Future Overdone High School Musicals- Page 4

[EganFan2]

Posted: 6/2/06 at 11:11pm

Just a question--why is Wicked so popular with the teen crowd?

[Fabrizio2]

Posted: 6/2/06 at 11:16pm

Dear god

[overthemoon419]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 2:03am

The Wedding Singer
All Shook Up
Good Vibrations

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 2:08am

Out of those I think the only one that would MAYBE become popular is Good Vibrations

[jasonf]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 10:38am

Going back a few pages to the Lion King and Spelling Bee thing...

My unit at school (now this is middle school, not high school) every year does three or four awards shows for the kids. A teacher takes charge of the awards show and produces some kind of skits or whatever as entertainment.

Since I'm the theater person, I always take over the first one (partly because the rest of the year is so busy for me, partly because I like setting the standard high).

Anyway, this year we had just come back from taking the kids to see Spelling Bee - they all LOVED it. One of my students developed an idea for a skit based on what we saw - a parody where the words were changed to references from school etc. She did leave in some of the "questionable" stuff - Logainne's two father's, the talk with Jesus (though that became Santa - an Asian Santa since the girl who did it is Asian - and played the Marcy character). Our audience ate it up.

Two years ago we did Disney parodies. We had kids on scooters floating through paper clouds singing A Whole New World. We had SUPER cheap costumes we made and did Be Our Guest. I don't even remember all the ones we did - but the best one was our Lion King one. For two weeks before we did it, I had kids bring in every stuffed animal they had. We literally had hundreds of them. We put makeup on one kid and had her be Rafiki. The Circle of Life started, and she stood on a chair in the middle of the stage, with a reddish spotlight on her. Then, slowly, the kids started bringing out the stuffed animals, one or two at a time, and laying them in a circle at her feet. Halfway through the song, she raised up our stuffed lion cub - and the animals were still coming - it took nearly the entire song to get them all out on stage - it was so funny, and looked amazing.

My point is, you can really do just about anything in school (unless it IS too risque) - you just need some imagination.

[Marguerite Chauvelin]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:53pm

The problem is, a few of the aforementioned shows require at the very least a budget above what many High Schools could provide (at least not mine). So Wicked will stay far away from our school :). (I like the show, but we could never pull it off).

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 2:05pm

Here in Pittsburgh, high school musicals are very, very big. Some schools spend more on their productions than some of the professional theater companies can.

Watching the "Wicked" tour, I sat there for a bit and wondered just which school in the area would rent the set from the tour...

By the way, I don't think that the multicultural aspects of "Aida" will hinder high school productions of it. Every year, at least one mostly white school will do "The Wiz".

And it is very, very rare that you will see an all black version of "Once On This Island." I saw a production at a regional college that had only two blacks in it. Watching a bunch of young, good looking white kids huddling together at the beginning of the show I thought that I could easily be watching the beginning of the musical version of "I Know What You Did Last Summer"....

[inlovewithjerryherman]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 2:58pm

SO TRUE about Pittsburgh. Some of the schools are literally out of their minds budget-wise, and the kelly awards are soooo cut-throat scary.

Double casting + Kelly Awards = destruction of high school friendships, heh heh.

back to the topic, Seussical and Beauty and the Beast are already dominating. I see a lot of schools doing Millie, Mamma Mia! (REALLY good show for high schools - tons of roles, mostly girls, and relatively modest production requirements), All Shook Up, and I'm sure we'll see many re-inventions of The Lion King and Wicked when the time comes.

I'm really interested to see how the watered-down production of The Producers will do with high schools and community.

[Fabrizio2]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 3:48pm

I think that Honk! is a good musical for High Schools.

[HumATune]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 4:36pm

I don’t know about Mamma Mia; I think some high schools will object to the paternity storyline.

[Nathan_Lane_Rules!]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 4:41pm

our school is doing aida next year.

[Fabrizio2]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 4:44pm

I have heard good experiences with Aida at high schools and bad bad bad experiences with Aida at high schools.

[MissElphie]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 5:18pm

Wicked is already overdone, and the rights aren't even available yet.

[iHeartMyGeek]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 6:14pm

Well, I go to a Creative and Performing Arts high school. We have some highly talented musical theater majors. I don't think that there are any shows too adult for us to do, honestly, lol. Two years ago, we did Ragtime (it was positively incredible), last year we did Parade (which I sadly didn't get to see), and this year we did Aida (which was pretty good, but not as good as Ragtime was.) There are talks of Urinetown or Millie next year. I know you all are groaning about how awful high-school shows are, but we're actually really good at putting together shows because we have vocal majors, theater majors, musical theater majors as performers and technical theater majors as well as visual art majors for sets, lighting, sound, etc.

[iHeartMyGeek]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 6:25pm

sondheimboy and iminlovewithjerryherman--you guys live in Pittsburgh? Yeah, I go to CAPA! Which is probably one of the schools you're talking about that goes out of their minds about their musicals. I also went to Rogers CAPA which did The Wiz three years back. And my mom teaches at Allderdice, which did The Wiz this year. So you're totally right about so many schools doing The Wiz.

[softershade]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 7:31pm

i was actually talking about this with a friend the other day and she brought up one that i didn't think of: little women. the mainly female cast could be quite appealing to high schools that don't usually get very many guys to come out and audition.

[MOXIEINTHECITY]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 7:46pm

I think Hairspray & Wicked are destined to be high school staples. Maybe Wedding Singer, Too? And, oh gosd, Beauty & The Beast.

Too bad too many schools are afraid to do Rent or Avenue Q.
Ever Have a Fling With An Actor?

[OnMyWay]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 8:15pm

The rights are available to Urintown. It can be done fairly easily by high school and college level student, assuming the talent is there. I have seen the production 4 times this year, all decent.

[inlovewithjerryherman]

Posted: 6/4/06 at 12:45am

A lot of people brought up to upcoming stage version of High School Musical...I somehow doubt this will be that big - all of the male vocal parts are very high and the cast requirements are very large.

[Sant]

Posted: 6/4/06 at 7:31am

Definitely LES MISERABLES.

[catharsis]

Posted: 6/4/06 at 12:19pm

I can't help but think Grease, Footloose, etc., will STILL be done in most high schools. The school in my town is doing Footloose next year, with Anything Goes and West Side Story a few years ago. This year, however, they did Chicago, and it turned out to be the best high school musical I have ever seen. I'm glad that they took a chance with the risque material, especially in my town.

I think that schools just feel better sticking with the "safer," classic shows that just about everyone knows.

[SignoraDiva]

Posted: 6/4/06 at 12:29pm

Softer shade: I TOTALLY agree with Little Women...i think it would be PERFECT for high schools...especially since there is never an abundance of talented guys.

I don't think high school students could do Phantom or Wicked physically without doing some serious damage to their voices.

[ahimsa]

Posted: 6/4/06 at 12:52pm

Drowsy will be done to death until death us do part

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 6/4/06 at 4:07pm

How is Wicked going to be done? The School need's millions of dollars for a bubble, Defying Gravity , trapdoor's , etc.

[jwsel]

Posted: 6/14/06 at 10:25am

I think Drowsy is destined to be overdone because it really is perfect for high school casts. It has two big songs for female leads (Show Off and As We Stumble Along), none of the male parts are that difficult to pull off, and it has a tailor-made role for a non-singing lead actor in Man in Chair. Being a true ensemble, it will be attractive to a lot of high school directors who want to minimize hostility during auditions.