High School Musicals, Part 3: Dancing in Women’s Underwear . . . ?

Midway through The Wedding Singer, my thought was “This would be such a fun show to do in a high school. Too bad it can’t be done.”

It’s a myth that old Broadway shows were purely wholesome entertainments. I once saw a great regional production of Oklahoma! with a group of teachers who had grown up loving the movie. They were more than slightly surprised by some of the lyrics in the stage version. In the old days, though, when schools did shows like Oklahoma! or The Pajama Game, they could easily look to the film adaptations for guidance on how to incorporate alterations to make the show appropriate for their students. The lyrics were already changed by the original creators for the movies, so there was no danger is adapting those changes.

My college directing teacher told us that you could get away with taking out the swear words, but really, anything other than that, you were legally out of bounds. She taught us to respect the work of the playwright, to honor their intentions, and that if a show in its entirety wasn’t right for your actors or your audience, then it was best to pick another show.

When I saw The Wedding Singer, I knew there was no way for a high school to do the show without severely damaging the integrity of the piece. Here was a show with instant name recognition for the audience, with really catchy songs, and loads of laughs. Plus, kids would love the retro 80s factor. The Wedding Singer really would be a blast for high school students to tackle.

But from beginning to end, there’s too much material not appropriate for high school actors. Songs incorporate the f-bomb, strippers, drugs, and sexual practices. A major plot element involves a character waking up to wonder if he’s had sex with a woman he doesn’t love, not to mention her seduction of him the night before. And what would a high school do with a gay character like George (who, in song lyrics, dances in women’s underwear and professes not to like women at all).

I’ve also wondered what high schools will do with Hairspray. There’s not much inappropriate in the stage version, but there are lines about kids with condoms, a lesbian phy ed teacher taking advantage of her students, plus a few other devious lines here and there that would give administrators cause to wince. If you can easily leave a line out, that’s not so bad for a high school director to do, but to take on rewriting dialogue or lyrics is crossing the line. Hopefully, when it is licensed, the writers will provide equitable solutions for high school directors to use.

With the exception of a big, challenging show like Les Miserables, I don’t think most high school directors would opt for a “School Edition” or “Jr.” production of a show. High school directors generally do aspire to make a great show, and while “Jr.” productions are great for middle schools, to do a The Wedding Singer Jr. at a high school would be beneath most students and directors (though, there is an audience for high schools doing High School Musical, so what do I know?). The creators could re-write a PG-rated The Wedding Singer, but that would just be cheap. There’d have to be too many major changes (as opposed to changing a line of dialogue or a lyrics here or there).

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is another show that has the potential to be a heap of fun at a high school that would simply not work for a high school to produce.

Maybe that’s why the most common new shows to make it to high school are Seussical and Beauty and the Beast. They can actually be done at a high school.

the Broadway Mouth
September 18, 2008

High School Musicals, Part 2: Hey Mom, I’m a Hooker in the School Play!

I never knew how I could send my drama kids home to tell their parents they were hookers in the school play. When I was directing high school plays, my kids wanted me to do Les Miserables (and it wasn’t even being licensed yet), I just could just imagine the following scene:

Virginia: Mom, mom, I got a part in the school play!

Mom: How exciting, honey. I’m so proud of you. What’s your character?

Virginia: I’m a hooker!

Mom: A hooker . . . ?

Virginia: And I don’t even need a costume. My director said everything you bought for me to wear to school this fall will work just fine.

Mom: I find that very offensive. We were going for Pussycat Dolls.

Okay, so the conversation I imagined didn’t exactly go like that (and I always had the “True Love Waits” kids auditioning for my plays, so this really was fictionalized), but I am curious how parents react to their kids being in Les Miserables. I tried to see a high school production just to see the cuts that were made, but it was sold out. Still, a prostitute is a prostitute, and that’s an odd thing to tell your mother you’re playing in the school play.

Yes, times have changed. When my mom was in high school in the 1960s, they did a musical revue where “’Cause no one wants a fella with a social disease” in “Gee, Officer Krupke” from West Side Story got changed to “’Cause no one wants a fella who doesn’t say please” (my mom never addressed why this song, of all songs from that show, would be selected for inclusion in a high school musical revue, but I say no judgments). How different is that from the current era, where kids get heckled on MTV for not having sex. Now that lyric is so outdated because we’re getting more inclusive than in the 1960s; too many kids have social diseases not to be. Take that, Stephen Sondheim.

I have an acting copy of My Sister Eileen (which was the source material for Wonderful Town). There are 4.25 pages printed in tiny print, titled “My Sister Eileen for High Schools.” It’s the authors’ suggestions for making the play acceptable for high school productions.

Some highlights:

Before
1st Man: (Delightedly.) Another dame! Look, Pete! There’s two broads—one for you too!

After
1st Man: (Delightedly.) Another dame! Look, Pete! There’s two dames—one for you too!

Before
Wreck: “I’m a rambling wreck from Georgia Tech
And a helluva engineer—
A helluva, helluva, helluva,
Helluva engineer—“

After
Wreck: “I’m a rambling wreck from Georgia Tech
(Follow with indistinct humming).”

And there are, indeed, some lines that get omitted for sexual overtones. In the high school version, it seems like Violet really is a rumba teacher (as opposed to being a prostitute), Wreck and Helen were actually married secretly (instead of just living together), and there are cuts like:

Before
Lonigan: I found him in the alley, with all these bed-clothes. I think he’s some kind of sex nut!

After
Lonigan: I found him in the alley, with all these bed-clothes. I think he’s some kind of nut!

But maybe kids in the high school version of My Sister Eileen took matters in their own hands like my kids did during the final performance of The Pajama Game.

There’s a comedy bit at the picnic where womanizing Prez tells Brenda that he’s taking her to get another beer. She protests that the refreshments are opposite from where he’s pulling her. They disappear off stage left, then after some dialogue between Babe and Sid, Brenda walks back on stage straightening her clothes, saying to Babe, “Stay out in the open, honey, don’t get down in them woods.”

In that final performance, I almost died when I saw my Brenda re-enter the stage buttoning up her top, followed by my Prez zipping up his pants. And my Prez came from a very conservative family. It was hilarious because they actually did it, but at the same time, I was mortified that it looked like I had directed them to do it.

the Broadway Mouth
September 16, 2008

High School Musicals, Part 1: The Most-Performed High School Musicals

According to the Educational Theatre Association, the most-performed high school musicals are (drum roll, please) . . .

Little Shop of Horrors
Seussical
Thoroughly Modern Millie
Beauty and the Beast
High School Musical

Okay, so I don’t get the High School Musical thing since, I would think, many high school students would shy away from being in the show even if they love the movie, but I found this list fascinating considering the lack of the usual suspects—no Camelot, Grease, or King and I. No Annie, Oliver!, or Fiddler on the Roof. Yes, we have no No, No Nanette.

To me the biggest surprise is Thoroughly Modern Millie considering, though it is based on a well-known movie, of the list, it would not have the most instantly recognizable name for students.

I recently finally picked up the updated edition of Let’s Put on a Musical! (more on that later), and it got me thinking about what shows I would want to choose if I were directing a high school musical again (which, to be honest, I would so love to do).

When I left my first teaching job where I was also director, I had been contemplating Mame for the following year. Not only am I big fan of the movie (yeah, I know), but it was a show that highlighted my school’s strengths—actresses—and downplayed its weaknesses—having actors.

So, what shows would be high on my list to direct all these years later?

Mame
Bells are Ringing
Aida
Jane Eyre
Urinetown
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Side Show
Flower Drum Song (revisal)

Of course, to appease kids and parents, there would need to be some better-loved titles in there—The Sound of Music, Oliver!, Guys and Dolls—but I probably would have continued the trend I started, picking a well-known musical one year (Hello, Dolly!) and a lesser-known play (Up the Down Staircase), then picking a lesser-known musical the next year (The Pajama Game) and a well-known play (The Diary of Anne Frank, Kesselman revision).

I picked The Pajama Game largely because of the number of female parts, but I also loved getting to do something people hadn’t seen ten times. Attendance was down, but we had a blast putting the show up (and the audience did laugh their butts off). Could you imagine the fun of introducing a whole new audience to Urinetown or The Scarlet Pimpernel?

the Broadway Mouth
September 14, 2008

Okay, so I would never expect a high school to produce No, No, Nanette. It was just a fun sentence to write.