Lights, costumes, and music, Colegio Menor is ready to begin a new year with their first musical “Moana.”

Moana is a musical about an island girl that is prohibited to pass the reef, but to save her people she has to bend that rule. This musical inspired by the Disney movie “Moana “ will be presented on Jan.11-13 by students of Menor that are between 15 to 18 years old. This musical will be the only one of the year.

This musical is organized by Melanie Hilden, Sebastian Bravo and Karen Preckler. Hilden oversees creative aspects, such as costumes, while Bravo is in charge of acting and Preckler directs the music.

The three main artistic departments at Colegio Menor — theatre, art and music — come together to form this event. This year is a particular exciting, because the past two years it hasn’t been possible for a musical to take place.

“We were thinking to do a musical last year, but sadly it wasn’t possible,” said Preckler. “We could say that this musical is the main event of the year.”

Although there has been that many difficulties to bring this event to reality, one of the hardest parts  was to find people with three main qualities: singing, dancing and acting.

“For the auditions this year there were some expectations to get the lead,” said Preckler. “Singing, dancing and acting, were some of the requirements we looked for, finding someone that can do them all was a little difficult.”

Even though the play isn’t presented until January, students have been preparing to put on the best show possible.

“I’ve learned that a musical takes more to prepare than I thought and that things are done so fast,” said senior Laura Matallana, who has a side role in the musical.

While there are always some fears of going on stage for a big performance such as this one, Preckler said that it’s the technical aspects which are always the biggest concern.

“There are some things that could go wrong, technical things mainly,” said Preckler. “But at the end, I tell my students that there is nothing to worry about.”

This is just one of the events that the artistic department has planned to do throughout the 2022-2023 school year.

Moana will hit the PAC January 11-13, 2023, with multiple showings on those days. More details are still to come.