“Before the Show” and the Tragedy of Middle School Theatre
The summer before my junior year of high school I was in a production of Legally Blonde: The Musical with a teen community theatre group in Carrollton. I had a great time doing it and I met a lot of great people who are now good friends. We thought we did so amazing. We thought we were the pinnacle of perfection. And we did have some cool dance numbers. And we sounded pretty good. Watching the recording of it back, I realized that we were disillusioned while preforming. We were good, but there were a lot of mistakes.
Jump forward to winter of my senior year and guess what I am doing: Legally Blonde. Again. It was definitely harder to do the second time around because I had a preconceived notion of what the show should be like, and what we produced was nothing like what I was a part of the first time around. I also got very tired of the show. After I do a show once, I am typically sick of the music because I have to sing the same songs over and over again. This got heightened because I was in the show twice.
Now, not to say I’m an expert on all things theatre related, but I have been in theatre since I was in fourth and I’ve been in almost thirty productions. I have also seen many professional and community shows. I know when something looks good or not. I can say without hesitation that the “All-Star cast” version of “Omigod You Guys” is one of the worst performances I have ever seen. What makes it even worse, or better depending on how you want to look at it at a comedy standpoint, is that the video was put together from tapping of the best parts of the performance over two nights. There is evidence of this when Elle is talking to the saleswoman about a dress, and Elle will go from wearing a cardigan to not wearing a cardigan, and also the dress in question will change completely as it goes from shot to shot. Granted, it seemed that all of the performers were around middle school age, but there was still very little that was redeemable about it. It is so bad that it is comical. Which is why Saturday Night Live made a sketch based off of it.
The sketch is actually very accurate.
I have been in shows where my fellow cast mates were so confident that the show was going to be great, when in reality it ended up average at best. The sketch shows the cockiness of middle schoolers, but at the same time the insecurities and awkwardness. Two of the characters have a scene together and their cast mates keep saying how much chemistry they have together and how their scene is electric. The time for the scene comes along and it is the most awkward thing ever. What is supposed to be a sweet, close moment ended up with them awkwardly just going through the basic choreography and standing very far apart. Another instance of their cockiness is when one of the girls was bragging about how fantastic she is going to do on her solo, and then when she begins her solo she cannot be heard over the music. Probably the most accurate part of the entire skit is at the very end when all of the actors are on stage doing the curtain call and the character Kate McKinnon plays turns to her cast mates on stage and asks, “How do you think it went?’ while everything was crashing down around them. One girl’s wig is falling off, there is a banner hanging by one string, there are props strewn about the stage, and the character with a bloody nose responds to the question, “Perfect!” As mentioned before, I have experience an event like this many times, but hopefully not as bad as either of the videos.
It is also very accurate to the video it is based off of. While it is not a direct copy of the All-Star cast version, it highlights the best/worst parts of the video, such as the timid voices and also the bad voices. You can also tell in both videos that they are confident in their performances when they should not be.
Middle school is an awkward time, and the sketch portrays that wonderfully. Middle schoolers are halfway between being children and being almost adults. Their voices are still maturing so most of the time they do not have the best singing voice. They also have a tendency to be over confident. But at the same time so insecure. As the sketch shows, these middle schoolers cannot see the absolute choas going around them. They think they are nailing it.
The theater is a great place to express oneself and show talent. Theatre has opened so many doors for me and allowed me to find a group of people that I truly love and that I can go to when I need them. I am often inspired by stories of how people made their claim to fame, but not movie stardom or anything like that. Just those Broadway stars. I love the idea of Broadway stardom because most regular people do not know who they are, but there are few, like me, who obsess over these same actors and actresses. Everybody started somewhere and that gives people hope that they can go farther. But there is no denying that middle school theatre is the worst.
“Before the Show — SNL.” Vimeo, vimeo.com/213459545.
“Legally Blonde: ‘Omigod You Guys’ Feat. All-Star Cast.” YouTube, YouTube, 24 Jan. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v8LF-YWKfo.