COLLEGEVILLE (WJON News) -- A classic musical returns to the stage this weekend at the Paramount Center for the Arts. St. John's Prep is presenting the Hunchback of Notre Dame for their spring performance.

Director Brandon Anderson says they wanted to do a bigger production and the Hunchback fit the bill. He says the play also represents a lot of the same values as the school:

"Really the story's about bringing people together, welcoming them, celebrating differences, that's really what we stand for here at the prep school with our benedictine values of hospitality and respecting people."

How big of a production is it?

Anderson says it is one of the biggest productions the school has done and it includes a full choir made up of students, community members, and members of the Great River Chorale. As part of the play, they rented a set with a choir loft, platforms, and 5 bell units.

They also will have a custom-made rose window replicating the rose window in the actual Notre Dame. Plus, a magician with four illusions and a pit orchestra. Anderson says the rented stage poses some challenges for them:

"It's providing its own complications of sorts because the Paramount, you know, the logistics of its arriving on a fifty-three-foot semi, just like a semi would pull up to Wal-Mart so it's quite large and it's full, and its a very very big set."

Has the music been a challenge?

Musical Director Jeff Engholm says adding in a full choir has been difficult too:

"But the choir is definitely a new thing that's something that I don't remember ever doing before or anything like that at least for a show here so adding that aspect was, was a challenge and a new, a new thing to overcome."

He says finding a time when everyone can get together for rehearsals has been hard as well:

"Yeah and the trickiest part is a lot of the members of the pit and a lot of the members of the choir are community adults and so they can't necessarily come from 3:30 till 5:00 whatever, so we've had to arrange for several later night rehearsals, 6:00 to 8:00 rehearsals kind of thing so that's been a little different this year."

Engholm says the choir and pit orchestra have been rehearsing since early January.

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Anderson says Hunchback has been educational for the students as well with the real Notre Dame scheduled to reopen late this year after a fire destroyed the upper part of the cathedral in 2019. The Hunchback runs Friday through Sunday, tickets are $25 for adults and $17 for children.

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