High School Musical!
Monday, April 23rd, 2007
Whew–it’s over!
As most of you probably remember, my two younger daughters were performing in a musical at the local high school this weekend. The middle one is in 10th grade, the youngest only in 5th (they needed one little girl for the play and asked her to do it.)
Anyway, I have to say, they were both fantastic! Yes, that’s the mother in me speaking, but it’s also the musical-lover. They nailed every word in every bit of dialogue, and every note in every song. Neither exhibited a moment of stage fright, they were confident and entertaining and I loved every single minute of it.
I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have bigger audiences for their performances, but another local school was doing Cats with a cast of thousands, a local adult company was doing Nunsense this weekend, and it was 80 degrees and glorious outside.
Still, they had decent audiences and everyone who saw them appreciated the talent, guts and hard work all these kids had put into it.
Believe me, I welled up watching my girls up there, but I had almost as much fun standing out in the lobby afterward, eavesdropping on conversations such as:
“Oh, my gosh, could you believe that little girl? Could she really just be in elementary school? What a voice!”
and
“That Kelly girl’s voice was just unbelievable! I never imagined a high school girl could sound that powerful!”
and
“Are they really sisters?”
It was such fun watching them come out and get their kudos and congratulations. The little one, especially, was fussed over because she looked so pretty and sweet up there. (Little do they know…this is the bloodthirsty cannibal/puberty-video/future coroner I’ve talked about so many times on here!)
After the show Saturday night, we hosted the cast party at our place. There were about two dozen fun, loud, energetic, loud, hungry, LOUD teenagers there. They devoured everything that wasn’t nailed down (we hauled out the chocolate fountain.) About 15 of them crammed into the hot tub (which was down 10″ of water afterward!) Then at around 11pm they discovered the karaoke machine and all bets were off! We had to pry those microphones out of their hands and push them out the door at one a.m.
Though there was a matinee performance on Sunday, which we also attended, for me Saturday night’s party was just the cap-off of the entire experience. Because moving here, with a 15 year old who had never had to change schools in her life, seemed like such a heartless thing to do last summer. I hated to do it to her, throw her into a new high school where she knew absolutely no one. And things could have gone very badly–she could have rebelled, met the wrong group of kids, acted out against us, hated us forever.
She hasn’t. Instead, she has just thrived. Saturday night, she was surrounded by tons of new friends who all seem to adore her and my husband and I both truly felt we’d done the right thing. This was the third cast party we’ve had here since the school year started–because the kids keep asking if they can come back! (They’re even doing their end of year drama banquet here next month.)
You know, some kids are athletes and some are brilliant scholastically and some want to be on the debate club and some want to take pictures for the yearbook. All my girls have ever wanted to do was be on stage. Singing, acting, performing. Which makes weekends like this so very special. Maybe they don’t pack in the crowds like the football team or the band, but those kids all performed their hearts out and I was proud to support them.
Proud enough to share.
I don’t usually post pics of my kids and don’t give much personal info about them. (I’m sure you understand!) But I thought I’d post this video of part of their performance.
In this scene, the 15 year old is actually playing the 11 year old’s mother (hence the frumpy dress…for most of the rest of the show, the older one’s in a stunning red velvet, sequined gown–the show is about beauty pageant contestants!) The song is about how mothers push their daughters, and in the 2nd half of it, the little girl and her “older” self (in the red dress) join in to interact with their overbearing mother. (FYI: You can’t really see who’s singing…the 11 year old is the one who comes in 2nd, the one in the red comes in last.)
The song is incredibly difficult–the director & musical director both said it was the hardest number in the show. The harmonies are intense, and there are places where the three of them are singing entirely different melodies. They overlap on occasion, the timing has to be perfect…and 1/3 of this act relies on an 11 year old who’s never done a play before!
Like I said…I am one proud mama today!
Hope you enjoy!
