It is a specials time for me this week.  Yes, I did mean to spell it that way.  Monday I subbed for art in an elementary school and today I did music in middle school.  This day was one of those times where I did the same lesson for all classes.  Yes, that means all grades from 1st to 4th did the exact same thing.  Why would they all do the same thing?  Well, apparently Metra is sponsoring a safety poster contest and have done so for the last couple of years.  Kids from kindergarten through high school make posters that have to deal with safety around trains.  Each grade competes in their own contest so a 1st grader, for example, doesn’t have to go up against a middle schooler.  Some of the posters from last year are really good.  Too good in some cases I think.  Check out this poster for example:

This looks like a fine 2nd or 3rd grade entry, but kindergarten?  Hmm…  The previous year’s kindergarten winner looks a bit more age-appropriate.  So the kids got the details and started working on ideas for their posters, due in a short four months.  Anyway, check out all the previous winners at:

2007-2008 Winners
2006-2007 Winners

Today as I wrote above I did music.  This was a most enjoyable experience for me because I got to show videos for movie musicals.  6th grade got to see one of my favorites, Oliver! Well, the start of it.  Having been in Oliver! I was really able to get into it with the kids and talk a little about it and my own experience.  8th grade was next and they continued watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.  That’s right, the old one which in my opinion has the better Willy Wonka, played by Gene Wilder.  No offense to Johnny Depp’s acting, but that interpretation of the character just didn’t work at all for me.  Not much to say about this.  They were engaged 8th graders, and that’s what was important. 😀  A couple in the second class asked if I could skip the songs.  Let’s see now, the class is music and he wanted me to skip the music.  I think you can guess what my answer was as we continued to listen to “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket.” 😈

Moving to 7th grade (last classes of the day and relevant to the topic title) we got to see the start of Singin’ in the Rain.  I’ve never seen this before believe it or not.  It is now on the reserve shelf at the library waiting for me to pick it so I can finish it since I saw only the first 35 minutes of it, twice.  If you’ve seen this movie then you know there are some kissing scenes in it, several of them.  I couldn’t believe it when one of the seventh grade classes had some boys going “ewww” during these scenes.  I heard “cooties” as well, but to be fair this was probably a joke reaction to the ewws.  I would expect this from 4th graders, but I would have supposed the sex education the kids get in public schools would have desensitized them to things like kissing.  I guess not.  I guess I learn something every day. 🙂

Check this Oliver Twist picture out (click image for larger version)- funny! 😀

Mike R. Baker

Recently while reading an email from playbill.com, I discovered that Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities has been made into a new musical. This is not the first time one of the at least seventeen novels has been musically staged. The Pickwick Papers was staged in London as Pickwick in 1965 and was most notable for the song, “If I Ruled the World.” A Christmas Carol has had several incarnations over the years. Dickens’ unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, also enjoyed success on Broadway in the 1980s. Drood is interesting because, like the novel, it was left unfinished leaving the audience to cast their votes upon whom the murderer is (another possibility for audience participation in theatre productions). Of course, the most popular musical based on a Dickens’ novel is Oliver!

It has been sometime since I have read A Tale of Two Cities. I do remember the character of Madame DeFarge (by name alone but she must be a memorable character). But, like Les Miserables, it is set during the time of the French Revolution. Reading some of the reviews from premiere stagings at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida it sounds like it could enjoy a decent run in New York (if not it will be “the worst of times” for those involved). You can read a synopsis of the show and listen to songs from the show at the website.

You can get tickets to see the new musical or other shows at TicketsNow Homepage

Reading the post on Jamiahsh’s blog about his favorite things, I started to respond to his post then realized I probably had enough information for my own post, so here goes.  While I was in a school play when I was 7 and in the chorus of one when I was 10, theatre didn’t really enter my vocabulary until I was 16, before my senior year in high school.  Here are some of my milestones and interests in this regard:

Cheaper by the Dozen [note: link is not my production] (yes, it was a book, play, and movie before Steve Martin came along…) was a play my church at the time did as a student show.  I got to play the role of a 10-year old (I was 16 at the time, but then none of us were younger than high school) and had such a blast at it I would delve into theatre big time after this.

Scapino! was the first show I acted in in high school.  I played the part of Argante.  Very fun, and probably the most interesting audition I had ever.  This included theatre games and improv in addition to a little singing and script reading.

South Pacific was another high school show I didn’t try out for since it was a musical (hadn’t been bitten by that particular bug yet), but it was the first and only show I ever played in the pit orchestra.  I used to play trumpet but I wasn’t very good at it.  I never could get past moving my jaw as I played, a big no-no in technique.

Bishop of Aahs was written in-house (in-church I guess) as a parody of, you guessed it, Wizard of Oz.  This was the second show I did at my church and the second show that opened new doors for me, this time into musical theatre.  I played one of several “munchkins” (teenage kids).  Unfortunately that’s about all I remember of it.  Of course we sang munchkin songs with new lyrics.  Of course I started trying out for musicals after this.

Finian’s Rainbow was the first community theatre show I ever performed in.  Well, it was youth community theatre and not really a very well-run group (though it still exists today).  Anyway I was just in the chorus for this one, but hey, chorus members are people too!  After this show I would start private vocal lessons.

Phantom of the Opera was a show I have never been in, though I did do a different Phantom about 12 years ago.  Rather, this was the first professional musical I heard on CD, and later saw in Chicago.  This would be the only musical I listened to for awhile, though I did eventually broaden my horizons first with other Andrew Lloyd Webber shows including the dreadful Aspects of Love, and later with other shows.  Les Miserables would become my new favorite a few years later.  I still want to be in that show- come on, release the amateur rights already!

Speaking of Les Miz, it was the first and only show I ever auditioned for professionally.  They never called me…

Grease was a show I was in twice and didn’t perform even once.  Both times the rights were pulled when the tour came to town.  If you ask me, the second time the group should have done it anyway- pulling the rights is just evil.  Once give, the publisher shouldn’t be able to go back on it.  The first time they lost the rights immediately and so were able to do another show with the cast they had (Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?).  This became the first show I had a solo song in.  I was never told what role I had in Grease, though a friend tells me it was a combination of the Teen Angel and another role.  The second time I was actually asked to be in the show and was given the role of Roger.  We made it about halfway through rehearsing before we lost the rights.

Little Shop of Horrors… Okay, let’s not talk about this one.

Oliver! was a show I had a huge interest in at one time (I still have multiple CDs of this show).  I did try out for it a couple of times previously, but just a couple of years ago it became the first show I ever had a true lead in.  I was offered the role of Fagin, and according to several people I did an outstanding job at it.  Life has kept me from community theatre since, but I have been doing drama at my church so it hasn’t been all bad.  Next show…?  I would like to do Secret Garden I think, but who knows what the future will bring?

Or rather, just over 100 boys and girls in the production of Oliver! I saw last night.  There was a boy, a former student in the 4th/5th grade class at my church who invited me to come.  His older brother, also a former student, helped out by running a spotlight.  How could I say no?  Even though they never saw me when I was in Oliver! just two years ago…  I was so disappointed then that not a single student from my church came, or at least told me they came if they did.  I advertised this to them for a few weekends, but nothing.  Oh, well.

This rather large production is apparently typical of Christian Youth Theater.  This organization started out west, but became a reality around here when someone move to my wonderful state and received permission to branch out here.  Now there are many branches just in the Chicago area, all under the CYT-Chicago umbrella.  This isn’t ordinary community theatre though.  In order to allowed to audition for a show the kids are required to take one of several theatre classes through this organization.  Obviously not a deterrent at all judging by the size of these shows, and even in the number of CYT shows some of them have been in according to the program.  The quality wasn’t bad at all.  The characters for the most part were very convincing and if there were any slipups I didn’t notice.  I did have a couple of issues with their Fagin, but of course since I played the part myself this is only natural.  I wish I could remember what those issues were now.  Anyway, the boy who I came to see, Brian, played an orphan at the beginning of the show, then appeared twice more later during chorus numbers.  During Food Glorious Food he nearly slipped up when he saw me in the audience, front and center.  Interesting spot they sold me- I guess it pays to come by yourself and get those prime spots when groups fail to completely fill up a row!

I was a bit disappointed at a couple of things though.  First off, the show was shortened quite a bit.  The running time was about 1:55, and that included a 20 minute intermission, making the actual running time 1:35.  Since the original show has a running time of well over two hour you can see a lot was not there.  I Shall Scream and Oom-Pah-Pah were two full songs that were cut, and were probably the most obvious to go considering the group.  Bill Sykes’s song, My Name, was cut in half for some reason too though the one who played him did a fine job.  Many scened were abbreviated as well.  Ones I noticed most (again having been in them before) were some scenes in Fagin’s Lair.  However, these weren’t the only places shortened.  The scene where Noah Claypole is introduced was snipped (Oliver just leaves right after Where is Love?).  The scene at the end where everything goes south for Sykes and Fagin’s gang was shortened to the point where Sykes doesn’t even get killed (Nancy still does though), and the scene at the end of Act I where Oliver goes out with Dodger to pickpocket, then gets falsely accused was missing entirely!  Well, that whole thing aside I was also disappointed that for a production so well done they for some reason chose not to have a live orchestra.  Everything was sung to recorded music.  I’m sure they must have had a reason for this, but even so this took something away from the show.  Outside of this, and I should stress that shortening the show sounded much worse in writing than it actually was, it was a very good production.  Christian Youth Theater is something that should be considered for many other areas.

In any event, if you want to know why I didn’t post yesterday this was why. 🙂  Interesting thing: according to Brian he was considered for the role of Oliver, but at 12 years old he was a little tall in comparison to their pick for the Artful Dodger.  Instead they cast an 8-year-old who did a fabulous job considering his age.  This brought my thoughts back to a certain Little Shop of Horrors production where their original pick for Orin, who later dropped out, was actually shorter than me so when considering who would play Seymour they went with someone smaller and I got stuck with being the understudy.  However, I should be happy with that because had the show not been sabotaged by a distraught producer who though he should have been director I wouldn’t have been considered at all as I was still kind of a weak actor at that point.  Did I get all of that right, O great admin who directed this show? 🙂