Published December 17, 2021

The Wheeling High School Musical Theater Program’s presentation of “Cry-Baby the Musical” has been selected as part of the program for the upcoming Illinois High School Theater Festival. The cast will perform the musical twice on January 7 at Illinois State University in Normal.

This is the second time the Wheeling Musical Theater Program has been honored with an invitation to perform downstate; its team performed “In The Heights” at the 2017 Festival.

Director Stephen Colella from WHS says, "After the last two years of insanity, I had one, and only one goal in mind this year when picking a show for this group of students: something fun. The score is cemented in the genre of 1950s Rockabilly and is outstanding, and the characters are ridiculous, so it was a no brainer with the kids that I have. Who wants drama after the past two years?"

Everyone in the District 214 community can see what the excitement is all about! To prepare for the Festival, the team has added two encore performances of “Cry-Baby”—at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 29 and Thursday, Dec. 30, right at the Wheeling High School Theater, 900 S. Elmhurst Road. The jumping, jiving Tony Award-nominated “Cry-Baby” is rated PG-13.

Tickets to the December encore performances at WHS are $10 and available at the following link: https://tickets.d214.org/show/91.