Bye Bye Birdie... Hello, Sanity

Thankfully, the middle school production of Bye Bye Birdie ended Sunday, netting me an extra 400 dollars. AND A ROSE!

Happiness not included

Nah, I feel like I come down too hard on musicals. As much as I rag on it every year, it is a legitimately fun experience. The band's usually quite adept, and more often than not the kids are hysterical. Dumbing down musicals to be appropriate for middle school often results in some incredibly stupid, incredibly funny substitutions. Like "orgy" being pronounced "oar-ghee". Or Coke (the drink, not the drug) being substituted for beer. Exciting.

It went off without a hitch. There were a few mishaps here and there, the most egregious one being an accidental curtain open during a scene in front of the curtain. The main characters are all interacting in front of the curtain while stage crew sets up the next scene behind it. But whoever was manning the curtain accidentally opened it after the scene was set, BEFORE the scene in front of it was finished. Trying to get 50+ middle schoolers to stay still for at least 3 minutes, if not more, is a terrifying prospect. Though I must say, they handled it pretty well.

I wish I could've taken my own pictures, but the whole dealing with underage kids and consent forms and such didn't allow me to. It's much easier to grab pictures from local publications as opposed to taking my own, and God forbid having a touchy Clarkstown parent wind up on this blog somehow and get me in serious trouble. Clarkstown (my town) is very big on the whole child safety thing, often to the detriment of those who just want some photo evidence for our blogs.

But I digress. Thanks to New City Patch, I can post pictures!

The 2 leads. I wish I knew their real life names, but both were actually very good at what they did. The girl in particular had quite a good voice for being in middle school, and they played off of each other well.

The namesake of the musical, Conrad Birdie and his harem of jailbait. Which gets alluded to in the script. Hysterical. His clothing never ceased to produce laughter.

The "twin" sisters of the family in the musical, the Macafees. Only on performance night did I realize they weren't actually twins in real life.

More of Birdie and his number one fan, Ursula. Who, I have to say, nearly blew out my eardrums. When you have 50 middle school girls on stage, screaming like they're at a Justin Bieber concert, and you're only 5 feet away from them, it's fucking painful.

Bows. Oh, the bows. We ran the bows music for the first time ever opening night. My God. That was a feat in and of itself, especially considering we had to continually loop it since there were so many kids who needed to get on stage. Second night we played a completely different song for the bows, and the final performance we made changes yet again. I don't think we ever really settled on the right choice, but it worked regardless.




And so ends another round of musical. Next up this week: MORE musical. Kelly Izzo's, that is. I should have a new arrangement up for you all at some point in the coming days.