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 | The night the bottles broke. So what did we learn about shelves made of cardboard
and duct tape? |
| The most amazing part of the play had to be Polly lifting Bobby! At one foot shorter
and one hundred pounds lighter, she defied the laws of physics by picking him up and
holding him!...and his goofy look made it perfect! |
| The hot jazzy sounds of "Stairway to Paradise" as the showgirls made their
great entrance into Deadrock, doing their wonderful walks. |
| And then there was the time the sweeper didn't work. Tess, Patsy, and Everett were
all out there on stage faced with inventing new lines to fit the new situation - and they
did it! Everett had a fight with the sweeper in front of everybody! Piece of what? (Sounds
like a young Corey Spring in Bye Bye Birdie to me. I taught him everything he knows.
Didn't take long.) |
| "I am beside myself!" How much we all enjoyed watching Bobby and Bela
perfect that number, working long hours to make themselves mirror images. And it worked-
that scene was the crowd-pleaser of all time! How did they do it? How did they stay so
exactly alike, and how in the world did they keep from laughing? they got applause all
through it, starting with the bottle swing, "before they even did anything,"
according to Adrienne. |
| Who made a fool outta Polly? |
| Those gorgeous sets! Virtually everyone worked on them, led by the tireless Mrs.
Quillen, and the actors even pitched in to move them on and off stage. At one point it
looked as though the great big set would be a problem, as it was too big to move, but that
Swazall worked wonders as Mr. Henry just sawed the top of the set off! |
| Lank's seduction on stage, as Irene was just too much for him! From Irene's
domination, to Lank's efforts to untie himself, to the cowboys peeking through the saloon
doors, it was a real treat. |
| We had an interloper! This has to be one for the record books...the cast smuggles a
kid from another school into the dressing room (not unnoticed by the eagle-eyed
director!), puts him in a costume, and suddenly he's in the second act! Corey may not be
enrolled in our school now, but he is still in the hearts of all of us Thespians. And the
bow- with both Adam and Corey taking the Bela bow...be still, my heart! |
| Ballroom dancing, complete with spins! It was beautiful! |
| The Final Countdown! 'Nuff said. |
| Didn't our actors look professional on our publicity board? Thanks to Mr. Lenzo and
Steven, for figuring out how we could do that without a flyloft. |
| Our showgirls learned so many dances! |
| "I Got Rhythm!" What a scene that was! There were tap dancers everywhere;
brave girls doing roundoffs in high-heeled tap shoes; more brave girls letting boys lift
them into the air supported only by a wee thin board; the two Belas within feet of each
other, totally oblivious; the delightful junk band; people dancing right across Bela's
prostrate body; flaps and wings all over the place; boys stomping the daylights out of
those pizza pans; a 35-person kickline; Yop! Yop! Yop! |
| Irene's powerful voice- "Yes, Satan?" |
| Gunfights! We had gunfights! IT was quite a challenge to get the timing for sound
effects and falls - and we even managed to shoot down the cuckoo clock! Good job, cowboys! |
| "I've seen your picture in Variety a hundred times!" |
| We had fifty-one adults who volunteered their help! That's an amazing number, and
it's not even counting all those moms who fed us. How lucky we were to have all that
support! |
| Hours and hours of rehearsal - and it was worth it; we managed to do a play that
almost no one thought we could do. |
| Cork-spitting - Polly's expertise, Bobby's mile-long spit, and the night the cork
hit Jimmy right between the eyes! |
| "This is miraculous!" |
| Our professional costumes, with real showgirl headdresses and tails and guys in
tuxes! |
| That wonderful orchestra, playing Gershwin (which couldn't be much harder) as if
they were born to do it, with Mr. Hoskins playing every key on the piano and then some,
and Mr. Pritchard making his directing debut while riding a wildly bouncing chair. |
| Table dancing - how cute! |
| The ability of Polly and Bobby to play the romantic and sad scenes - not an easy
task, but their expressive faces and body language really did the job. |
| "Chin up!" The audience loved our delightful little British couple. |
| The night we saw the professional production of "Crazy". When it was over,
we just couldn't make ourselves leave. We desperately wanted to do it all over again. |
| We finally got an edited video, and it's great! Thanks, Steven and Mr. Berndt. |
| Our beautiful lighting - love those pinks and blues! |
| The cast party, with all kinds of music going on, and how many musicians? It even
included a favorite musicals sing-along, led onstage by show host Kellie, who didn't even
let a non-functioning mike slow her down. |
| Bobby and Polly's dance in their whites - how perfect! |
| People who caught the "bug" - you loved every moment on stage, you cried
when it was over, and even now your faces are so nostalgic when someone talks about our
time in the spotlights. |
| You were wonderful! You danced, you sang (in your big boy voices), you kept your stage faces on, and best of all, you virtually never had any awkward pauses - you rewrote the script to cover any little mistakes. What a performance! I shall remember it (and you) always. |
