doodledee

If you're one of those people who isn't necessarily comfortable watching a stage full of braced-faced teenagers butcher your fondest Saturday morning childhood memories, be thankful you didn't make it over to Hopkins for the Stages Theater's fall production of 'Schoolhouse Rock' because wow was that community theater in its most raw and enthusiastic form. But I'm totally comfortable with that. At least I thought I would be. Turns out it was maybe a little more unsettling than I was prepared for, but what can you do, the killer 2nd row seats are paid for, the lights are out, the kids are dancing, just roll with it.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it - because I did, on many levels, and duh, it's a kids theater where kids put on shows for other kids, so it's not like I went in expecting greatness or anything - but that doesn't mean I didn't notice the subtle scent of tragedy wafting thru the air. Because rest assured it was there. And every other child of the late-70's in the audience was sniffing it right along with me. Because when you feed a song as immensely awesome as '3 is a Magic Number' through the meat grinder that is community theater, the results aren't always going to, um, maintain the immense awesomeness of the original. And maybe you're ok with that, and maybe you're kinda like "stop! you're hurting my childhood!"

But the kids really seemed to be trying their best and having fun and jumping around and stuff, so that was cool. And the line for autographs was like a bajillion fans long, so it was obviously working for the tikes in the crowd (junior included). Also, it's not like I know anything [at all] about musical theater so I should probably just shut the hell up.