Shocked at Shrek the Musical!
By katsmeow1213
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
United States
March 31, 2017 6:29am CST
Last night I brought my younger 2 boys to see Shrek the Musical at a nearby high school.
The school my kids go to is an extremely small district, but we put on amazing shows year after year. Actually last year our school won Best Overall Production at the area High School Theater Awards. We easily get about 100 kids for each musical, and they're all so talented. Our community puts a lot of money, blood, sweat, and tears into our yearly performances..
So it was quite a shocker to go to another school, a much much larger school, and see how poorly their production was put on.
The kids performing in the show did a great job..
The trouble was that you could easily see that theater was not an importance to this school district. Their auditorium was tiny, at least half the size of ours. Their stage was small. Their sets were poorly made, most looked like a 5 year old created it..
Their cast was small! This is a school with a graduating class of at least 500 per year, (ours is 100 at most) but they had maybe 50 kids in their show.. Probably not even quite that many.
Their sound equipment is outdated so the microphones barely worked half the time.
There were wardrobe malfunctions left and right. A shoe went flying into the orchestra, some people lost their hats/wigs, Shrek lost his belt twice...
The kids were all quite talented and did a great job..
It was just painfully obvious that their community doesn't support the arts as well as they should.
So sad when a tiny school district like ours can put on an absolutely amazing show, while a much larger district, that has the means to put on something fabulous, just doesn't put in the effort and their shows fall a little short of the mark.
We still had a good time and enjoyed the show..
6 people like this
5 responses
@Happy2BeMe (99399)
• Canada
31 Mar 17
I am glad you enjoyed the show. It is sad when a school does not support the arts. They probably have their focus on other activities in the school and the arts suffer because of it. It is good that the students put on a good show in spite of all that they had to deal with to make the show happen.
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
• United States
31 Mar 17
Yes you're right, the focus is on other activities. In our district we allow the kids to do numerous activities at the same time, and the coaches and directors have to make allowances for the other activities, otherwise there wouldn't be enough kids for anything if each child could only pick one activity.
1 person likes this
@Happy2BeMe (99399)
• Canada
31 Mar 17
@katsmeow1213 I find that a lot of small schools work that way.
@PainsOnSlate (21854)
• Canada
2 Apr 17
My high school Had a fabulous art and Music department and we often did musicals, they were awesome and the huge auditorium was always full. Its sad when the community doesn't encourage the kids to join and enjoy/
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
• United States
3 Apr 17
Our school puts on amazing performances too, so my kids will have those fond memories. My son is thinking of going into theater when he gets older.
1 person likes this
@just4him (306352)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin
1 Apr 17
That is sad. I'm glad the kids did a good job though and you enjoyed the show. You can really tell when the heart isn't in a production.
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
• United States
2 Apr 17
There's some heart in the production. The kids gave it their all, and the volunteers did as well. It's the community and school district as a whole that isn't putting enough heart into theater.
@paigea (35701)
• Canada
31 Mar 17
It is amazing how some of the smaller schools get into these productions. The small towns seem to have a lot of community involvement and help with it all. In the city it seems many kids have too many other interests and don't get involved with school productions and neither does the community.
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
• United States
31 Mar 17
That is sad. All of the kids in our productions have other interests and have to manage their time better as they are on sports teams and in marching band as well. Being a small school the coaches and directors have learned to communicate with each other to allow the kids to do multiple activities at a time.. otherwise there wouldn't be enough kids for any of it.
1 person likes this
