nel Spotlight is on Dustin Ousley, the chorus teacher at Colleton County High School. Housley is a native South Carolinian, He grew up in the upstate, graduated Hillcrest High School in Simpsonville, attended Furan University, and received his master’s at UNC Greensboro. He earned his doctorate from the University of South Carolina. After teaching at various levels, he took the choral director’s position at the high school. Ousley says, “Theater is kind of where it started for me. I’ve been a career choral director, and my degrees are in choral conducting, but the bug bit me in middle school when I started working backstage and auditioned for a show. And I’ve probably been in, you know, 65 to 70 community theater slash semi to professional productions. I have a lot of music directing experience, a handful of directing experiences, but that’s kind of where my heart is now, really just being able to explore character and lean into desire and fear as a character, which I think ends up having us learn a lot about ourselves too, and so that’s just been real fun for me.”
This is Ousley’s first year at Colleton County High School and in addition to Chorus, he also coaches volleyball and teaches drama. This year his first production at the High School will be “Into the Woods.” This production is significant to him. Ousley says, “Into the Woods”, is a very important show to me. I played the character of Baker in 1997 as a 16-year-old, I’ve been in the show several times and it’s just a very personal show to me. We’ve got a great cast. They are working so hard and just finished blocking yesterday, and we have a month and a half to make it good. “Into the Woods”, is essentially fairy tale characters that want something, and they go into the woods to get it, and at the end of the first act, they have it and live happily ever after question mark. In the second act, things start to go wrong, and they start to realize maybe this isn’t what I wanted, or they start to question why they wanted it. Basically, it’s kind of a “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it,” kind of thing combined with the fact that children are always listening. It gets really dark and real deep in act two. It’s just kind of the fairy tale characters mingle together and the story kind of goes from there. The musical was nominated for a Tony Award.”
Ousley adds, I think the biggest thing “Into the Woods” explores is vulnerability. The courage to walk into a scary situation and do it anyway. I think that its really not happening a lot anymore from generation to generation. If people are really listening, everything that comes out of your mouth to your children is being heard and interpreted, sometimes incorrectly, sometimes correctly, and it’s just the responsibility that we must set up the next generation is at the top of where we should be focused. So “Into the Woods”, I would say that 60% of the show is a moral, life lesson. If you’re really paying attention, you could learn a lot.”
The cast includes a mix of experienced seniors and new students, with performances scheduled for May 16-18. Ousey says, “The core of the group is a very committed group of seniors who have gone through, three different teachers in four years, and they’ve hung in there because they love it. The musical has kind of been the Super Bowl for this program for a long time. The seniors make up the core of the cast, and we have four home school students who come here just for this class, who are doing a great job. We have a handful of sophomores and juniors as well, but that core group of seniors just that have been probably the growth of the program for the last four years. This show, I think, really showcases them and gives them opportunities to shine, so we hopefully put the exclamation mark on their four-year experience.”
“Into the Woods” started production early with auditions in October. This was to allow time to fully rehearse its complicated music and production requirements. The students run all aspects of the production will assistance of parents building sets and assisting backstage.
The performances are at the Colleton County High School Performing arts Center; May, 16, 17th and 18th. The 16th and 17th are 7pm and there’s a matinee on the 18th at 4pm. Tickets are $10 and the show is open to the public.
Ousley is looking forward to the production and hopes everyone comes out to see the show.
