Honk
Beauty and the Beast
The Devil and Daniel Webster
Go! Dog! Go!
Sleeping Beauty
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Focusing on the Portland, Oregon theatre scene in precisely 50-word increments. followspot@hotmail.com
11 comments:
Why no summer musical this year?
I understand the summer musical is not financially beneficial to the theater - was always a loser. Too bad tho. It was a good experience for teens and there is sooo little for teens now at NWCT.
Judging by what I've seen in person and on other comments made here on followspot, it appears that the teen theater scene followed Monteverde to Blue Monkey.
Blue Monkey is doing a summer musical, Zombie Prom. Maybe that's where the teens will go.
i for one think it very tasteful and wise of NWCT (or sarah jane hardy rather) to choose to not put Night of the Living Dead on their season this year. This will hopefully eliminate a lot of the drama that ensued last year
Why, oh why, Northwest Childrens Theater, are you doing Beauty and the Beast once more? I hope that it will not be the same cast, and that this time the dance numbers, and costumes will be more emaculate. In regards to the summer musical, I believe John started a tradition with teens that will carry on with him such as the summer musical, and NOLD. Sarah Jane is a compassionate person, and realizes those things began when John was under the artistic director title.
With all the tickets it sold last year, I don't see how they COULDN'T do Beauty and the Beast again. Especially if they're hoping to have enough money to get going on the renovation plans they've had sitting around the office for the past 7 or 8 years. Though I do agree I would love it if they re-did the sets and costumes and replaced the choreographer and some cast members.
7:30 anon again: I quite agree that I think it's great of Sarah Jane/NWCT to not put up NOLD again this year. I would love nothing more than to see the drama in all of this end. It's obvious that Blue Monkey has a different vision than NWCT, and I would love nothing better than to see both organizations thrive because of what they can provide for the community. For the future, I'd love to see both programs really expand their talent pools. I see a lot of the same faces over and over, and while I understand why that occurs, I know that there are some really talented kids of all ages not getting a crack at it. I for one am excited to see what happens next season!
I would just like to say that they aren't doing a summer musical NOT because John left (or sales), Sarah Jane had just as much of a hand (if not more?) in the summer musicals as John did.
However, with most of the summer musical cast at college. She is instead providing a summer "class" of sorts to help spur on the next wave of awesome teen performers and thus keep the Children's Theatre name. I do believe they hope to have one up and going next summer.
Yes, if you look at the programs for the NWCT summer musicals, the kids get progressively older (which is to be expected, obviously). But in Babes in Arms (the 1st) most of the kids were just starting high school whereas in Moby Dick (the most recent) most of the kids were finishing high school or had already started college.
So since the last 5 years have been pretty much dominbated by the same 7 or 8 kids that have now moved on, this looks to be a gap year which Sarah Jane has wisely chosen to use to get the "next generation" ready.
I personally have really enjoyed their summer mucials every year. Why I always go back to NWCT (and OCT and probably Blue Monkey as well) is because I think it's so fun to get to watch these kids doing what they love to do and seeing them change and grow over the years.
I love NWCT and Blue Monkey and OCT...where I grew up there was no outlet for me as a young aspiring actor to try my hand at this mystical and sometimes perplexing thing we call theatre....what a wonderful opporutunity all of these orginizations provide for the next generation...I love them all and I sincerely hope they thrive indefinitely.
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