Urinetown would be great as long as the school's administration and parents will support it. There have been several instances posted on the boards here of principals, crazed parents, or school board members who have vocally opposed the show (had the even seen it?) and a few even succeeded in getting the school to cancel or change their show --didn't one drama teacher even resign over it? Ugh.
Pimpernel would be a lot of fun -- I almost directed it when I taught drama -- but as Munk said you have to have several strong male singers with big ranges. There are also vert few female roles in the show, so you need to have a LARGE group of males. These are two reasons why I decided against it!
Millie may end up being the show most suited for high school performers. For one, there are a lot of female roles, only 2 male roles who do any real singing, the ranges are not that extreme for any of the characters, and the story is fun and easy to follow for an audience.
I have seen great high school productions of both
Les Mis and
Titanic -- but I have also seen some awful ones. Both of these shows require large casts of talented singers.
Titanic has some tough choral numbers and some songs that have big ranges ("Barret's Song" for instance). If your school has a large budget, a huge talent pool to pull from, and a talented director and music director -- then these could work. However, I wouldn't try them unless you have those assets because a half-assed production of either of those would be awful.
Into the Woods has some very difficult music and difficult rhythms to follow so you will need singers who at least are technically sound. They don't all have to be great singers (although you do need a few for some of the major roles) but they have to be able to keep up with the rhythms and intricacies of a Sondheim work. Since this is through-sung (as is
Les Mis) you will need to have a strong musical director to help everyone through an enormous amount of music. The story line is appealing to audiences and could be a success if you think you have singers (and a musical director) talened enough to pull off Sondheim.
South Pacific is a classic that many of the audience would be familair with. There are A LOT of roles, so once again you will need to have a large number of people to pull from -- as well as some people to play the "ethnic" roles. The good thing is that the choral numbers aren't quite as difficult or rangy as say
Titanic, so even if many of your chorus members aren't great singers you could still pull them off. You will still need a couple of good male singers to play Emile and Lt. Cable and a strong female singer for Nellie and a good character actress for Bloody Mary. The only drawback for high school groups would be the dramatic nature of several scenes. Although this is not true of all high schoolers, most young performers are much more at ease playing comedy than drama. So as long as you have some performers who can play the "heavier" scenes effectively, the show could be a winner.
"You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering." --Harold Hill from The Music Man
