Photo courtesy of Hannah Reynolds. She poses after the show with her flowers she received for performing well in Matilda.
Last weekend, Hannah Reynolds starred as Matilda in the school musical that entertained the Hastings area. Reynolds has been in theatre since she was a child.
The performances featured a matinee, which is an afternoon performance, to seventh graders from Hastings Middle School on Thursday, a Friday and Saturday night show, and a matinee on Sunday afternoon. All performances brought in full audiences filled with kids and adults waiting to hear the story of Matilda.
“People came in there and they might’ve been struggling with something, or they might’ve just wanted to escape the world for a little bit. By playing Matilda and performing, I got to take the audience on a whole different story and I might have even inspired someone to do something,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds loves to share her work with an audience, and it has been one of the motivating tactics she has kept in mind while doing theatre at Hastings High School. Previous to entering high school, Reynolds spent summers at Hastings Community Theatre learning how to play lead roles.
“I did almost all of their kids’ shows in the summers, and The Little Mermaid was the first one I did. It was one of the shows that made me fall in love with theatre. HCT helped me fall in love with theatre, and I also had my first lead role ever at HCT. I was Beth in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and that was my first role where I was on stage a lot and had my own monologues. That also helped me prepare for Matilda because Matilda had a bunch of monologues and Beth did too,” Reynolds said.
A key difference for Reynolds between playing Matilda versus other lead roles is the fact that she relates so much to Matilda.
“Matilda was really fun to play. When I was a kid I was always telling stories, pretending, and reading. Growing up it was kind of cool to be able to step back into that childish world, and playing Matilda has made me realize that I am older now. I still have a kid in me and I can use that to my advantage,” Reynolds said.
While channeling her own inner child, Reynolds also received comments from little children who felt inspired by her performance.
“A lot of little kids came up to me after the show and told me how much they loved it. One of them explained how they felt motivated to do something and stand up for themself. A bunch of the kids felt like they were heard,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds feels motivated by positive responses to her performances. She feels all of the hard work put into creating a show is rewarded by the influence it has on the audience members.
“I love being able to perform. I’ve also liked pretending and having fun on stage along with singing and telling stories. Matilda’s biggest thing was singing two songs that tell a huge story. I loved being able to hang out with my friends in my senior show, and everyone had so much fun doing it. It was nice to have such a fun time with my friends knowing that next year I will be doing it with different people,” Reynolds said.
