In my three years of doing shows at Champaign Central High School, I have been in more than ten musicals and straight plays, which I have ranked in order of how much I enjoyed the experiences. I would like to emphasize that while I enjoyed performing in all of these shows and I did not regret doing any of them, I definitely did enjoy some more than others. No matter how much I liked or disliked a show, they all had bad aspects and good aspects. Here is a list of the most memorable:
- Chicago
Bad: while I have previously stated that there is no room for slackers in theatre, that doesn’t mean that I have never wanted to slack off. The temptation to be lazy was never stronger than it was during physical conditioning for Chicago. One has to be in decent shape for most musicals, but to perform the demanding dance numbers in Chicago – originally choreographed by the legendary Bob Fosse – one has to be in peak physical condition. Therefore, the half-hour conditioning sessions before dance rehearsals were necessary, but that doesn’t mean that they were any less demanding.
Good: despite the difficulty of the conditioning, I always managed to motivate myself to stay with it with the fact that my role in Chicago was my first lead in a musical. I was double-cast as Amos, the protagonist Roxie’s pushover of a husband. Amos’ inherent goodness, combined with his solo about being unappreciated, “Mister Cellophane,” made Amos my favorite role that I’ve ever played.
2. Rumors
Bad: Neil Simon’s Rumors is a dialogue-heavy farce, and every line had to be delivered quickly to get the full comedic effect out of them. I try to deliver my lines word-for-word from the script, which meant spending a lot of time spent memorizing. On top of this, my character Lenny was a rude, snarky jerk, which did not come naturally for me. Fortunately, I could channel the frustration that I felt with myself during rehearsal into Lenny – which was quite a lot of frustration.
Good: you get out of life what you put into it. Theatre always reminds me of this, as the hours that I spent memorizing my lines for Rumors paid off during performances, especially during Lenny’s climactic two-and-a-half-page monologue, in which he successfully makes up an audacious lie about the events of the play and convinces two police officers to leave him and his friends in peace.
3. Lend Me a Tenor
Bad: Lend Me a Tenor was the first Central show in which I was an actor, and so I was quite nervous about performing alongside the more experienced upperclassmen.
Good: playing a flamboyant, opera-singing bellhop helped me find the self-confidence that every theatre person needs.
4. Drop Dead!
Bad: My character in the murder mystery Drop Dead! was a stressed-out stage manager, which turned out to be quite easy, as the rest of the show was anything but easy. The day of our final dress rehearsal, I woke up at 7:45 am, and school started at 8:05 am. I ran to school without eating breakfast or showering, which made me understand how my character felt.
Good: Fortunately, my character also wore leather, and it’s difficult to be unhappy in leather. He also turned out to be the murder mystery’s murderer, and while being a homicidal maniac isn’t a good thing, it is a fun role to play.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
Bad: this adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic novel was difficult because of how timeless it is. In the traditional cast – white actors as white characters, actors of color as characters of color – I played the Radley brothers and Link Deas, Tom Robinson’s boss, which was easy enough. However, in the reversed cast – white actors as characters of color, actors of color as white characters – I played Tom Robinson, and as somebody who has never been oppressed, it was difficult to play a character who had been oppressed for his entire life.
Good: as I previously stated, this play is an adaptation of a classic novel, and it’s one of my favorites. So whether I was saving the Finch children from Bob Ewell as Arthur “Boo” Radley or being questioned in court as Tom Robinson, I gave this show everything that I had.
6. Little Shop of Horrors
Bad: I am currently in this show, and while Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. is a fun character to play, his actor is supposed to play four other characters, three of whom are in one song, one of whom is a woman, and all of whom have different costumes.
Good: as with Drop Dead!, Orin wears leather, and while he’s not a murderer – he’s a dentist – he’s still a leather-clad lunatic, and as such, he’s a fun role to play.
7. The Little Mermaid
Bad: Disney’s The Little Mermaid was Central High School’s first joint show with Centennial High School, and so it was a little strange working with so many new people. Fortunately, we made it work, as theatre people always do.
Good: I played Grimsby, Prince Eric’s droll British guardian, and so I got to look like an elderly man, pretend to smoke a pipe, and speak in a British accent. In short, it was a winning combination.
8. The Producers
Bad: although I was an understudy for a lead, I did not have a large role in Mel Brooks’ The Producers. Despite this, I did a fair amount of work as the student assistant to the director, but because I had never done this, it took me a while to figure out what I was doing.
Good: fortunately, I did eventually figure out what I had to do, and once I did, I realized what a great learning experience it was. I’ve been the student assistant to the director several times since The Producers, and it’s always fun.
9. Shrek the Musical
Bad: Shrek the Musical was the first musical in which I was an actor, and it was very different from Lend Me a Tenor. While I didn’t have any lines or solos at first, I was still somewhat overwhelmed by the new experience.
Good: I was originally cast as the Mad Hatter, but I was recast as the Big, Bad Wolf after the original actor dropped out. Similar to leather, it’s difficult to be unhappy when you’re wearing a blue, sequined dress, and that’s exactly what I wore as the Wolf. With a dress, lines, and a couple of small solos, I felt quite fabulous.
10. Grease
Bad: Grease is one of my least favorite shows, as it’s both badly-written and sexist. While it was fun to be in, it was also quite painful.
Good: fortunately, I was cast as Eugene Florczyk, who was the best character in the show – which is not saying much. As the class nerd and future vice-president of an advertising agency, Eugene was basically the opposite of the juvenile delinquent greasers who were supposed to be the heroes of the show.
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