This is A high school production of legally blonde

[Unknown User]

Posted: 9/23/12 at 10:26pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCRmY7-SKKs&feature=fvwrel

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 9/23/12 at 10:33pm

[Wynbish]

Posted: 9/23/12 at 10:34pm

[CapnHook]

Posted: 9/23/12 at 10:45pm

[Wynbish]

Posted: 9/23/12 at 10:48pm

Oh, the poor Not-Orfeh...

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/23/12 at 10:50pm

It's actually not that bad, but it's completely uninspired. They're clearly just copying as much as they could from the Broadway show. I hope they paid Jerry Mitchell to use his choreography.


Updated On: 9/24/12 at 10:50 PM

[Unknown User]

Posted: 9/23/12 at 11:58pm

I thought it was quite good

[JohnyBroadway]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 12:30am

Someone spent time watching the MTV broadcast.

[LegallyBroadway2]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 12:39am

I truly hope the David Rockwell is getting compensated for the use of his scenic design.

[Jon]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 7:15am

This is what a huge number of communitiy theatres and schools do. They attempt to duplicate the staging that's on the available videotape.

A few years ago, I saw a community theatre production of OKLAHOMA that abandoned the DeMille choreography for the ballet (which you are allowed, even encouraged to use - R&H provides a choreogeraphy guide) and instead tried to duplicate the Susan Stroman staging from the Hugh Jackman video. Trouble was, the music for the Stroman version was totally different from what's in the orchestration provided by R&H.

[My Oh My]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 7:48am

I give them a pass because not only is it perfectly understandable to want to replicate an official production, especially if you have the proper resources to pull it off well, they are recreating something created for the stage on their stage. What I can't stand is when there are those attempts at shoving a film version of a musical onstage. The results are irritating for how it's usually clear the director is clueless in not even considering they are very different mediums and just cloning the film onstage. Yick.

Recreation, whether it's an orchestration or an entire production design, is an underrated art that I greatly enjoy and entails a lot more skill and a crazy focus on detail than just simplistic "copying." Getting so many elements to agree with each other is NOT easy. To pull off something that even has a semblance of that polished, professional feel/look took more than grabbing some pink paint and doing a paint-by-numbers job.

These kids got it right and are the first high school production to not warrant my putting my hands on my face and watching their performance through between my fingers. Congrats, guys!

Updated On: 9/24/12 at 07:48 AM

[LegallyBroadway2]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 10:46am

Plagiarism! Good job kids!

[ladyanderson]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 11:12am

I was looking at the video and I recognize the girl who played Elle.. She was just on Broadway or Bust on PBS as one of the finalists...

[DAME]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 11:37am

For a Highschool production that was really good. And it looks like they had a great time. Nice job.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 6:16pm

I'm shocked at the negative scrutiny. It's a high school production and there's a lot of surprisingly good talent on view. And what diff. does it make it its derivative of the original staging?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 6:21pm

^It's slightly illegal. In the past some regional theatres have been sued for so blatantly copying the Broadway staging. I believe the Urinetown debacle was the most recent.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 6:23pm

I agree. I think the fact it is a high school production gives it a lot of leeway in terms of calling out plagiarism (to perhaps a bit of a lesser degree, I'd feel the same way about any completely amateur production)--and for all we know they did give some credit in the program. I can't see it being something Jerry Mitchell would lose sleep over.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 6:26pm

Seems like a lot of people here are completely unfamiliar with high school productions, high school staff, and high school students (the actors AND the audiences). Closely replicating a Broadway production is actually a PLUS for high schools, not a detriment (which is why they don't get sued, 'cause...it's HIGH SCHOOL). One of the most acclaimed high schools in my region growing up actually raised enough money to rent the national touring sets BECAUSE they strove to replicate the original production in both staging and talent. And it worked to their advantage every time.

More money = More resources = More interest = More students = Bigger talent pool = Better exposure

You want more originality, go find a school with a long-term history of major support that can afford to take bigger risks. They are an extremely rare species.

And for God's sake...it's HIGH SCHOOL.

Plagiarism! Good job kids!

You realize that's not the fault of the kids, right?

That, and...it's HIGH SCHOOL.

Updated On: 9/24/12 at 06:26 PM

[LegallyBroadway2]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 6:55pm

So it is okay for the book, music, and lyricist to get nice royalties but not anyone else whose work is being boldly copied? It is a good thing to allow this sort of thing to slip when credit should be due, both financially and publicly. In high school, you can't copy and paste sparknotes or wikipedia articles into essays, so why do the adults teach it to the students in the theatre department? Loving, enriching program, eh? Pop in this VHS tape and repeat what you see. Rewind. Repeat.

It is similar to the clause in Les Mis in which a turn table cannot be used in any similar fashion as in the original production. Same should apply for the set (columns, staircase, courthouse, classroom, mall, Harvard yard, Harvard graduation, nail salon, and mannnyyyy more), direction- LITERALLY THE SAME DIRECTION (except this production clearly states nothing about Jerry, there is another taking his credit), costumes, and movement.

Why not just screen the MTV Broadcast for the audience?

The kids are very good, but I am discussing the production itself, as a whole. I am speaking about the production's 99% absolute replica of the Broadway creative team's work. I can take it if one or two moments look like the Broadway show, but this clearly was the original staging.

Maybe I am just a mean person, but I would never ever work on a production in which it is so bluntly copied. I could even pick out similar lighting cues in this production. Woo! Go team.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 7:10pm

I have had experience with this type of thing, and there are good and bad things about doing it. The good is that by recreating the original staging and choreography, the students get better staging and choreography than they otherwise could have gotten, a lot of the time. However, when you get to a school with talent and a budget like this, starting a production from scratch is a much more valuable experience because it's about creation, not imitation. I have seen many talented performers at my school do mediocre imitations of others' performances because they have been conditioned to believe that whatever was done on Broadway is the "right" way. These students don't learn how to interpret their roles on their own, and so they waste time that could be spent learning valuable skills. Many inexperienced performers would greatly benefit by having a point of reference to watch for a little more guidance, but students at this level should not need this anymore.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 7:35pm

LegallyBroadway--this isn't meant to be mean, but is a genuine question. How do you know nobody involved in the original production got any credit? And while I agree that the sets are OBVIOUSLY based (or ripped off) fromthe originals in many way, I'd also argue about how different you think they could and should have made them and still do the show? Dozens, probably hundreds of productions of Evita have basically used the same approach, even if not quite the same design, as the original production, for example.

I also think that the companies that rent out these shows kinda appreciate that many productions will use elements of the original staging (with Jerome Robbins' shows, for example, it's almost insisted on in the material that comes with it--and technically you are meant to give him original production credit in the program, the way I suspect they want you tofor Legally Blonde and most shows).

Danny had a great point though, I do think there are pros and cons to both approaches. I went to a theatre high school, so to do this kinda thing would have been seen as a step backwards (since we had adance program where students were trained to learn choreography, a design program, etc). But in many chances this is a better option, and actually does in a way allow the students to learn more--it depends.

That said there used to be--I think he's gone but I haven't looked for a while--a youtube guy who posted productions of shows at the high school he taught at, and would always go on in the descriptions about, basically, how talented they were. The clips were always good--better than a lot of HS clips--but they were also extremely slavish adaptations of the famous Broadway (or London) stagings--and it did annoy me that he took all credit.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 9/24/12 at 8:31pm

at least it was done well a different staging would have been nice maybe jumping on chairs?