About 150 came together to perform five shows in four days, and The Sound of Music certainly resonated in Swift Current.

Swift Current Comprehensive High School Fine Arts put on the production along with students from feeder schools and others in the community for four heavily-attended days of shows.

Nightly shows running Wednesday through Saturday, with a Saturday matinee as well, drew in what Stefan Rumpel, the drama director, said was roughly 1,850 people.

"I was super happy about everything," said Rumpel. "Very proud of the students and everybody involved in the production. I think, arguably, from an every-piece-of-the-puzzle-coming-together standpoint, this was probably one of the best productions we've ever put together."

The performance was about two hours and 45 minutes, and Rumpel said he has a general rule that an hour of work is put in for every minute of production length.

That translates to 165 hours.

"It's hard to pick one highlight," Rumpel said. "I think probably for me it was again just that mixture of elements. We have had musicals in the past where we have had singers that I think have blown people away, and we've had productions in the past where we've had a set and backdrops that have been very solid and interesting. And I think this might have been the first one where each of those lined up. I think anybody who came to the production had an opportunity to find something that they were like 'Wow, that was incredible.' At least, that's what I heard from people, and I hope people left it feeling."

Rumpel specifically gave credit to a number of people involved, but couldn't stress how good of a job the conductor, Janine Waines, did.

"I have to give a ton of credit to for the work that she did. I mean, having to stand there and conduct and keep things in time and listen for every piece, every single show, five shows in a row, was an amazing undertaking. Not to mention how well she prepared her band in the first place. So that's just one massive element."

Technical Director Riley Sharp said before the shows that work began at the start of the school year, and the scope of the project grew and grew.

"We basically hit the ground running as soon as school started in the fall. We've enlisted lots of students from some of the elementary schools for some of the child roles, which are double casted. And since that time we knew it was going to be an ambitious project, but things get even more ambitious than you think, so we've been pretty much working on it full time since the start of the year."

Securing the rights to perform The Sound of Music isn't cheap. Rumpel said between obtaining those rights and paying for equipment, the budget was up around $16,000.

"With any musical you have to get the rights to the production, and when you take the big-name one, it's an expensive undertaking," he explained. "So with rights and music rentals, and sound-equipment rentals, and pieces like that, we had a budget for this production of around $16,000, and luckily through great community support we will have almost doubled that.

"That will go towards building our music programs and our drama programs and helping us improve the equipment kids are working with, and ensuring that we can provide them with quality education opportunities and trips to regional drama in spring, and provincial drama, and the music department can put it towards all the great opportunities that they give the kids."

Rumpel added that going beyond just the drama scene at the high school, the community as a whole has a strong arts scene.

"We're lucky in this community to have a hidden gem of an arts scene, between our arts council, The Lyrics, what we're doing at the school, and all of those different pieces of the puzzle, the Art Gallery of Swift Current, we have a really good group of people, and I think kids buy in and that just keeps building it further and further. I hope an experience like this will continue to build the arts in this community and create life-long artists."