Talent resounded off the walls of the Ballard FAC on Tuesday night. With the passionate and emotional voices of our very own Ballard actors and actresses hanging in the air, the audience of adoring friends and family enjoyed an artsy and engaging performance. Whether it was an intense minute long solo monologue, or the light-hearted quarreling between scene partners, the young performers thoroughly displayed all of the hard work and passion that went into their final product, Bruins On Broadway.
“So what we did is we all like, researched different, like plays and musicals from, you know, Broadway. And then we all put them up on sticky notes and then we chose from there,” says B, a senior in the show. The production consisted of quick numbers from musicals or scene from plays that had previously been on Broadway, thus came the name ‘Bruins On Broadway’ (a title shortened to BOB by the cast and crew). Students would walk onto the stage after a brief introduction from the Theater director Ms. Anderson “and these ladies will show you why it ran so long,” she’d say before the lights go out and the drama would begin. Not only did students get the chance to perform some of their favorite scenes, but there was also singing, musical numbers, and dance performances. “My favorite part was probably the Legally Blonde. It’s a really fun dance to do.” says Ahzareia, who performed the dance to “Bend And Snap”, from Legally Blonde, The Musical. “And it was my first time dancing on stage,” says Ahzareia. On top of Bruins On Broadway being a fun outlet for students to choose their own performance piece, it was also a great way for them to step outside of their comfort zones and learn new things.
The experience of being in theater, being part of a creative outlet that allows you to work on a team, gives valuable real-world experience to these students. “People would be absent, people would not show up, people would be late, people would like, have struggles with lines. We’d have struggles with props, like nothing will always go correctly… lights would turn off, like things would be crazy,” says one performer, Juno. “So just learning how to be, like the show must go on mindset and just like push through it anyway. That’s a huge skill for, like life,” continues Juno. Another example, Isabella says “It’s really nice learning from other people’s, like, mistakes and mine… somebody kind of like messing up on a line or something. It’s just nice to see, like, knowing what to do in the future.” Another student shares what else is important to the theater setting. “I really like stepping into a sort of, like, leadership position with some younger kids in the show,” says one junior, Aurora. “I got to, like, not guide them because they knew what they were doing, but help them have confidence and see the confidence in the show. It made me really happy,” she continues. This support system, as there were students from freshmen to seniors participating, can create lasting memories and assurance for the future.
“Freshmen auditioned outside of Advanced Theater,” says Aurora. Advanced Theater was the class that mainly put on this production. With the help of a publicity team, they were able to invite freshmen to join in the performance. “We handled the name, Bruins On Broadway, we made the posters, and we actually …accepted and rejected… all of the applicants,” says Faye, another performer. Plenty of work was put into executing this picture-perfect production. As for the craft and technique, “I would say constantly working on memorization and characterization was like the biggest issue that we were working on constantly,” says Morgan, another performer. “Probably learning how to do so much in a little bit of time ’cause it got pushed back a lot,” says Azhareia as another problem presented itself. “The show was gonna be the last week of December, then we had the snowstorm,” Isabella adds.
On top of a successful and fabulous performance, these students bonded with each other and achieved a devout community. “We can do shout outs?” one actor says while the rest crowd around to give their grateful and appreciative comments about their teammates and friends. “Shout out to Rory, Victoria, and Katrina for helping me stay calm,” says Morgan. Juno says “I want to give it to JL, who was my scene partner for The Crucible, she’s so lovely,” as Faye says “Ms. Anderson, all the way.” Azhareia adds “Shout out to Nova and Justine for helping us with the choreography for Legally Blonde, ’cause I don’t know a thing about Legally Blonde or dancing. I’ve never seen the movie.”
The Bruins On Broadway production was a brilliant measurement of human tragedy and joy, and exposed the true passion, dedication and flair of Ballard’s drama department. From the inspiration of a One Night Only! proclamation on the playbill, the Ballard FAC has seen many concerts, productions, and performances over the years, of all these shows to be proud of, Bruins On Broadway is no exception.
