Curtains - School Edition

This musical reflects, in many ways, what goes on behind the scenes in productions, particularly when the curtain is about to fall unless changes are made to the cast. Never would it get to the stage of disruption as shown here but conflicts and various ambitions sometimes come into conflict. The worst possible aspects are the feature of this musical as the curtain is soon to fall. This production had the added challenge of being a youth production with cast members developing their talent by actually performing in front of an audience. No one could ever see clearly how the problems could be solved peacefully before the curtain fell. It was interesting to find out.

Directors Grace Brunne and Alicia Cherise have used the youth cast quite well as the end product showed. The pace was maintained with some good singing and acting. As to be expected, the more mature of the performers were the strength that was needed. A couple of the very young on stage needed more direction control but no one missed their lines or moves. Well done. Outstanding as Carmen Bernstein, the shows bossy producer and a nasty piece of goods, was Erin Lowry as she dominated her scenes. Archie Lakely as producer Christopher Belling maintained his character very well but needs to project more. Oh, when Ben Smith appeared as Lt. Frank Cioffi, he lifted the mood so very much with his clarity and good singing voice. In other major roles, Ella Meder as Georgina Hendricks and Alyssa Bernardo as Bambi Bernet both added good performances and strength to this youth production.

Naturally, when you attend a youth production of a challenging musical, you do not expect it to be a faultless end product but this end product was more than satisfactory and showed promise for the future of this theatre group. The cast will have learnt a lot from the experience and I look forward to seeing many of them on stage in the future.  Congratulations to Mousetrap Theatre for this successful production while developing the skills of their younger actors/singers.

William Davies