Tag Archives: Hairspray

Hairspray, WOW!

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McDaniel Theatre Department brought the house down with our run of HAIRSPRAY this past weekend! After having the first set of auditions at the end of last semester, followed by another set during the first week of school this semester, the production team assembled about 30 people to hop back into 1960s Baltimore for a few weeks. It takes so many more people to put on a show than you see on the stage. In addition to the multitudes performing onstage we had crew people, myself included, running around backstage to make sure each piece fit perfectly together and an awesome production team that were the masterminds behind everything. Starting the last week in August and ending the first week in October were some of the most stressful days of my semester. I give everyone that was at all the rehearsals mad props. Almost every night of the week they were huddled in the freezing theatre, working on another dance or another song or more blocking. They put all their time, hearts and talents into this show to make it as good as it possibly could have been. I was honored to be working as the Dramaturg and Assistant Costumer. I had previously done a production of HAIRSPRAY as an actor so it was an amazing experience getting to know the dark side of the theatre world. Get it? Dark side. Sorry, bad joke.
Anyway, production week was a mess of crazy. Adding lights, sounds, special effects and costumes is always a big change for everyone. By the end of our dress rehearsal on Tuesday there were still a few kinks to work out and I was worried how the next night would turn out. The cast did so much publicity for the show and made it known to the entire Westminster community that it was going to be a must-see so we knew everything had to be perfect. Opening night came on Wednesday and we had a few hundred sitting in the audience. The magic theatre gods watched over us and performed a miracle. The show went on without a single problem. The last beat of music played and everyone was on their feet cheering. Then Friday and Saturday came. On Friday, we started the show about fifteen minutes late because at 7:30pm, when we were supposed to start, there was still a line out the door and down the street. Both nights we did sold out shows. It was the first sold out show since ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW was performed in the Fall of 2009.
The entire experience was such an accomplishment. For such a small department, we pulled it together and wrangled up people who had always admired the show and theatre and didn’t know how to get in. We gave hundreds of people the chance to experience a girl have her dream come true in 1962 Baltimore. The community we built over the last few months is one that I hope lasts long after the show is forgotten about. I loved meeting all the new Freshman and the people who had never even thought about doing a show before HAIRSPRAY. I made so many new friends and I love seeing their smiling faces all over campus. You never really can stop the beat.

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McDaniel Theatre presents Hairspray!

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This evening, I went with a bunch of friends to see the famed musical Hairspray, McDaniel College Theatre’s first production of the semester. People around campus really liked last night’s opening performance, so I knew I was in for a good show tonight. It did not disappoint!

I’ll admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie version of Hairspray that came out a few years back, but seeing the show performed on the McDaniel stage was so much better! I highly enjoyed the show itself, and as a wonderful added bonus, I got to see several memorable performances–many from people I know from around campus. I was also pleased to see many people in the show who I had not previously seen in a McDaniel production before and who are not theater majors. (If you’ve ever been interested in theater, college is a great place to try it out!) And I was super impressed by some of the vocals, particularly those of the girl who played Motormouth Maybelle.

The cast and crew of Hairspray has worked hard to put this show together since practically the beginning of the semester. They’ve put in plenty of long hours and sacrifice a lot of sleep and free time in order for the show to be a success, so I was glad to see that their hard work truly paid off.

Congratulations to everyone involved in Hairspray on a fantastic and memorable performance!

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McDaniel Theatre and other good things

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The McDaniel theater program is known for putting on quality performances. Generally the performances are dramas but the program puts on one or two musicals a year. This year’s choice was Hairspray, starring my friend Kelsey Gondek as Tracy Turnblad. Of course, I knew other members of the cast and they were all excellent, but I was most impressed by Kelsey. You get to know a person around campus just by sight and through small talk, but you never really see their true capability until you see them in their element. Kelsey was in her element. I didn’t know the person I was watching on stage; she became Tracy Turnblad and that is just one of the nice parts of the theater program: it allows you to see aspects of people you didn’t know existed.

I saw the performance last Thursday with my friends Barnabas and Jon and was awed by the professional quality with which some of the numbers were executed. I suppose when you go to a school production of almost any musical, there is always an element of expectation resting in the back of your mind that the show will not be enjoyable. If I’m being honest, I came into the performance with this mindset. When that curtain opened I was expecting a tone-deaf recreation of the movie’s poppy opening song “Good Morning, Baltimore.” However, Kelsey appears lying in her bed singing, hitting every note perfectly and starts the musical off in a great, upbeat fashion.

The rest of the musical was all well done. The best number was, as usual to this musical, “Momma I’m a Big Girl Now.” Something about that 50s doo-wop style of music appeals to me, and clearly I wasn’t alone because the music had everyone in Alumni Hall dancing in their seats. From the shows I have seen the theatre program put on, I could tell that this performance was better than the rest.

Hairspray is a great example of activities to do during the week at McDaniel. The theatre puts on many different shows during both the Fall and Spring semesters, not to mention countless student run performances. Cocktails and Tails From the Clit are both student-run sketch-comedy shows that talk about the triviums of being men and women respectively and there is also an improv comedy group that has shows from time to time. Theatre is a great activity to either become involved in, or of which to become a regular attendee.

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