High School Musical a Hit in Indiana School
Filed under: Entertainment on Monday, January 29th, 2007 by Entertainment Kids | No CommentsWells Community Theater’s production of Disney’s High School Musical was so powerful and electric that director Kim Durr was sure cast members’ hair was standing on end.
After hundreds of hours of auditions, practices, blocking, and rehearsals, show time arrived on Friday, Jan. 26. The cast went through some notes with Durr, and then did some warm up exercises.
This reporter was fortunate to be a past of the cast, and spent the last few minutes before the curtain waiting stage left with my fellow “teachers,” as MarkleBank President Greg Smitley made the opening remarks and introduced the show.
Smitley noted that the show royalties were paid for through a donation from the Wells County Foundation and how two other sponsors, MarkleBank and Dale and Huffman attorneys also made the production possible.
The show opens on a high energy level with the “Wildcat Cheer,” and “The Start of Something New,” and then somehow ratchets up the level even higher throughout the first act until the thunderous first act finale, “Stick to the Status Quo.”
Students in the cafeteria dance on tables and allow chaos to reign, as the boundaries between cliques are shattered and traditional roles are tested.
The show has some very funny moments, most involving the happenings in Drama Teacher Mrs. Darbus’s detention. You’ll discover how much depth and pain an earthworm can feel, and the tension between Durr’s Darbus character and the school’s basketball coach Jack Bolton is fun to watch.
Real life siblings Ti and Palmer Durr play the school’s over the top thespian stars, twins Sharpay and Ryan Evans. Both have a knack for physical comedy and are popular characters despite of or due to Sharpay’s scheming style.
The second act starts out slow and romantic, then poignant for the leads Troy Bolton (Erik Hall) and Gabriella Montez (Sonia Rodriguez) as their friends almost crush their dream and budding romance in one fell swoop.
This sets up one of the most powerful vocal performances you are likely to hear in Wells County for a while.
Rodriguez may not have made the cut after four rounds of American Idol tryouts in Minnesota but that was Idol’s loss and our gain.
The junior from Homestead High School’s rendition of, “When there was you and me,” always brings tears to my ears, and I can attest I was not alone. That song never fails to bring loud cheers and applause from the crowd, and is made even more powerful to the ensemble cast’s backing vocals.
File this under you heard it here first but we’ll hear more from Ms. Rodriguez in time.
The young lovers Troy and Gabriella get back on track and overcome more obstacles to succeed in all their dreams, and the audience delights in the whole journey.
Each of our first three performances had a different feel, and no two cast members truly agreed on all points. Friday’s opening night had a lot of energy, a sense of transition from practice to performance, and the usual bugs and jitters.
The cast found inspiration and the message of the show going on despite obstacles in the form of Abby Burgan, who plays the “brainiac” Kratnoff.
Burgan suffered a severe ankle sprain the day of the first show and instead of being crushed at her inability to do the show as blocked, her blocking was redone to put her on stage at times she would have entered elsewhere.
A determined Burgan pushed past the pain and danced her way through the closing finale, the megamix.
Durr said it was a great example of how the show must go on no matter what transpires.
Saturday’s show felt bumpy in some areas and smoother in others, and it’s funny to see what gets a laugh on one night, and on others falls on deaf ears. And again, that was my opinion.
I think if polled though most of the cast would say Sunday’s sellout show was the best so far. It was another night with high energy, a great crowd, and few problems.
Tickets are still available for all three shows this coming weekend and we can’t stress enough that the final performance on this coming Sunday will be finished in time to get home and watch the big game. This show breaks new ground in a few ways. It’s very contemporary and the Wells Community Theater’s production is one of the first chances to see High School Musical on stage anywhere.
It’s clean, family friendly and the score is infectious. It’s a chance to see Durr on stage and playing a role that hits pretty close to home. Mrs. Darbus may be a little more off the wall, but the two share a passion for the performing arts and for motivating their students to give their best performance possible.
Durr said she has found herself constantly slipping into Mrs. Darbus’s lyrical tone and for about a month she has answered alternatively to Kim Durr and Mrs. Darbus.
