As a former theatre student in high school, I was extremely compelled to watch NBC’s new show “RISE,” it entails an English teacher who decides he wants to become the director of the high school’s drama department. This show has producers from the Broadway musical Hamilton, Actress Auli’i Cravalho from Moana, and other hidden starts that make for a good balance of newcomers and big names to NBC.

The lead character’s name is Lou Mazzuchelli, played by Josh Radnor. He quickly gets the job and decides that his first role as director is to change the school musical from “Grease” to “Spring Awakening,” which in reality could probably never happen in a high school setting, for a couple reasons. First, Spring Awakening is a show that has a lot of adult content that most schools would never approve of, also the rights would be extremely expensive to do because it is such a well-known show and this school is in a small town and doesn’t seem to have an extravagant theatre fund. In the show, the principal, played by Stanley Mathis, seems to only focus on football, a common TV theme. This is a bit predictable for NBC and is almost unavoidable when creating a high school drama, but hopefully, it will progress throughout the season.

In all honesty, I hope this show does well, not just because I love theatre and the possible making of another “Glee” type show, but also because I enjoy the cast and think it’s promising. I know because of NBC they most likely cast young and incredibly talented performers to create the show, and that will hopefully show off in their performances. Also, I hope I get to see some similar circumstances as to when I was heavily involved in high school theatre, and that they can make it as realistic as possible.