LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts to Present ALL SHOOK UP

In a triumphant return after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the students of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts will take to the stage this month for the all-school musical performance of "All Shook Up," a 2004 Broadway musical that takes the music of Elvis Presley and turns it into a story of inspiration and inclusion.

LaGuardia students last performed in an all-school musical in 2019, and the school has been preparing for a return to the stage for more than a year. In choosing "All Shook Up," LaGuardia sought a show that would be fun and entertaining, but also provided an uplifting message of acceptance.

The LaGuardia cast of "All Shook Up" includes 51 students from all five boroughs of New York City, partnering with 11 students making up the pit orchestra and 91 dedicated tech students, who are responsible for everything from building the set, to creating costumes, to working the lighting. Rehearsals have been going on since late-October and will have amassed more than 250 hours by the February 13 opening performance.

"It's so exciting to see these kids have this opportunity to revisit their passion for on-stage performance and to watch them recapture the love and talent that's so much a part of them," said LaGuardia drama teacher and "All Shook Up" director Lee Lobenhofer.

The pandemic has produced particularly complex challenges for the LaGuardia community, as art shows and performances moved online during the 2020-2021 school year. During the 2021-2022 school year, students have returned to the art gallery and stage for a series of spectacular drama, dance, fine arts, and music shows and performances.

The challenges for LaGuardia's technical theater studio were particularly significant as well, as some students hadn't had access to physical tools to learn their crafts for more than a year. The production of "All Shook Up" represents a chance for them, too, to shine once again.

Rounding out LaGuardia's production team is a talented trio of choreographers, who are all 2016 graduates of LaGuardia high school. Led by Dharon Jones, a LaGuardia dance major who most recently was seen as Riff in the 2020 Broadway revival of West Side Story, the group also includes Adriel Flete, who recently starred in Steven Spielberg's 2021 West Side Story as Julito, and Victoria Fiore, who was featured in the 2019 FX networks series Fosse/Vernon.

"All Shook Up" marks LaGuardia's 21st all-school musical. LaGuardia alumni who participated in the school's musicals, including Timothée Chalamet, Lilli Cooper, Lorna Courtney, Micaela Diamond, Jharrel Jerome, Dharon Jones, Samuel Henry Levine and Tomas Matos, have gone on to perform on Broadway and in film.

The "All Shook Up" cast and orchestra will perform in masks, which adds another set of challenges but, Lobenhofer said, also serves as a symbol of the many difficulties the students have overcome to make this production a reality.

"All Shook Up" will be performed in front of a limited live audience, made up of students, faculty and staff, and family members of the cast and crew, but four of the six performances also will be live-streamed for free via LaGuardia High School's website. Performances will take place on Sunday Feb. 13 at 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., Monday Feb. 14 and Tuesday Feb. 15 at 5 p.m. , and Wednesday Feb. 16 and Thursday Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. The Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday performances will be available via livestream, which can be viewed at www.laguardiahs.org/events.