<p>While so many of us are waiting waiting waiting, it’s the right time of year for high school spring shows. So, who’s rehearsing, and for what show? Just to lighten things up. Let’s share some smiles, whether joyful or rueful or ironic.</p>
<p>My son is in rehearsal for his high school musical, “Grease.” In his very last high school production, he finally got the lead, the role of Danny. Never mind that Danny is a tenor and my son sings Bass 2 in chorus! I have been hearing a lot of falsetto singing from the bathroom when he’s taking a shower. </p>
<p>He’s also props chief, and apparently most of their tiny props budget is going to be spent on fake cigarettes. Much debate about types. Who knew the world of stage cigarettes contained so many options?</p>
<p>Well, many of you know our story with the high school drama department, but those who don’t: no senior show for us. </p>
<p>Instead, my daughter is firmly ensconced in the local theatre company. They are opening Spamalot on Wednesday. Following that, she may or may not run some tech something for Driving Miss Daisy. She will end the year doing props (?) or light/sound for On the Razzle. Then, she goes into summer planning on working Alice in Wonderland, Jr. and Spring Awakening. I think she is going to continue her internship and wants to work some of their kid summer camps. Whew…</p>
<p>We just finished up the Massachusetts Educational Theatre Guild’s high school Drama fest. Last week was the preliminary round, and our high school show moved on (which was kinda crazy, since they are doing a silly farce and most of the shows that continue on are very heavy or classic). Yesterday was the semi-final, and is was a fantastic set of shows! What some of these high schools can pull off - especially budget-wise!</p>
<p>Anyway, our show, Candide, did not move on , but I think the kids had fun doing it! Lots of funny props all handmade by the kids in the art department, and slapstick stuff.</p>
<p>But now it’s all done - my son is all done with high school theatre! I’m not feeling any emotions just yet, but maybe in a few days.</p>
<p>Fun post. Thanks for starting! S just finished his last hs show. Went out with a bang as Man in Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone. Terrific production, great kids in every part. Makes me sad not knowing when we will see him on stage again!</p>
<p>Funny fake cigarette story, prodesse – well at least funny now, not so much then. Freshman year, S was Mr. Applegate “The Devil” in Damn Yankees and smoked fake cigarettes on stage. One morning, about a month after the show, the school security officer came to phys ed and asked for my S. This is not a kid who gets in trouble, so he was petrified. He was escorted to the principal’s office where a band of administrators were waiting for him. On the table was one of the fake cigarettes. He had it in the bottom of his locker, and the kid he shared the locker with didn’t know what it was and reported him! They made him empty his pockets and asked him to explain what it was and what the white powder inside was! S was actually crying (not so funny). He explained, but they sent someone down to the choir teacher/play director’s room for written confirmation before they “released” him. The principal asked him to turn over any of the cigarettes to her to avoid any future mistakes! Of course he kept one for a “souvenir”!</p>
<p>My son is in rehearsals for Zombie Prom (waiting to hear the cast) and 39 Steps (he is Richard Hannay). Both are through our community children’s theatre, so these are bittersweet for him. </p>
<p>Love love love Spamalot. That must be so fun. </p>
<p>About cigarettes, I went to one of daughter’s shows in college, Suburbia, and almost every character smoked. As we were walking out for intermission, one parent turned to her husband and said “I do not know whose child that was smoking on stage. I think it was yours!!!” I know they were fake but is was still so smokey…</p>
<p>My S just finished his last high school mainstage; like yours, acting17, he went out with a bang. Their show was “The King and I,” and his hair is just growing out from the shaved look (now he resembles an escaped convict). My favorite thing was seeing him onstage with his co-lead and close friend, a smart and talented soprano who just won a serious statewide vocal competition, was accepted EA to Yale, and is waiting to hear back from auditioned VP programs. The two of them have been in shows together since 5th grade and did a tremendous job in the show and in mentoring the show’s younger students (down to 2nd grade) despite spending literally all of January and February traveling to auditions on the weekends. It was a bittersweet finale.</p>
<p>We have senior-directed short plays in May, so that’ll be his real parting shot–and then I think I’ll really lose it! ;)</p>
<p>My son is The Reverend Shaw Moore in Footloose this coming weekend. It will be his last big school production. He does have a play fesival in the spring so we will still see him on stage one more time.I am very happy that he has something to keep him busy while we wait for the 6 schools to notify us with what I am sure will be a mixture of good and bad news. It is such a strage time filled with anxiety, hope, sadness, and pride. Glad to talk with others who understand. I will definitely have many tisses on closing night.</p>
<p>Acting17, when I started reading your post, I started thinking I had posted on this thread and just didn’t remember posting! My son is also playing Man in Chair in his school’s production of The Drowsy Chaperone. It opens next weekend. After that, he will direct some one acts for a spring show, but Drowsy is his last high school performance. :(</p>
<p>My daughter is “Milly” in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, they open in 2 weeks. It’s a small town with a small budget so they don’t do a lot of contemporary shows. It’s nice that they do the “classics” though. There’s a lot of dancing so they kids are having fun!</p>
<p>My daughter just finished playing Rapunzel in “Into the Woods” two weeks ago. She’s already into rehearsals for “Our Town” and in May will begin rehearsals for “Twelfth Night.” No rest! Sigh. The waiting is seriously getting to me, everyone. It’s agonizing! We leave this Thursday on a road trip to visit three schools. The best thing–our family will be together for six days with no rehearsals!</p>
<p>cjenny2, I can so relate to that. I know I will have tears with this show. One of her songs is a lullaby to her daughter called “I’m glad that you were born”. How fitting is that?? She’s also very involved in several choirs and orchestra so those concerts will be in May. Keeping busy is always a good way to keep your mind off of what you can’t control. I do know that she checks her email about every hour if she can. So it’s on her mind even though she’s very busy.</p>
<p>Acting17, what a horrifying story! I read it to my son to remind him (a) to be cautious and (b) that there are high schools that are even nastier than his. </p>
<p>Actually, I think they are planning to use e-cigarettes with non-nicotine liquid, for the characters who have to smoke a lot (including his own character). They are supposed to have them locked up in the director’s office when they are not in rehearsal, but the director tends to disappear, so they’re going to keep them in the props room. NOT their lockers.</p>
<p>I’m in the camp with Uga in the no senior show here and it being a very long and tedious story. It really sucks. D auditioned for Legally Blonde and Sound of Music (community theatre) but the casting won’t be done for awhile because they are summer shows. She is also trying to set up shadowing at very well known regional theatre.</p>
<p>My greatest joy in life was that my D was able to march into the imbecile drama teacher’s room with her two acceptance letters and wave them in his face. She has more drama knowledge in her tiny pinky finger than he does in his whole body. Yes, I’m a little bitter, :), but on to much bigger and better things!!</p>
<p>Walker1194, it seems as if a bunch of us are in that same situation, with clueless drama “teachers.” My theory about why my son unexpectedly got a real role this time, after nearly four years with nothing, is that the teacher knew he was getting into some good BFA schools and didn’t want him to be able to say he never got cast in high school…</p>
<p>My son thinks the teacher isn’t that smart…</p>
<p>Prodesse, our previous teacher was a CCM alum in MT. This guy is an English teacher with zero drama training and had never directed a show before coming to our school. Very, very sad to watch a formally thriving drama dept devolve into chaos. The spring musical was in tech this week and my D’s friends that are in it said they have not yet run the whole show in a rehearsal and that the blocking for act two wasn’t done until Thursday. Train wreck a-comin’ :(((</p>
<p>Ugadog99, Walker1194 and Prodesse, a lot of us have been there. My son would have been the perfect Danny Zuko in his school’s production of Grease his senior year of high school, but he was passed over because of “insufficient commitment to the program” and other political type considerations.</p>
<p>He didn’t really care…he isn’t fond of the music in Grease anyway; he would have had to work with a “Sandy” who was a train wreck, and he happily occupied himself doing a community theatre Shakespeare production instead…</p>
<p>Oh no Walker – I had made this post and then erased it but now you are going to force it out of me! Maybe it will let other see that this can happen to lots of talented kids.</p>
<p>At least you had some time period of competent leadership at your high school. My daughter pretty much dug her grave when she decided she had no interest in going out for the elite choirs (the choir director is the Assitant Director of the shows and her English teacher mother is the director). My favorite story is that the mother (with the blessing of choir director daughter who actually has some talent) cast her other daughter (a senior in high school) over my daughter for Louise (Gypsy), a part my daughter was born to play. Not only that, Mama Rose wanted to make sure there was no competition at call backs so my 5’10" daugther was called back only for the part of June (you know that 5’3" bundle of joy). The only girl competing with her daughter for Louise was the girl everyone knew was going to get the MamaRose part. Needless to say, my daughter did not get June either and was cast as Agnes. </p>
<p>But wait. It gets better. My daughter had sworn it all off but the school was doing Our Town this Fall. My daughter has always wanted to play Emily. This isn’t a big arts high school. No one in the school has her acting chops so she figured whatever feeling they had towards her about not doing the choirs can’t carry over to this. Right? Wrong! My daughter does not even get a call back. 20+ kids get called back. She does get a part. Its women #1 with like one line. </p>
<p>She’d never quit a show before but I had no problem telling her that this was nothing more than spite. Is it any surprise that the leads were all in the “show choir.”? As far as I know, no one in the school has ever even tried to get into any of the top BFA schools my daughter applied to let alone getting into a school like UNCSA. When I confronted them, it took a long time for the truth to come out by finally in the choir director’s emails I heard things like how other people had taken advantage of all their choral program had to offer and how she was hoping my daughter would take advantage of these opportunities. The daughter/choir director (who is the dominant personality) has no real training, we know she’d really rather be anywhere but teaching in school, loves to tell the kids how great she is and my guess is doesn’t like it at all that my daughter is reaching for a career that she’d like to have.</p>
<p>There is a lot of sadness with this because my daughter is not that well connected with her high school and being able to show what she could do on stage would have been huge. I’m very envious when I read about parents bringing the tissues to the final senior performance. This experience never happened to her anywhere else. As a first time 15 year old at Frenchwoods, she got a call back for every show and was cast as Trix (a really good part for a first timer with the 15-18 year old group of kids). Next year she gets the lead in the drama. Community theater she’s always gotten good parts and several leads. </p>
<p>Of course, life of an artist is dealing with disappointments and learning to have them fuel you.</p>
<p>ActingDad, I think those tears at final high school shows come when the kid and parents are lucky enough to feel part of a group that has worked happily together over multiple performances. It’s nice to feel those sentiments, of course, but there is plenty else for us to feel good about with regard to our more ambitious kids!</p>
<p>Sometimes theatre kids have to turn down a show. My son was cast as “Johnny Casino” in the high school production of Grease that I wrote about, and he turned it down.</p>
<p>I’m not exactly new here, just brand new to posting.</p>
<p>My D is finishing up her spring musical (closing night was supposed to have been Saturday but was postponed until the middle of this week because of snow). She’s playing Aunt Eller in “Oklahoma!” I have to admit, when I first heard that’s what they were doing, I thought “That old thing?” but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s been a great show, the best musical of theirs I’ve seen so far!</p>
<p>She’s a junior so we still have another year to go. I’m sure I’ll be feeling very emotional at this time next year.</p>
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