<p>My Ds school does a play in the fall, and a musical in the spring</p>
<p>The casts good, the staging, the costumes, sets, all good
HOWEVER, the choices of productions is eh, not worthy in the last couple of years of the people involved</p>
<p>I would love to make some suggestions for interesing, fun, exciting pieces, and I am sure this crowd has some ideas…so</p>
<p>please share!!!</p>
<p>(I don’t want to say what was done to identify the school…)</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I’ll have any good ideas, but I have a few questions. What ages are in the show? Are there more boys or girls? Are they better singers or actors, overall?</p>
<p>Spring musicals my older daughter has been in that have been great fun to see and to work on ( the parents make the costumes)
Pirates of Penzance( Gilbert & Sullivan)
Guys and Dolls(Damon Runyon)
( a little night music was her senior year musical- not my favorite- also Sondheim)
Into the Woods ( Sondheim)
On the 20th Century ( Imogene Coca)
The Cocoanuts ( Marx Brothers)</p>
<p>Theyve all been done a 1000 times but thats why they are classics!
I think a musical should be fun-
Guys and dolls has great songs- lots of characters- dancing and costumes
A Little Night Music, the story and the music were very sophisticated but difficult and a little over the head of some of audience</p>
<p>There are really so many that I think would be fun- but I like the classics
Fiddler on the Roof
Oklahoma
Porgy and Bess I love</p>
<p>My D’s are in “Seussical” currently. This show is good because it has decent roles for both guys and gals, and if need be, some of the roles can be switched (for example, the cat and Jojo, typically boys, are girls in our show because we had so many more girls than boys auditioning). It is also light and entertaining and can draw in community members with young kids.</p>
<p>One local high school did Urinetown, and that was a HUGE hit, though I’m not sure all schools would do it.</p>
<p>Shows like 'Fame" and “Footloose” are always fun for high schoolers. “Honk!,” a glorified “Ugly Duckling,” is also kind of cute and has many roles for both boys and girls.</p>
<p>“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” is ADORABLE and a REALLY fun show, even for chorus members. There are not many female leads in it, but the AMAZING narrator role is usually split four ways if a high school does it.</p>
<p>As EK said, “OKLAHOMA!” and “Fiddler” are also great shows for high schoolers.</p>
<p>this is for Highschool…and we have good actors and singers, the play is a smaller cast, while the spring musical, is of course larger</p>
<p>and the suggestions are GREAT…</p>
<p>the cast for the “play” is about 8-12 per show, so if ou have any ideas for serious productions, comedies, would also help</p>
<p>Me, I was im the orchestra for Carosel and Oklahoma…it was so much fun</p>
<p>my younger daughter did more plays- in middle school she did Lysistrata ( it was a high school production)
and they usually did Shakespeare or other classics
she really liked A Midsummer Nights Dream & the Scottish Play
A Dolls House has 9 cast members- that would be good for high schoolers who want challenge I think</p>
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<p>A few musical suggestions:
Greece
The Wiz or The Wizard of Oz
Oklahoma
South Pacific
Annie
The Boys from Syracuse (if you have some strong guys)
Little Shop of Horrors</p>
<p>I’m blanking on good ideas for drama productions. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is really fun, though. I’ve seen a lot of plays adapted for stage by the director. This can be done very well and effectively.</p>
<p>My D’s high school did the play Tartuffe a couple of years ago – it was hilarious. They have also done Arsenic and Old Lace – it’s a great play for teens and a great movie starring Cary Grant. I’ve seen two teen productions of Arsenic and Old Lace, both excellent. </p>
<p>In recent years our local middle school has done Music Man, Fiddler, Once Upon a Mattress, Sound of Music, Cinderella, Guys and Dolls, Hello Dolly, Charlie Brown (double and triple cast all the characters in Charlie Brown, very interesting)–all were good. </p>
<p>Last year’s production of Seussical at one of the local high schools was excellent. Other good musicals for high school – Once on This Island and Anything Goes. Little Shop of Horrors is another good one for high schoolers.</p>
<p>one of my favorite plays is David Ives’ “All in the Timing”. It is a modern, edgy play with subject matter totally appropriate for hs students. And because it is a series of one act plays, it would allow for maximum participation for students wanting some time on stage.</p>
<p>Another one we saw done well by high schoolers was “How to Succeed in Business.” Also we saw an excellent teen production of Thoroughly Modern Millie this summer (the dancing was amazing) . . . Another one that is good, but maybe not so much for the little ones is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I took one of my girls to see a high school production of that one when she was in sixth grade and during a quiet moment in the show, she blurts out, “What’s a eunuch?”</p>
<p>Musical… my favorite from my son’s years was Anything Goes. Big tap show.</p>
<p>D’s school has a very strong Theatre program and also does fall and spring musicals. Last year they did “Aida” and “Beauty & the Beast.” Have also recently done “A Christmas Carol” (the Radio City version) and are current doing “Miss Saigon” as the fall musical and “Cats” is the spring musical. She’s also been in “Music Man,” “The Wizard of Oz”, “Annie” and “South Pacific” at our Community Theatre. I second Berurah with “Joseph” and corranged with “Oklahoma” but both I think both are probably overdone.</p>
<p>Plays: One of my kids was in a HS production of “The Laramie Project” – a serious, ensemble-cast play about the Matthew Shepard case. The play is wonderful, very engaging for kids, and actors can double up on parts or not depending on how many kids you have. We thought it was a perfect HS play.</p>
<p>Right now, my son’s drama club is in the middle of choosing their spring (non-musical) play. He is in love with a play called “Good Morning, Desdemona; Good Night, Juliet”, which is a Shakespeare farce. Kids seem to like that. “The Cmplt Wrks Of Wm Shakspre (Abridged)” is another one in that vein.</p>
<p>Combining the play/musical: One of MY favorite productions to have been in ever was Marat/Sade. I don’t know that people do it much anymore, but I still think it’s interesting.</p>
<p>A good director - one with talent for interpreting and staging plays, who can also communicate well with young actors - is so important to high school theater! Our hs has a marveous music department (many All State instrumentalists and vocalists each year, several national awards), but the orchestra director also stages the plays and oh, how I wish he didn’t … he always winds up with the chorus in a half-circle, standing around the principals, who have to trip and climb over the sets. It’s so disappointing, considering that you might almost believe you were at a professional show if you just closed your eyes during the numbers. One hs in our area hires a talented professional director to do their annual musicals, and what a difference that makes. </p>
<p>I can think of some musicals I wish would be put out to pasture for a while because of the overexposure: Annie, The Wizard of Oz, Footloose, and Beauty and the Beast come to mind. I’m sure High School Musical will be overexposed pretty soon. The rights have just become available, and already 4 community groups within a 25-minute drive of each other are in rehearsal for it. (I thought the publishers were supposed to limit the rights in a geographic area?)</p>
<p>A Little Night Music sounds insanely ambitious for a hs group, but it’s a great show, and kids can handle challenging material well with the right direction. One hs in our area did a production of Les Miz 3 years ago that was so good that a guy I know turned to his wife after about 15 minutes and asked whether the kids were lip-synching to the original cast album!</p>
<p>My D has been performing in musicals since 1st grade. So I have seen a lot of them.</p>
<p>Her high school does 2 musicals a year. One for the frosh/soph and the other is for jr/sr.</p>
<p>Frosh/Soph musical the last few years:
Once on This Island–lots of great parts
Working–lots of great parts
Grease
The Boyfriend–lots of girl parts.</p>
<p>Jr/Sr West Side Story.
Pippin, Music Man, Les Mis (amazing) Fiddler (amazing).
Too many to list all.</p>
<p>cgm, without knowing the talent pool or the director’s abilities at your school, it’s difficult to make suggestions that would be good matches but some general ideas are possible. Some of the shows that my kids’ schools have done are: A Chorus of Disapproval, The Taming of the Shrew, Rumors, Les Mis, Fiddler, Footloose, Sound of Music, The Wiz, Godspell, Once on this Island, Working, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Flowers for Algernon, 1776, Lucky Stiff, john & jen, Into the Woods, a different Shakespeare every year, Little Shop.</p>
<p>I would second the suggestion of The Laramie Project for the fall play. It’s a wonderfully written, powerful, and important piece of theatre that everyone can benefit from, participants and audience alike. Your numbers would be good for that one, too. One of our schools is an arts school so they, obviously, have a larger pool of talent, both in the student body and with the staff but several of these have been done by a regular old h/s with a drama teacher at the helm and have been successful. Your school’s financial situation may also play into the choice of shows available.</p>
<p>One thing I would ask that parents do, in all schools, is to make sure that your director is securing the rights to do the shows they’re choosing. So many schools across the country do not do this. I know, it sounds unbelievable, but it happens ALL the time! If the licensing agencies discover these illegal productions, and they almost always do!, there can be severe consequences for the school involved.</p>
<p>Our high school did Pippin last year - racier than I remembered - I’d seen the premiere at the Kennedy Center many eons ago - but so, so good. I’m still humming the music. I think Gilbert and Sullivan is fun too.</p>
<p>citygirlsmom: I didn’t read all the responses, but I wanted you (and others) to know, that some of the reason the choices may be “eh” at best is due to the royalty costs that schools must pay to put the shows on. </p>
<p>As an example, the play Happy Valley High (a musical comedy) costs $90 royalty for the 1st performance, and $75 per performance thereafter, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is $50 royalty for the 1st performance, and $35 per performance thereafter; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is $60 per performance regardless of how many ; and The Day They Shot John Lennon (a great show by the way) is $50 per performance, again, regardless of how many; with Death of a Salesman, one pays a royalty for the production and a separate one for the music.</p>
<p>So you can see how the costs vary just for royalties alone. In addition there are sets to consider (and the cost of those), costuming, and so much more.
It all adds up. When I was directing school plays we cut costs by using less than lavish sets, and oft times we “reset” the show to current day and the cast members wore their street clothes (it’s an avant garde approach to theater, much in the same way that Baz Luhrmann used the music of today for his rendition of Moulin Rouge).</p>
<p>This year we wrote our own show for the fall play.</p>
<p>frazzled one – I was wondering the same thing about High School Musical – there are three groups that I know of within a half hour drive of our house planning to do it – I take that back, I just thought of another one – make that four groups . . .</p>