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Speaking of highschool musicals, my school just put on Les Miserables, and it was woderful. (I was just a stage hand, but most of my friends were in the cast. In my humble opinion, it was better than the one at the local arts magnet school, and we are a tiny school with about 350 students, over fifty of whom were in the cast or crew.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Les Mis is a great show--saw it on broadway--must have been tough for a high school.
It's now been 6(ish) years since I played the wolf/prince in our High school production of "Into the Woods"--and I'm glad to say that we REALLY pulled it off. I recognized at the time that we had accomplished something truly great--in that there were no weak links in the cast and the product was sensational.
As for the music, we were lucky enough to have local college students fill in a mini-orchestra for very cheap--and we had some musical faculty at the school who did it for free! We made sure that the sound and balance were perfect for the show--each player had a wireless mic (unheard of in any other high school production till then) and we spent more time on the music than anything else (we only finished blocking like a week before show).
I was kinda surpised to hear OSC say the script was a weak one, because I always saw Into the Woods as my best theatre experience. I guess I never thought to criticize it because we did it so well. I've been in a few in college that didn't live up to that year in high school. And sondheim's music--WHAT FUN--to actually have something really challenging in high school. Everyone worked harder because we knew it was so difficult.
And Card makes a very good point about how "teaching" acting is rarely as effective as having experience on stage. We had a lot of talent in our production.
But then I wonder about "natural" acting talent. I think that some people really do treat "life as a stage" in that everything they do daily is practicing acting--so it's not "natural" talent as much as "earned" talent.
I can't stand it when people don't understand the difference between "talent" and "hard work and practice".
Anyway--that's my rant about my high school Into the Woods experience. Anyone else been in it before?
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
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Well, I've never been in Les Mis or Into the Woods. I'm not too familiar with Into the Woods, but I know enough about Les Mis to be glad I was never involved with that. Sorry Pelagius and Launchy, but the music in Les Mis all sounds EXACTLY the same to me. But I am glad that your production turned out so well!
Long ago, in my senior year of h.s., we did The Who's 'Tommy.' Now that was a fun show to be a part of. I was the first keyboard, and the show turned out ridiculously good for a h.s. production. We even got a chance to go to a recording studio and record an album!
Granted, there were a couple of scenes edited out. The Fiddle About scene with Uncle Ernie and Tommy comes to mind. Though, oddly enough, we kept The Acid Queen. Molestation not okay, hallucinogenic drugs perfectly acceptable. Posts: 511 | Registered: Mar 2006
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I was in Les Mis at my high school during my freshman year. We had a lot of talent in our senior class (obviously, the leads), and it came out amazingly well. Best show my school's ever put on, hands down.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Mar 2006
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![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
But I am glad that your production turned out so well!![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
