INTERVIEW: Jason Richins, Director at Dodge City High School

Bowen Boyack of KBN: What inspired you to do a sequel to your 2013 show this year?

Jason Richins: The Dodge City community had had an especially difficult first couple of months in 2018.  In addition to that, our band was coming off a disappointing marching season.  I felt it necessary to do a show that would make people happy, that would make people smile and more importantly, relate to some of the negative things that were happening within our city.  Our show Ridiculous in 2013 was about discovering your uniqueness.  We relayed that message to the audience using a circus-like theme where you would witness different people throughout the show discovering their talents.  That show ended at the beginning of the circus.  So Ridiculous2 (squared) was about those people putting themselves out there and not being afraid to be who they were.  The 2019 show actually started with the last 60 seconds of the 2013 show (like the Back to the Future sequels), but in this show, the curtain opens to unveil the circus.

BB: What inspired your musical selections? To you, what does the word, "Ridiculous" mean and how does it resonate with your students?

JR: Well the preshow was the final piece form 2013, so that made sense.  Then I knew we wanted something circus-like that wasn’t an actual circus march.  So we kind of stumbled across this piece called Professor Pumplestickle that sounds very circus and quirky.  It turned out to be perfect.  Then we went on to This Is Me from The Greatest Showman which, if you listen to the lyrics, basically embodies everything that our show was about.  This piece was not in the original concept, but after hearing the lyrics, it just made perfect sense to me.  Then we ended with another piece from the same movie, honestly because it was just a good, fun piece of music that would put a nice punctuation on the show.  The original show was called Ridiculous because it was inspired by the kids and the ridiculous things that I would always catch them doing in the band room.  So I guess you could say that it resonates with them because it is them!

BB:Tell me more about your trip to Orlando this year.

JR: For Orlando, we’ll be hanging out in Universal Studios for 2 days and then spend 3 days in Disney.  We’ll be marching in the Citrus Bowl Parade as well as marching through Magic Kingdom!

BB: Looking forward to 2019, any plans that you would be willing to share?

JR: Well…my students will tell you that I’m more or less a prison when it comes to letting out show secrets.  But I can tell you this:  We’ll come back next year even better than we were this year.  Our show will challenge the kids musically and physically.  But, it will also be entertaining to the audience.  I think that’s the big thing most bands are missing in their shows.  We want the audience to WANT to come back and see the show.  We want them to discover new things about the show that maybe they didn’t see the last time they saw it.  I always tell the kids that a marching band show should be like your favorite movie, you can watch it over and over again and not get bored.  I see so many shows these days that put me to sleep after 60 seconds.  I don’t want that for our audience or our kids.  Instead, The Pride is going to give you something memorable in 2019.

Thanks to Mr. Richins and good luck to the PSWK on the rest of their season and their trip to Orlando!