Riverton High School Music/Dance/Theatre class students have the honor to premiere the musical “The Clockmaker’s Daughter” for American audiences. Because the show has been playing exclusively in England, even theater-enthusiasts are unfamiliar with the show, so MDT class teacher and show director Clin Eaton and some of the lead actors tried to explain what audience members can expect.

“It is a beautiful show, and I'm so excited to be able to bring it to life,” Cece Heiner said. “It's cute, but it's sad.”

Promotional poster for Riverton High School’s upcoming theater production. (Clin Eaton/RHS)

“[It’s a] fairy tale mix of ‘Edward Scissorhands’ meets ‘Wicked’ meets ‘Frankenstein’ with a splash of ‘The Secret Garden,’” Eaton said.

“The story is really sweet, and you really feel for these characters,” Carter Reid said.

It’s “highly emotional” with “love and also despair, but then hope and then sadness and grief,” Andrew Chapman said.

“It's like a mix of ‘Pinocchio’ and ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast,’” Apollo Pearson said. “It's just a whole mix of all these different stories and that's what I love about it, just being able to tell all these different stories in one new story that I’ve never seen and no one in Utah has ever seen.” 

Eaton is surprised the show hasn’t been performed in Utah yet, because it is a family friendly story with beautiful music and a timeless message. He’s thrilled his students get to experience being part of a production premiere. “It's fun for students because there is something special about being one of the first people to create a role on stage,” he said.

Chapman, who plays the clockmaker, said it takes a lot of work to develop a character without the influence of other character portrayals.

“It means more of it is up to me and I can just be more creative about it, putting myself in the character's shoes and how I would feel seeing things from the character’s perspective,” he said. “I'm constructing the character in my brain, and so when I need to I can just access and pull out certain memories that I associate with that character in ways that I felt, so that I kind of know what the character would be feeling so I can just put myself in those shoes.”

His character has a complex emotional range — part tragic hero, villain and comic element. “There's one song that I sing where I have to show, like, five different emotions in the four minutes of the song,” Chapman said.

Music/Dance/Theater class students develop their characters during a rehearsal of “The Clockmaker’s Daughter.”

Although there will be local professional actors and directors coming to see the show, Chapman said there is an advantage to being the first production. “They've never seen the show before, and so it's a little bit of pressure but I think it'll also be fun, because there's nothing they can compare it to. They don't have a baseline,” he said.

The students, who had to demonstrate exceptional singing, acting and dancing skills to be admitted into the MDT class, are most excited about the show’s music, even though it is challenging. “It is pushing students vocally into handling difficult harmonies, accents and some very high notes for our soloists, tenors and sopranos,” Eaton said. However, he said throughout the months of rehearsals, the students haven’t tired of singing the songs.

“The music is gorgeous, and it gives me chills,” Heiner, who plays the titular role, said. “I'm excited for people to hear it for the first time because I remember when I heard it for the first time, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is beautiful.’”

Because there are no music tracks available for the show yet, a quintet of live musicians will accompany the singers on stage. It includes three Riverton High School teachers: Chris Jessee (Percussion and Jazz band director), Drew Holland (Band co-director), Daniel Clegg (choir director), as well as Eaton’s daughter Amelia Eaton, and Kemish Estrada, who played onstage for RHS’s production of “Hadestown: Teen Edition” last year.

Eaton said the show is a familiar tale of distrust of those who are different. “This show teaches the performers and the audience that when you let fear rule and make decisions for you that, most of the time, the outcome is far worse than you anticipated it to be,” he said.

Heiner said that her character has to learn to take risks. “It's about taking chances and not sticking to the status quo, being able to make your own story and not letting others around you dictate what you do with your life,” she said.

The process of getting the rights to perform “The Clockmaker’s Daughter” took years and involved tracking down the composer, dealing with COVID delays and filing paperwork with a rights house in London.

Eaton has been privileged to do multiple Utah premieres at RHS including “Spongebob Squarepants the Musical” (2021) and two Disney/Marvel Theatricals one-act plays about Squirrel Girl and Ant Man's daughter (2019). RHS was one of the first Utah high schools to perform “Hadestown: Teen Edition” (2024) and "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: High School Edition” (2025).

“The Clockmaker’s Daughter,” written by Michael Webborn and Daniel Finn, will be performed April 23, 24, 25 and 27 at 7 p.m. at Riverton High School. Tickets are $10 adults, $8 students/seniors.

Eaton encourages people to see the show early in the run because they will want to come see it a second time.

“I'm so excited for audiences to come in, knowing nothing about this show, and walk away being emotionally touched by these characters and this music,” Eaton said. “I think it's going to become some people's new favorite show.”