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UWF Musical Theater Department Presents ‘Oklahoma!’

OK, Oklahoma Fans! Play Our Trivia Game And Show What You Know About The Beloved Musical. Click through the slideshow to play!

Experience a bit of musical theater history when the University of West Florida puts on a production of a classic favorite. About a dozen UWF students comprise the cast of “Oklahoma!” and Assistant Professor Sara Schock directs them. Audiences can expect to feel as if they are taking a trip back in time.

 “Working with the director has been a blast!” said Elizabeth Watson who plays the wayward but good-hearted Ado Annie. “She definitely makes you put yourself into the situation and into the show. Every time I walk onto that stage, I really do feel that I’m in Oklahoma and it is 1907, and I’ve got two boyfriends… I’ve never really played a role quite like this, so it’s really a lot of fun.”

The show, which has been in rehearsals for several weeks, goes up at the Center for the Fine and Performing Arts on UWF’s Pensacola Campus. The musical features such well-known songs as "Oh What a Beautiful Morning!", "I Cain't Say No," People Will Say We’re In Love” and “Kansas City,” not to mention the title song "Oklahoma!"

“One of the things I enjoy most about the show is that it’s a huge collaborative art between the entire theater department.” said Hannah Sharpe, who plays Laurey Williams, the main love interest in the musical. “So for every person that you see on stage, there are also musicians down below us, and there are tech people behind us making all the costumes, doing all the changes, fixing all the lights… and then all the incredible sets as well,”  

The multiple Tony Award winning musical tells the story of Curly, an irascible cowboy who competes with a surly farmhand for the hand of Laurey, a beautiful farm girl.  

Show times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday Feb. 19 and 20 and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21. “Oklahoma!” runs again at the same times the following weekend, Feb. 26, 27, and 28.
To reserve tickets call: (850) 857-6285.

This article is part of a collaboration between WUWF and the UWF Center for Research and Economic Opportunity.