High School Musical

High School Musical
Book by David Simpatico. Spotlight Theatre, Benowa, Gold Coast. Director: Clay English. February 20th to March 14th, 2015

No amount of rain on the Gold Coast was going to dampen the Opening Night enthusiasm of the cast of the high velocity High School Musical at Spotlight Theatre. Thankfully - sound issues got sorted as the fast paced show progressed. This stage production is all about the song and dance – with a nice little story thrown in.

Special mention to the set designers – one basic set, with slick minor changes, made sure all of the stage was well used by the large cast.

Congrats to Clay English, Director AND Choreographer, who gave his cast a huge amount of work to do  – how do these young actors manage to sing so well while throwing their bodies all over the place? Huge kudos to the boys’ team – nice moves dudes!! And from where I was sitting everyone had their head in the game.  Special mention to the earthworm!  To the girls –very classy voices, high energy dancing and terrific costumes.

I’m not a fan of microphones but necessary in this case because of the strong support of the 7 piece band. Leads Bryn Jenke and Emily Pluckrose were both totally credible and gave delightfully fresh performances. A case of ‘Can’t take my eyes off of you’.

Great cameos from David Todman (of course) and Martina French as Ms Darbus. Three words come to mind for this show – volourful, tuneful & energetic.

High School Musical – onstage at Spotlight Theatre until March 14 and well worth seeing.

Laney McLean

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