The Real High School Musical
Posted on June 12, 2008 at 7:58 am
Salon’s Mark Schone wrote the most purely delightful article about finding clips of high school productions of Broadway musicals on You Tube. It includes everything from a German production of “West Side Story” to an Oklahoma production of…”Oklahoma.” The clips are all endearingly sincere and open-hearted. I love the way they put as many kids as possible on stage and everyone seems to be trying hard and having fun. Take a look — it’s a guaranteed smile.
And if you have some clips of your own school performances, send me the links!
I genuinely love High School music. OK, I was the prototypical band geek – in the late 60’s and early 70’s when it was the the depth of uncool. But even today, I love going to their productions of musicals and seeing how the kids either mimic the great actors, or add their own take on a well-known role. This is like going to Triple A ballgames. It is seeing potential greatness in its formative stages. Our own high school generated more than a few folks who went on to become actual actors (some even have known roles in recgized films).
But this opens another discussion (not really related to film, directly) and that is attention given to high school and college bands. No program involves as many students – and parents (for good or ill) – and receives less attention. A couple of movies have dealt with the topic, like Drumline and Amercian Pie: Band Camp. In our own town over 600 kids are in a program that at best gets less than 10 seconds of air time on tv. They learn and rehearse as much or more than sprits teams who have less people invilved and get more attention. So here is the challenge, all my fellow band-geeks — lets start to support our local music programs and request some attention from local news. Someone needs to take up the “High School Musical” theme, blend it with “Friday Night Lights” (a school who was sure to have a strong band program that got no attention in the show) and develop a series about high school band. I am sure it would get some great attention. Look at how Fleetwood Mac and Brad Paisley benefitted from it!
You’ll be glad to hear there’s a new documentary about a school band — “Ballou.” I have not seen it but the Washington Post says “the band’s director, Darrell Watson, whose compassionate leadership gives his young charges the priceless gift of discipline, focus and unbridled joy. ‘Everybody touch somebody,’ he says as he opens the band prayer. He does. They do. Amen.”