GHS Musical 2008--Seussical--Amayzing Mayzie/Gertrude + more

Greenwood High School's 2008 Musical, Seussical, was a fantastic experience.I was incredibly blessed to get the role of the Cat in the Hat my senior year, and I had a lot of fun with it! We practiced painfully for months to end with four performances in mid-March, and it was well worth all the blood, sweat, and tears. This show is actually opening night. So, without further cliches, enjoy the show!......................... ..........This little scene at the beginning here was two lines in the script. Nothing.I decided the musical, fast-paced and brief as it was, needed some breathing room, so I tried to create a pocket here. When I first proposed drawing out this idea of taking a long time to wake Jojo up, it wasn't greeted with much enthusiasm. Our director, (who is FANTASTIC!) thought if I could make it work, it would be fine, and put her trust in me anyway. I came up with a few gags, and she decided early on that it wasn't working and it needed to be shortened. I fought the urge to keep telling her that it would be different with a live audience, and eventually just let it slide until performance.It helped that I worked with Jojo on our timing. Initially, it would be different everytime, but we set up a chain of reactions so that it would be timed well. In case you can't hear it, he whispers "Cindy Lou Who" up front there, and that's why the audience is cackling. That was an ad lib we HADN'T rehearsed, so my weirded out reaction is genuine. He made it more elaborate and hilarious on later nights, but it was pretty funny then, too.More on this later, but Jojo just kept hurting himself in the pursuit of energetic performance onstage. That slap was his idea. One night he even sleeptalked: "Ow." But if you think that's painful, check out how he comes onstage after "A Re-enactment"...Thanks to our director, for letting us draw out this scene!Gertrude was stellar, even though she had rough class schedules and Winter Guard practice throughout musical. She even came to practice rancidly sick. That girl got stamina! I think the little guitar is hers, actually. She practiced every detail of her part meticulously and the result you can watch througout this musical. Kudos to you, Gertrude!The Amayzing Mayzie number makes me mad. Why? Because Mayzie's microphone was NOT working throughout opening night, and I think it bothered her, because she plays her part VERY insecure compared to more fabulous later nights. She's not bad, not at all, but I wish her voice could have been heard, because the volume's not there, and her voice quality is not there because of it, so this is a good performance, but not NEARLY as good as it was the other nights. Sorry, Mayzie! We love you, girl!Her acting is still on spot, though, ain't it? I wish I could act that sexy naturally. I kept getting androgynous sorts of roles throughout my high school musical career. But hey, go with what works!Check out the Bird Girls here, too. They kind of choreographed this with Mayzie, and all their little cha-chas and flourishes are a lot of fun to watch. Our strongest dancers and singers got the Bird Girl parts, so altogether they are a visual treat and they sound great! The music is great in this, too, so hats off to our musicians! We had a surprising few this year, so they really belted it up to compensate, and they really sound nice in this Latin number.The Dr. Dake wig was time consuming to change to, but in retrospect, I'm glad I did. It looks really funny. I made the periscope here. It's very sparkly, and looks like I'm going to hypnotize someone with. This scene with Gertrude was so fun, I wish we had more scenes together. The one bad thing (and there really is only one) about being the Cat is you don't get to act with other people much. I kind of had to act by myself a lot, and only interacted very extensively with Jojo, so this scene was a nice change of pace.On later nights I added a line after that phlegmy spit: "Sorry, hairball!" Too bad I hadn't thought of it opening night. Someone else tipped me on it, and it seemed so obvious then...the accent I'm using is sort of a Hindi meets German meets Swedish kinda thing. I tried straight German like the script suggested, and it wasn't very funny, nor did it sound good coming out of me.That pill-berry bush is covered in bally-wallies. I'm pretty sure Gertrude isn't REALLY eating them, but who knows?So, the trick for getting that tail on is...obvious. But we got it on quicker as the nights progressed. Note that I'm warning Gertrude against eating more pills. But does she listen to me? Noooooo. (Wink, wink.) Once again, Gertrude and the Bird Girls' energy is great here. I even started dancing up on the platform.

Channel: Entertainment
Uploaded: December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Author: Husse67

Length: 08:16
Rating: 4.73
Views: 4701

Tags: arts  greenwood  musical  performing  seussical  

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