Future Overdone High School Musicals — Page 5

As far as Wicked goes, when the day comes that the rights are LEGALLY released for amatuer productions high school directors will find a way to make it work. Based on the popularity of the show with high school aged students, doing the show would be a literal goldmine for the theatre programs.

They will just find alternate ways to stage the SFX scenes in the show. A few years ago people might have said "how can you do Sweeney Todd without the two story set with the barber chair/trapdoor contraption" -- and John Doyle's production shows it can be done successfully. Also, many schools are doing Titanic now and there is NO way that they are installing hydraulic systems under the stage so that it tilts during Act II. They will use platforms and lighting effects to pull off what needs to be done, and if its not essential to the scene the effect will be cut. Will the show lose some of its lustre? Yes. But most people don't go to high school or community theatre productions and expect Broadway caliber sets and special effects.

With all of that said, I do feel Drowsy Chaperone will be a popular show with high school and community theatres. After listening to the CD that was the first thing that popped into my mind. As said before, there are some strong female roles and the lead is a non-singing male comic role. Also, none of the music is really rangy and would be simple to learn. The show is only 90 minutes long (although I suspect that most amatuer companies will throw in an intermission so they can make some money off of concessions) so it isn't a demanding load to teach. Also, it is not controversial and the show did win some major awards. Students are getting much smarter these days and it is harder to pass shows off on them. They want to know if and when the show was on Broadway and if it was successful or not -- and they will research to find out! A local school was going to do Honk! (and although it was a success in London) some of the students were upset because it had never been on Broadway before. They wanted to only do "legit shows"..lol.

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What I don't understand is why most of you think High Schoolers couldn't some of these shows. Sorry, but the vocals in Wicked really aren't that hard or impressive, and its not like all schools consist of untalented dancers.

I saw a high school production of "Little Shop" that had better actors, singers, dancers, set, special effects, lights and even a plant better then the recent national tour. It was amazing. I saw a high school production of Sweeney Todd that not only built the two story trap door set and rotated it, moved it, but had a boat come out of the darkness and had some intense performances.

So really, it's not like all high schools suck.

Well, let's be real. High Schools have been butchering Into The Woods and West Side Story FOR YEARS.

It doesn't matter how hard the show is and whether or not a school has the talent/capabilities to pull off such a show as Wicked, Hairspray, Millie, etc, there are always those schools that will do it anyway.

And fail.
Miserably.

That's the fun of going to see High School Musicals! If I had time, it would totally be a hobby of mine.

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Am I the only one who thinks high schools doing Parade is strange? Imagine a poor parent seeing little Billy perform in his school show... "OHHH there he is I'm so proud of... OH MY GOD THAT GUY'S GETTING LYNCHED!" I suppose Sweeney Todd and Ragtime are no better though, hehe.

I really envy you people who have choices about this. My high school was Catholic and our director sucked, so we had the same, "value-friendly" shows repeat every few years: Joseph, JCS, Godspell, The Wiz, etc. In fact, my sister and I had the exact same shows our freshman and senior years, and I was 7 years after her! Around us, other high schools were doing Aida, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Les Mis, Bat Boy, etc. Gah.

Aida really wouldn't miss out with colorblind casting, I think. Come on, Egyptians would be JUST as dark as Nubians. I always hated their making the Egyptians white just to appeal to our own sense of racism and slavery (even though slavery back then had nothing to do with race!) Sorry, rant there.

To the person who said TWS... have you heard the lyrics? They'd have to do a nice job of cutting!

I'm praying for the sake of vocal folds of teenagers everywhere that Wicked won't be done very often...

Oh, and Phantom could in no way be done by high schoolers. Even if you could fine a girl to squeak out E6 for Christine, you'd have to find someone to be Carlotta. And from the typical high school soprano, neither is not something we'd want to hear.

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Many of you underestimate and steryotype high school theatres. My school does wonderful productions (after our recent production of Little shop, in which I played Mushnik, people came up to us and sais how much more they enjoyed ours over the national tour they saw at the Fox). Not all high schools suck in the arts department, and some are actually really good. Our Audrey in Little Shop definately has what it takes to do 8 shows a week, and our Seymour is so good that there's no way he can't make it big.

yes, there are many more bad high school shows than good, but don't forget the good ones and shove them behind the steryotypical bad high school shows. My school is actually doing "Thouroughly Modern Millie" this coming season and I'm sure it will be just as great as all of our previous shows.

However, we do have our one flop. We did "Funny Girl" two years ago, and while the production was great, the audience response was not and our ticket sales were not as good as the other shows.

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