at schools and at theater companies like Servant Stage.

Art

I think it was seeing all that high school talent on stage that propelled me to spend last Sunday afternoon viewing the winning artwork of the Young Artists and Scholastic Art Awards Exhibition, split between the galleries of the Lancaster Museum of Art and Pennsylvania College of Art & Design.

If you want to be thoroughly impressed and inspired by the level of talent and creativity these high school artists show in their work, I highly recommend that you do the same.

The students at high schools all over the county have produced paintings, sculptures, mixed-media works, pottery, photography, jewelry, manga and animated short films — many of which would be worthy of display in galleries beyond a student art show.

Many of the works are so sophisticated and imaginative, I wouldn’t have known this is a student show if the exhibit’s name wasn’t right there on the wall.

There’s an evocative black-and-white photo series set partially in a graveyard, and colorful, soulful portraits of parents and friends. The exhibit contains intricate ceramic pieces depicting cakes and pie slices, and a giant sculpture of a Monster energy drink can.

There’s whimsy in the form of a catfish portrait, posed as the “Mona Lisa” with its fins folded like hands; a giant digital camera composed of corrugated cardboard; and a soft, layered sculpture of a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich.

A black-and-white painted work shows a stressed-looking young person with such life documents as a report card and job and college application forms seemingly exploding from the back of their head.

Many works include images of skulls, skeletons or manga characters, and there are lots of works in a variety of media that include pets, birds and other animals.

There’s stylized poster art for singers Taylor Swift and The Weeknd, and a fascinating, neon-colored sculpture of a giant face that must be seen up close to register all the bits of detritus embedded in it — a Matchbox car, a crayon, a plastic ice cream bar, art supplies, a plethora of buttons and strings of beads.

There’s even a mixed-media piece that’s a melange of recent news clippings from LNP, a drawing of the Statue of Liberty and images of celebrity eyes, like those of Malala Yousafzai.

You have until May to see a high school musical or middle school show for this season, and until April 19 to see the scholastic art show.

Don’t set yourself up for the regrets I have for missing out on years of experiencing Lancaster County’s young talent.

Mary Ellen Wright is deputy team leader for the Work & Play reporting team for LNP | LancasterOnline. “Unscripted” is a weekly entertainment column produced by a rotating team of writers.

IF YOU GO

• To find out what high school musicals and middle school shows are on the schedule from now through May, visit the LancasterOnline roundup at lanc.news/SchoolMusicals2026.

• The Young Artists and Scholastic Art Awards Exhibition is on view at the Lancaster Museum of Art, 135 N Lime Street, Lancaster, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, and at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, 204 N. Prince St., Lancaster, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday. Suggested donation at the museum is $5.