168332 Resource 105337 166872 166872 1178640939424 1178640939424 Controlled Love That Audience

A fabulous West Side Story

<span class="Apple-style-span">Last Friday night, my wife and I went to see the North Carolina School of the Arts production of<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "> West Side Story</span>. This was no ordinary college musical. The music director was a longtime proteg&eacute; of Leonard Bernstien, the director worked on the original production, and the cast members are well on their way to being theatre professionals. What a fantastic show this was. I was proud to be from Winston-Salem! <div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div>The dancing was perfect, the orchestra was magnificent, and the singing (done without amplification) was beautiful, tender, and audible in the back row. One of my favorite things about the show, however, was the electricity in the audience. Some of the NCSA students have been working on this production since last year, and the audience was filled with their peers. The rest of the sell-out crowd comprised arts and theatre lovers who had been reading about this production for months. The anticipation before the curtain rose was palpable, and the explosions of applause and cheering after each musical number made you feel a part of something special.</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div>Most school productions will never attain the level of technical and artistic perfection that I saw on the stage Friday night--but what they often do have is something all too often lacking from professional theatre: that sense of electric excitement in the audience. I love being a playwright, a technical director, and an actor; but it's also nice to remember that theatre is a conversation between the actors and the audience. Even in a school gym or cafeteria, a great audience can make the evening every bit as exciting as Broadway.</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div>So to all of you who have ever been members of an audience: Thank You! And if you live anywhere near Winston-Salem, beg borrow or steal yourself a ticket to West Side Story this coming weekend. You won't regret it.</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div></span> 9 application/xml false audience NCSA North Carolina School of the Arts West Side Story Winston-Salem http://www.ncarts.edu/performances/may.htm#3 Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/419 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 clovett false true false false true 105337 blog blogsite/PioneerDrama/web