<p>D’s HS theatre career included: Little Shop of Horrors, CATS, Joseph and the Amazing Colored Dreamcoat, Annie, Into the Woods, and The Wiz. Everything after CATS seemed like a let-down. It was an amazing show. They worked so hard at it - dance lessons weekly, actually had to run laps in order to get their stamina up, painting their own unitards, etc. Such an amazing set that the kids and parents worked on. BTW - Our HS will rent those cat costumes and cat wigs out. When they did Joseph, I didn’t realize any of the characters were gay. The drama director must have tweeked something to make it family friendly. Also, at one show each year, the “feeder school” little kids can audition for little kid roles. For instance Oompa Loompas, mice in Pied Piper, etc. This brings bigger audiences and more $ for the Drama budget. Concession, flower, and t-shirt sales that the Boosters take care of.</p>
<p>My D’s high school drama group had by far its most successful experience in years and years with last year’s production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. It broke all attendance records, because it’s such a huge draw for kids. (And every adult becomes a kid at the show.) At first the students were unenthusiastic about the choice, but they all had a blast with the great costumes and fun production numbers. At the matinee all the cast quickly ran outside after the curtain and formed a receiving line for the audience to pass through as they headed to the parking lot. The little kids were absolutely awestruck at being able to shake hands with Belle, Lumiere and the rest. The music and choreography are somewhat demanding, but it’s a wonderful choice, and nothing is more gratifying to a bunch of high school performers than a full house at every performance. At our school a parent group produces the shows–I was a member of the board, very involved in the process, and boy do I miss being part of it all.</p>
<p>Our school deals with the excess of female participants by double casting female leads–they split the performances, a coin toss deciding who gets three and who gets two.</p>
<p>The Scarlet Pimpernel was wonderful. We had a fantastic group of 4 boys who were hilarious!
Worse musical ever - Rags. Yuk. Don’t even think of doing it.
Fiddler on the Roof is always amazing. My oldest was in the pit for Barnum and that was fun too. She was in Titanic and that was so-so.
Gosh, this is bringing back such memories. I had a kid in a musical for 10 years straight.</p>
<p>Kiss me Kate hasn’t been mentioned yet. Pajama Game maybe. Someone mentioned Porgy and Bess with race neutral casting. George Gershwin’s estate/will specifies that any English speaking country that performs Porgy and Bess has to have an all black cast. I guess this would apply to high schools also. Plus Porgy and Bess is an opera, and high school voices may not be able to do justice to it.</p>
<p>Our director has figured out that the larger the cast of the show, the more likely that all the performances will sell out. The prior director did shows with tiny casts and thus, tiny houses.</p>
<p>(My senior musical was *Little Mary Sunshine *- hadn’t heard of it before and haven’t heard of it since, WITH GOOD REASON.)</p>
<p>No one has suggested Working, which our school did five years ago… I had never seen it, and came to really appreciate it and enjoy it. </p>
<p>There are ‘high school’ versions of Rent now, but it would take a supportive school board/drama teacher/community to support it. </p>
<p>No one has mentioned Chicago either. We did it four years ago and it was a HUGE hit. However, the movie had just been wildly popular, so that helped. Our school is doing Footloose this year. </p>
<p>Like I asked earlier, it all depends on the make-up of your community and what will and what won’t be acceptable/appropriate. I do believe in stretching the limits of what a community will deem appropriate, but not to the point where no one attends, because that’s no fun for the cast/crew. There are many schools that would never consider Chicago, nor even Into the Woods (which we did three years ago) because it’s too dark.</p>
<p>Younger D’s high school has done Chicago, Cabaret, Zombie Prom, um The Wiz, her alternative school- Threepenny Opera,and Guys and Dolls et al.-
Grease- both D’s schools did.
Cannot stand it.</p>
<p>A lot of choosing a show at a high school depends on what talent you have available…how many boys or girls for significant parts, and how large of a cast overall. </p>
<p>Since you mentioned more modern or contemporary…(even though some here mentioned some classics like Fiddler)…</p>
<p>Pippin
Thoroughly Modern Millie (newer show but not contemporary music)
Urinetown
Seussical
RENT (there’s a school edition)
Jekyll and Hyde
Aida
Fame
Once on This Island
Hair
Chicago
Bat Boy
Tommy
The Wiz
Children of Eden
Les Mis
Zombie Prom
Footloose
The Producers
Avenue Q (school edition)
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (smaller cast)
All Shook Up
City of Angels
Leader of the Pack
Into the Woods
Sweeney Todd
Little Shop of Horrors
Grease</p>
<p>Children of Eden is good and has a lot of parts! Bye Bye Birdie is a favorite, but it isn’t contemporary. Hairspray (not sure if its available).</p>
<p>The best and most fun musical I ever did was Oklahoma! my sophomore year of high school. We had a really incredible cast and it’s just a fun musical to perform…lots of action and fun dance numbers.</p>
<p>I’ve also done:</p>
<p>The Music Man-fun, but kind of drags on after a bit and gets boring.
Guys and Dolls-Again, a great musical, but there are a few boring scenes.
The King And I-FAR too long. But one of my favorites.
Oklahoma-Incredible. Really.
Cinderella-we all HATED it. None of us wanted to do it and we didn’t have a very strong cast. </p>
<p>I think Sweeney Todd, Rent or Chicago would all REALLY be fun, but you’d have to get the support of the community.</p>
<p>What about Company? You might have to cut out the pot-smoking scene, but then it’s not that crucial to the plot. It can be a great musical if it’s done well, but you need just as many strong men as women which can often be a problem in high school.</p>
<p>The four years my son was involved in the drama club in high school, they put on Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Pajama Game, and Pippin. I thought they were all great, although Gypsy was much more of a star turn than the others.</p>
<p>In the last few years, our high school has done:</p>
<p>Little Shop of Horrors
42nd Street
Tommy
Cats
Les Mis
Beauty and the Beast
Rent
The Wedding Singer (next week)</p>
<p>My personal favorites were Cats and Beauty and the Beast. HS had costumes made for them by a professional company who then rented them out to regional theatres.</p>
<p>Biggest issue has always been finding shows with enought female leads.</p>
<p>I’m really crossing my fingers for *Funny Girl *for us next year. We have the perfect Fanny Brice and it will be her senior year. But you’re right about the female leads. We will have two totally awesome senior girls next year…one the loud/funny type, the other the pretty leading lady type. I can’t think of the perfect show to feature both of them.</p>
<p>Since the rights became available, it’s been the most requested license out there. It’s a good show for high schools if the talent is available. The score is demanding. Kids love the show, the cast can be large and diverse, both male and female roles. It’s also a show that many kids will have seen so they’re likely to get huge numbers auditioning as well as attending, which will sell tickets! </p>
<p>Lots of things to think about depending where you live and how accepting and tolerant the people in your location are, but, as I said, it’s the most popular show out there at the moment for high schools.</p>
<p>Our high school did Grease last year and the cast all agreed it was the most fun of all they had done. A lot of the baby boomer in the community attended, and the parents really enjoyed it.</p>
<p>If you’ve got strong voices Camelot would work.</p>
<p>I agree that Leader of the Pack can be wonderful. The next year, our principal turned down Urinetown because he didn’t like the name, but was OK with Rent, again because of the name. He had no idea what the plays were about.</p>
</p>
both D’s schools did.