Musical Revue

Last week our school celebrated it’s centennial!! We began this past school year celebrating, and the final celebrations took place last week. One of the celebrations was an Alumni Musical, which I made my dad sing in with me. ;) It wasn’t a full-fledged musical, just a smattering of favorites from over the years. We were in the chorus, so we sang “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof, “Edelwiess” from The Sound of Music, “Oklahoma” from, yep, you guessed it, Oklahoma, and “Do you Hear the People Sing?” from Les Miserables. It was so much fun to sing on stage with all those alumni and with my dad!

So, technically, I was never IN a musical in high school, but I was definitely involved! I was in the orchestra pit for two years and was the assistant director for two years. I just felt like being on stage this time, since I have enough of the “behind the scenes directing” in my regular life.

In addition to the chorus numbers, several alums came back to revive old roles and favorite songs and it was an evening of memories and nostalgia for anyone who was ever involved in a musical. We laughed and cried through the performance. All the performers even began backstage the same way we always did in high school (& apparently they still do to this day): with everyone standing in a circle, holding hands, praying for God to be glorified, and then singing together “Blest Be The Tie The Binds.” To this day I can’t sing that song without a lump in my throat. It began every single drama production I was involved in and it has done so for probably 50+ years.

What was even more fun was that the girls got to participate as well! One of our alums sang “Getting to Know You” from The King & I and she wanted some women and children to sing along with her. The 3 oldest girls learned the song and came to a rehearsal. We were so excited!

Elise was lamenting that she wasn’t going to be able to sing and I excitedly told her that she would get to go with Daddy and watch the sisters with Daddy. She said, with great disdain, “I have to watch everything.” (Wow, sorry Elise. You kinda do have to watch everything.)

Well, the good news was that on the night of the performance, the soloist invited any kids in the audience to join them on stage! Elise got to go up after all and she was SO proud. Just like the big girls!!

My big girls before the first performance.

“Tradition” – Can you find me?

Bethany got to dance with the soloist a bit, which was so fun! See Elise’s little blond head there on the bottom left? (I always overexpose her white hair. ‘Course, Ed took this picture because I was on stage also – just not in this photo – so I can’t be blamed for her hair looking all blown out like that).

Unfortunately, Ed didn’t get any good pictures of my dad singing, and we didn’t really sing together because the men and women were separated. At the end of the second performance, however, we got to mix up a bit and my dad came and sang by me, which was a treat.

Me & my dramatic girls!