My senior year, they made us do The Wiz.
There was not a single African American person in my school.
Yeah, and removing it also gives you one less soloist, which, when you’re trying to provide opportunities for kids, is kind of a bummer. But, when I did the show with middle-schoolers, I was glad for a cleaned up version. The show is tame enough for modern high schoolers, but when you’ve got 11 year olds in the show it does need some editing.
I just did the show last spring at a high school, and we added (against my better judgement) all of the songs from the movie, which are now in the new revival version of the show. There’s nothing more bizarre than starting a 50s period comedy with a freaking BeeGee’s song. Ugh.
I’ve seen many productions of Into the Woods, some good, some bad, and even adults can screw it up pretty horribly.
I was very fortunate; the high school production I did had kids who were not only very musically talented and smart, but great actors and characters (and a few good comedians, which helps). I’d be nervous to tackle that show at the high school level again, without being very confident in the kids I had (and in the director), but it can be done well.
A few years back, the local college put on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night with an all-female cast. Since the play is about gender mix-ups to begin with, it was…unusual. But interesting.
I don’t know anything about leasing the rights or anything, but I wonder why Jason Robert Brown’s 13 hasn’t been mentioned?
Actually, I guess high schoolers are older than 13 eh? Maybe I answered my own question…
A couple of years ago some co-workers and I attended *Les Miserables *at a local high school, featuring my boss’ daughter as a prostitute. We were all very complementary the following Monday- “Sarah was a great whore!” “Your daughter was completely believable as a hooker!”
It is fair to say that some of the magic of the whole production is lost when the “theater”’ spends its days as a school cafeteria, but for a high school production it was rather good. Some of those kids could sing really well.
I saw a high school production of “Dreamgirls” with exactly one black kid.
And a bunch of chairs, can’t leave them out. Plus, isn’t there a table?
During the 80’s, my high school chorus put on selections from “The Wiz” with one black actress. (She played Glinda.)
When I was doing sound for a road tour of the Broadway show Whoopie, we were so jealous of the show that followed us at several theaters - The Gin Game. We had all this crap, and they had a table and two chairs.
My niece’s high school did Lucky Stiff. They never did a full production of Phantom of the Opera, but did do songs from it during Show Choir productions.
Personally, I don’t know why they kept doing these shows that cost them so much money in licensing fees. If they had done a Gilbert and Sullivan production, the costs would have been minimal (and my niece would have been great as a G&S ingenue).
Do you mean *Whoopie *as in Goldberg, or *Whoopee *as in Eddie Cantor?
A couple of local high schools have staged Almost Maine, and the wikipedia page says it has passed Midsummer Night’s Dream to be the most frequently performed high school play.
The local high school performed Sweeny Todd last year. The school usually has the leading choir program in the state and did a hell of a job with it.
Jeepers, it was forty years ago.
We did The Tempest (I was Caliban), The Man Who Came to Dinner (I was Beverly Carleton, a minor part), and another play I can’t remember that the drama coach found. I was an angsty teenager in that thing - at one point I had to eat peanut butter on stage and it stuck to the roof of my mouth and I couldn’t do my lines.
We did Kiss Me, Kate but I wasn’t in that one, due to the minor flaw of not being able to sing worth a darn. Come to think of it, I can’t act either, so the drama coach must have been desperate.
Regards,
Shodan
Last year a high school put on “West Side Story”.
Only problem was, it was so far away (technically in the county) no one even knew how to get there! Back in my day, my high school did “Bye Bye Birdie”. Last year, my old high school did…“Bye Bye Birdie”! :smack:
My daughter did “Into the Woods” and “Bugsy Malone”, and my son did “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and “Grease”, all in middle school.
My son went on to do “Midsummer Nights Dream”, “You Can’t Take It With You”, and a really excellent performance of “West Side Story” in high school. The latter production was good enough to make me forget it was a school production. All of the actors were even the same age as the characters - except, of course, for Officer Krupke, Lt. Schief, and Glad Hands.
He also worked on a short musical written and directed by another student - quite a good production, and we’ll keep an eye on that kid’s future career.
Not always. Those plays are both cheap to get the rights to perform and popular enough to draw in some people beyond the kids’ parents. They’re well known for a reason.
Naturally. It shouldn’t be so popular; I know a lot of people who despise that play because they’ve only seen it in high schools and many high school kids just don’t have the chops to do it well. It’s a truly lovely play, though, when it’s done well (and I have seen high schools do it well on occasion).
Romeo and Juliet and the more accessible Shakespeare comedies are pretty common, too. They’re even better known than those old warhorses discussed above and they’re totally free, royalty-wise.
The latter. It was profoundly stupid and unfunny, starring Maime Van Doren, most famous for Sex Kittens Go To College. The show’s only saving grace was Imogene Coca, who was funny and a sweetheart.
Awww, that’s nice to hear about Imogene Coca.
How I Learned to Drive
A pedo uncles’ incestuous relationship with his 15 year old niece in the 1960’s. Explores the issues of control that the uncle maintained over his niece. He helped her grow up, introduced her to books, adult ideas, and even how to drive. Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle with sex included.
Fascinating play by Paula Vogel. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1998)
We staged it at my college’s theater. Nearly all the actors were Freshman and barely out of high school. Pretty heavy subject for a cast of 18 year olds. Especially the girl that played the niece. We had a 35 year old actor play the uncle.
We’re looking forward to the production at my son’s HS soon…