Ever wonder what effect High School Musical has had on, well, high school musicals? Well, we know that Dallas Summer Musicals is sponsoring the 1st Annual DSM High School Musical Theatre Awards, launching in May. That comes a year after Lyric Stage began its own high school musical awards. So just how good are local high school musical productions getting?
Here’s some proof. It has been some time since I’ve attended a high school musical, but I know it looked and sounded nothing like these videos from the dress rehearsal of J.J. Pearce High School’s production of Phantom of the Opera. You can check out a couple of numbers from the Pearce production below. In the meantime, I’m holding out hope that high school dramas begin looking like this.
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12 comments
Saw Phantom at JJ Pierce and it is AMAZING! A pro show! And Samantha Merill who plays Christine has a ready-for-Broadway voice. It is only running this month. Get tickets NOW!
Saw Pearce’s Phantom Sunday night and was so impressed!! The vocals are great! It was so professional and the entire cast was so professional. They all looked like they were really enjoying performing so much. Great job, Pearce!!
If you haven’t seen Phantom, you don’t have to feel like you’re “just” seeing a high school performance, Pearce has done it right. It’s a beautiful production, and the kids’ fabulous voices do justice to the music. If you have seen it before, go and fall in love all over again!
I saw the show this weekend. BRAVO! Did you know that it is an ENTIRE STUDENT ORCHESTRA?! I spoke with the Pit conductor there are 36 pit members ALL STUDENTS.
BRAVO!!! Saw Pierce’s Phantom and was blown away by the talent, sets, lighting, orchestra and costumes. This is a professional quality production. So impressed this group of students and put together something on this scale. JJ Pearce’s Phantom raises the bar of high musical production to new heights. If you haven’t seen it, GO!
so glad that we chose this show! amazing cast!!!
Lynn Shaw used to say, “sometimes it just all comes together for something really special.” Truer words were never spoken for this director, cast, crew, and fabulous music director and orchestra!! Thank you for the Magic that is Pearce Theatre!!
I got chills the whole time watching “All I Ask Of You”. Incredible voices, both of them. Wow.
Regarding the author’s argument that High School Musical was a stimulus for excellent high school productions, anyone who saw the same school’s 2005 production of Les Miserables, or any other recent production for that matter, knows that JJ Pearce High School set a high standard long before it was fashionable. RIP Lyn Shaw; your legacy lives on!
yuh JJ PEARCE represent!!! always been a show stopper school thanks to Lyn Zed Shaw! love yall! so sad I couldn’t come back to see it!
Hey if my school could raise $60,000 and rent everything we could have a show like phantom. We make all our sets and costumes. The singers, actors and dancers at my school are fantastic but without $5000.00 corporate sponsors we can’t get the press Pearce does much less a flying chandelier. I saw Phantom it was great except the guy who played the phantom couldn’t pull off the vocals, too bad it would have been really good but he was so off key it was hard to listen to especially since Christine was so amazing. I don’t see a video of him singing.
The cast and crew worked hard to raise all that money with multiple fundraisers. How about your theatre students puts forth some dedication and raise $60,000 and put on Phantom and show off your “fantastic singers, actors and dancers.” Those students have spent 5 months dedicated to this production and it paid off. I also saw the show multiple times and the phantom was incredible along with the rest of the cast. His voice was phenomenal and his acting was far beyond any high school performer I have ever seen.