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At the End of the Day we Presented our First Musical ♫♣

Mittwoch, 16. März 2011 / 06:23

For the Foundation day Celebration in October last year, the High School Students of Abba's Orchard School were supposed to present the musical Les Miserables.

At the end of July the teachers asked us students to sing in front of them, Mr. Dan and Ms. Annie, so that they could pick people for the main characters in Les Miserables. I remember that I really did not want to sing, I don't like singing in public and I do not like acting either, so the whole thing was not interesting for me. I did not want to present a play.

But they forced us anyway, we started practicing regularly, first vocal exercises and then we started singing and memorizing the songs (they even played it during lunchtime!) Practicing took a lot of our time. We could not have our self expressions and P.E.s anymore, and since we had to present the musical in October, we only had four months to prepare, which is a really short time. The closer the end of October got, the more stressed we got, we stayed at school until six in the evening, and the main characters had to stay even longer to sing.

I hated this project for taking so much of my free time. Then we also had to practice the acting, and we realized that the musical was too big for us to master in four months. We just presented a teaser on the Foundation Day Celebration, which was better for everyone.

But after this we did not continue practicing, we wasted a lot of time. Only in January we realized that we only had three months to catch up. This time we started recording all the voices. The main cast sometimes recorded until 9 pm (I felt so sorry for them), sometimes they were gone for the whole school day for that. They were really loaded, and the teachers also had a hard time.

During the whole week before the final presentation we were in Rodelsa Hall, practicing the whole day. We had to work on the acting, entering and exiting on time, practice with the props and with costumes. Our director kept on changing the actions and it was really hard to us to follow. She was stressed, too. According to her everything had to be perfect, she always wanted us to give our best. And even though she was insulting us, she is a good director, threatening, but she knows what she wants, and we improved because of her.

We went through the scenes over and over again until it was good enough. It was hard work. We had to change a lot, there were different costumes for the scenes, and sometimes we only had a few minutes to change our clothes. Make up was also needed, we reapplied it a lot of times.I never used that much make up in my life! Most of the girls were prisoners, factory workers, lovely ladies and beggars and sometimes we had to look dirty and poor, sometimes attractive or tired, the dirty again...that is why we needed a lot of make up. So changing and appyling make up also had to be practiced, because we have little time and the area there is not that big. And all ladies also had to curl their hair, which was tiring because it took a long time, and barely anyone had a curling iron.

It is not easy to bring the props on stage as well. The setting for each scene is different, so we have to move in chairs, tables,etc. very quick between the scenes, and the lights are even turned off.

What I am trying to say is that everyone had to put a lot of effort in this play, and I never realized that presenting a musical would be so hard until I was part of one.

Anyway, the big day finally came, we went through the whole play in the morning, and in the evening it was showtime. We had to be there two hours to prepare. Even if my part in the play was very small, I was kind of worried that I might do something wrong and embarrass myself. I would probably never go on a stage again.

Anyway, the show went pretty well. The songs sounded good, the actors were good, the props were there... And I think that we did not forget anything. I think that our parents, friends and all those people who were watching were really surprised, even I could not imagine that our presentation would be that successful.

At the end I saw that the theater was really full, and they were all applauding and that made me really happy and proud. It was actually fun in the end, and I am glad that I was part of this event. Though it was sad that there were a lot of songs that were not included (which made it hard for those who did not know the story to understand what was going on), it was still a good play for students like us. We are no professionals, and I guess that it was the first time for most of us to present a musical like Les Miserables.

We should thank all of those who made this happen, especially Ms. Jeni, Mr. Manuel, Ms. Annie and Mr. Dan for supporting us.

Here are some pictures which I stole from Facebook, since I did not take any. Sorry, they are unorganized because I am too tired to move them in order. :P