We’re just back from the closing night of the show at Beth’s school. After the fantastic production of Peter Pan last year, this year they’ve lifted the bar again, by putting on Grease.
The first thing to note about the production is that they did the original version, so if you turned up expecting to hear Grease, Hopelessly Devoted to You, and You’re the One That I Want, all of which were added for the revival version, then you may have been disappointed. Having said that, it was hard to be disappointed with what the entirely student cast produced.
The whole show was fantastic. Apparently there had been some hiccups in the earlier performances, but it all came together tonight. The two students playing the key roles of Sandy and Danny were great, getting the harmonies in Summer Nights spot on. There were great performances right across the board though – the “man lessonsâ€? that the director had to give to the boys seeming to have paid off, alongside all the hard work on accents. This year they even got together a live band to play for all the songs too.
Interestingly, much as with the production last year, the production was a bit of an eye-opener for some of the parents, most of whom probably hadn’t really paid attention to the content of the show – quite a few of the jokes, although they probably go straight over the heads of half the cast, are pretty risqué – although there was only one point where there was a sharp intake of breath from parts of the audience. About the only aspect of the original that I remember that wasn’t here was the smoking – there is only one minor point I spotted in the lyrics where it is referred to, but aside from that it doesn’t really notice that it’s not there. Another interesting aspect of the show is actually seeing it performed by actors who are the right ages – the movie version especially is renowned for having actors significantly older than the parts they are playing.
Anyway, I took a load of pictures during the production. They are all non-flash, but using the image stabiliser on Beth’s camera, quite a few have come out pretty well. I’ve uploaded the full set to Flickr though, including the dud’s to give some idea of the full story – although in common with any of the other pictures taken at the school they are subject to the Child Protection rules and are therefore only available in the private stream. All in all it was a great evening, the big question is now, what are they going to do next year to top this one?