This past Wednesday, the Wayland High School Theater Ensemble (WHSTE) opened its spring musical, “Beauty and the Beast.” This is the first time WHSTE has ever performed this musical.

“I wanted to do a piece that I’ve never done before,” director Richard Weingartner said. “Even though Beauty and the Beast isn’t a play that’s very old, it has a very traditional story. Last year, we did a rock opera. Beauty and the Beast is on the other end of the musical spectrum, and we wanted to do something totally different from last year.”

Despite just being a new musical, “Beauty and the Beast” was also unique in that many roles were double casted. In the last few years, WHSTE hasn’t double casted roles. Double casting means that two students play a role in different performances.

“We had a lot of talent,” sophomore Jackson DiIanni, a member of the musical, said. “I think we had a lot of situations where two people could fit a certain role, so [the directors] didn’t want to waste anyone’s talent. This would give the show more variety and two branches instead of one.”

For many of the members, while double casting provided a variety between the cast, it also made rehearsals difficult.

“It’s definitely been challenging having to do double casting, and I’m not a big fan of it,” senior Julia Terranova said. “I’d rather the show be single cast, especially since it’s my last WHSTE show. I thought it was weird that we ended up doing it because we’ve never done it before in a show that I’ve been in here.”

“I definitely prefer when it’s single cast, but I did think it was really interesting,” DiIanni said. “The only reason I didn’t like it was because it made it difficult to line up rehearsals where one cast might learn something and the rest of the case hasn’t or they learn it differently, and it doesn’t line up, and they have to change things for lightings and costumes.”

Terranova and DiIanni were two of the students double casted. Terranova played a the role of a Silly Girl on Wednesday and Friday and the enchanted Wardrobe on Thursday and Saturday. DiIanni played the character of Cogsworth on Wednesday and Friday and a Silly Girl on Thursday and Saturday.

“It is difficult learning two characters, but I did like having two parts because it gave me a variety,” DiIanni said.