District musical animates undersea world of SpongeBob

“My kids weren’t allowed to watch ‘SpongeBob’ when they were little,” said Shearer. “We just didn’t have it on in the house.” One of the lead actors, Seleah Hisey, says she grew up on PBS Kids instead of Nickelodeon, but watching the show is now part of the homework assigned by directors Paul and Kelly Atwood.

“SpongeBob,” which debuted in 1999, is fifth-longest-running American animated series. For most millennials, the show is a cultural cornerstone of popular animation, full of quirky, memorable characters.

“SpongeBob the Musical” is set at the bottom of the ocean in a colorful marine town called Bikini Bottom, and in the plot Mount Humongous is going to erupt, so the show is about saving the world with friendship and teamwork.

“It’s eye candy … the songs stick in people’s heads,” Shearer said. “If you Google who has written this stuff, it’s Cyndi Lauper, it’s David Bowie, Lady A and Panic at the Disco — it’s all really contemporary and amazing music. Every song is an ear-worm.”

Hisey, a junior, is cast as one of the two SpongeBob Squarepants, who has an adventure to try to stop the volcano with his best friends Patrick Star, a dumb but humorous pink starfish, and Sandy Cheeks, a brilliant and tough squirrel living under the ocean with the aid of a diving suit. “But he’s really friends with everyone,” said Hisey. “He’s super extroverted and talks to all the people in the town. So he really treasures everybody.”

Hisey and fellow lead actor Oscar LaVergne both radiate this smiling, optimistic spirit on stage and off. They have experience in school drama productions and with Stage Kids, and say they might continue with theater arts in college. Hisey’s exceptional comedic skills were featured as Timon the meerkat in StageTeen’s “The Lion King’’ this past summer.

Hisey says the high schoolers are already really close friends, and then with the district musical they get to interact with elementary school students who “make everything really exciting and energetic.”

At the Monday night rehearsal run-through, the directorial focus was on exaggerated movements by actors to embody the cartoon characters, such as Squidward, the four-legged squid with a perpetual attitude problem. The choreographer is Jennifer Deveraux, principal at WestSide High School, who is also calling the cues for every show on headset.

Refining the soundtrack and stage timing of moments like big red bouncy balls striking the town as a lava flow was another focus of the rehearsal. The scenic design is created and built by parent volunteers, who also become friends and help each other in a type of theater-family, said Shearer.

Students new to theater are learning terms like “places” to get set for a scene, and basics of stage makeup and wig and costume care; the more experienced performers commit fully as actors, singers and dancers for audiences of all ages in this district musical.