If you have been reading the Patch regularly, you’ve probably seen Grace Mary's Perez’s of the productions currently showing in and around Oswego. I’m sad to say that I missed both Oswego East High School’s production of Ragtime and Oswego High School’s production of Once Upon a Mattress. Plans to take my daughter to see the more recent show were thwarted by the stomach flu making its way through my house.
It’s a bummer, especially because of the fact that I love musicals.
I remember fondly attending the International Thespian Society Conference in Muncie, Ind. many moons ago. My high school was invited to present a scene from our production of The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, an obscure play by Paul Zindel. As one of the lead characters, it was a thrilling experience to perform in front of a larger audience, but I was really excited to see what the other schools had to offer.
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That conference was my first exposure to several large-scale musicals. I was blown away by one school’s production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and another school put on one of the best off-Broadway productions of A Chorus Line I’ve ever seen. That weekend solidified my love affair with musicals.
I think it’s the combination of dialogue, dancing and music. A good musical pulls me in, makes me feel like I’m part of the action and inspires my own creativity. Plays are great too. They can be entertaining, shocking, even offensive—in a good way.
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This weekend, we have two plays to choose from: Death on the Nile by the Oswego Playhouse below the Tap House Grill and Golem: The Monster of Prague at the Riverfront Theatre in Aurora. Both shows are definitely worth the ticket price, and I hope to see at least one of them. But my heart still longs for another musical.
I would love to hear from you. Which are you more partial to: plays or musicals?
