- Time to make you people live a little!
Ain't like there's a law against it!
- [Incredulous coughing] Actually in this town, there is.
- You see, our new mayor, she recently introduced the Mamie Eisenhower Decency Act.
- The what?
- No public kissing or [giggles] handholding.
[Crowd gasps]
- No tight pants.
- No loud music.
- Well, looks like I'm gonna have to do somethin' about this.
- [Zachary] A roustabout, which is me, moves into this really boring town, and starts sort
of shaking everything up.
- [Sabrina] And he's disrupting all of Matilda's plans, and she does not like that very much,
so I'm constantly trying to stop him and arrest him, and like get rid of him,
get him out of town completely.
- [Zachary] So Chad, when he gets to town, Natalie falls in love with him instantly,
but Dennis is in love with Natalie, and they're best friends.
- [Javan] But he's really awkward, he doesn't really know how to go about it, until he meets
Chad, who kind of teaches him how to raise his confidence a little bit.
- [Zachary] And then Miss Sandra, who also recently moved to town, Chad falls in love with her.
- [Teagan] I am new to the town, actually, and Chad falls in love with me originally,
and I don't really like him very much.
- [Nida] Natalie decides that in order to become closer to Chad, she must become a man,
and so she puts on a beard and some man clothes and she heads off and tries to become Chad's
sidekick, which she succeeds in doing.
- [Zachary] And then Sandra falls in love with Ed, who is really Natalie cross-dressing
to get closer to Chad.
- [Nida] But Chad falls in love with Ed instead of Natalie.
- [Zachary] And in the end, Dennis and Sandra fall in love with each other, and then Natalie
and Chad fall in love with each other.
- [Sabrina] And the whole thing is just a giant love story between so many different characters.
- [Ensemble, Singing] Take my hand,
take my whole life too,
for I can't help
falling in love with you.
- [Carol] The actual musical book is based off of all Elvis songs, but the storyline
is taken from Shakespearean comedies, so, Twelfth Night, As You Like It.
It really provided a lot of opportunities for growth for the students who were involved
to, you know, have their own character, and work on the characterization.
[Music]
- [Chad, singing] The warden threw a party in the county jail,
the prison band was there and they began to wail.
The band was jumpin' and the joint began to swing,
you should've heard those knocked-out jailbirds sing.
Let's rock,
oh baby, let's rock.
Everybody in the whole cell block was dancing to the jailhouse rock.
- [Zachary] So I took a lot of a jump because I had only been in ensemble before this, and
I went right up into the lead role, which surprised everyone, even me.
It's a lot more work than I had ever done before, so I had to put a lot more of myself
into this role, and uhhh [with Elvis accent] once I got the role it was a lot of uhh workin'
on the voice, and having to do this for the whole show, man, that's - that takes a lot of stamina.
- [Sabrina] I'm generally a quiet and nice person, so it's kind of difficult at times
to get into character, especially when I have to go around and like yell at everybody and
like push people away.
It's really interesting to have a villain role - it's a way of releasing anger [giggles]
it's certainly fun being that way, considering it's not socially acceptable to do it in real life.
- [Tyler] You have to basically create a story for yourself.
You don't have a director to tell you, like, what your storyline is.
You have to express that story and emotion while you're dancing and singing, and - so
when I first came here, I was named ensemble, so I did have a role, I did have a cue that
I had to come on, I had to know my dances perfectly, I had to also sing perfectly, and
I feel like because of that, I'm so much better in this play than I was last time, and I'm
always striving to be better, so it makes me really happy that I'm doing that.
[Music]
- [Lorraine & Dean, singing] It's now or never,
come hold me tight,
kiss me my darling,
be mine tonight.
- [Carol] Usually, when we come into the stage and we have finished doing the lighting and
the sound, and I've put all of that stuff in place, then that is when I hand it over
to the stage manager and the stage crew to run the show.
And they do indeed - it is student-run from top to bottom.
- [Jerri] As the Stage Manager, I am in charge of running the show, which means I cue when
the lights go, when the set transitions happen, things like spotlights as well, and sound
and projections if we do have them in the production.
Backstage, the crew is standing by, waiting to move sets on and off, helping with mic
changes as well, and costume changes.
Lights themselves and the sound and the set changes - in a sense they're their own character
throughout the production, as much as the actors actually are.
So I get to watch a huge group of people come together, and I especially get to help push
them in the direction of success, and I get to watch it all bloom beautifully.
- [Teagan] Definitely it is a lot of hard work, but I say every moment of it is worth it.
You put all this work in, and it's so satisfying seeing it all come together towards the end,
and I think that's really amazing.
- [Javan] Somebody that's coming in for the first time, it's not all about the leads,
cause that was kind of my mindset when I first started out, I was like, "Ah man, they
get all the attention, they get all the glory."
But now that I have grown up and been like, "You know what, everybody's got an important
role to play."
And one person, even in the ensemble, not doing their part, it's really noticeable.
- [Nida] Ensemble does help build your confidence on stage, and which leads up to a lead role.
It's just so much fun that it's definitely something that you will remember for your
entire life, and it's a great experience.
- [Girls, singing] Lovin' my baby, hey, hey, hey, and my baby loves-
- [Carol] This is my 30th year of teaching with Parkland School Division, and I took
theatre in Parkland School Division when I was in junior high and high school, and it
changed my life, because it showed me, in a safe way, how I could become more confident,
how I could interact with people, how I could be empowered to work with other people to
do amazing things.
The skills of being confident, speaking in front of audiences, which, you know, let's
be honest, people fear more than they fear death, they say, right?
And so, if you are a teenager and you've managed to overcome that hurdle, and you found out
that you can do things that are hard, it's going to help you later on in your life to
do things that might be challenging.
- [Ensemble] What's wrong with me?
I'm in love, love, love...
I'm all shook up!
[Applause]