When I was little my movies of choice were Beauty and the Beast and The Sound of Music. My love for musicals probably came from watching these wonderful movies filled with singing and dancing over and over again. What’s not to love about combining singing with dancing? I have continued to love musicals. I know the musical is good if afterwards I am pumped up and singing and dancing along. A few weeks ago my suitemates took me to see the movie Hairspray. I loved it. We were singing and grooving for days. So we were all really excited when we found out that Hairspray was going to be performing at Purdue. And we became even more excited when we realized that Hillenbrand was offering the tickets for only $7. The public prices were $20-$45.
The cast performed Hairspray at Elliot last night. The show was really good. I was laughing throughout the entire show. They had a lot of different punch lines and sexual innuendos (well…some of them weren’t so subtle) that were hilarious (and different than the movie). There were also some ad-libs that were unexpected and outrageous. We were all laughing so hard (although if I had gone with my mom I would have felt awkward). The dancing and choreography was amazing. I wish that during my daily life people would break out into song and dance together in harmony. Everyone would know all the lyrics and dance moves...it would be so cool. The stage set-up and scene changes were really impressive as well. The one bummer about the musical was the lead, Tracy Turnblad. She was the second understudy and it did show a little. She did do a good job, but it was nothing to rave about. Her 
One thing that influenced me to come to Purdue was all the opportunities that are offered here. Hairspray is a perfect example. We got to see an amusing and entertaining musical only three blocks from where we live and for only $7.
2 comments:
Oh man! I love Hairspray! I like how at the beginning you said your love for musicals started out with such classics as Beauty and the Beast and Sound of Music. I don't know anyone could not love musicals. I'm glad that you went to the musical here at Purdue...I couldn't make it and I was wondering if ended up being good. Apparently it was! I don't know about you, but I can't wait for the movie to come out on DVD.
I just thought it might be interesting to mention that I was on crew for setup and load out of Hairspray. You said the set and scene changes were impressive, which I'm glad to hear. I was there setting up from 8 am till 5 pm (with an hour for lunch), and the weren't even close to being fully set when I left.
Since you said you love musicals so much, I really think you should try to get backstage for a show the size of Hairspray someday. It's amazing what all is going on out of sightlines during the show. I'm not shure if you know this, but the Elliot Hall stage is about 4 times the size of what you saw for the set of Hairspray. With that being said, there was hardly an empty square foot to be seen.
I spent most of my time helping out with sound. Those two huge speaker filled towers you saw on either side of the set were brought in by the touring company. We had to use winches to lift each section (3 on each tower), then I had to climb each one to adjust the speakers. The rest of my time was spent making shure the thousands of feet got where they needed to go with their proper signals.
The moral of the story is, I urge you think about the technical side of the show next time you see something big like that. With everything being done on such large scales these days, it really is impressive when you notice whats being done (and what's been done all day before the show) beside the actors onstage.
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