The auditions have been held, the songs sung, the necessary facebook group created, and the castlist posted. [Sort of.]

Over the past month or so, the production team for High School Musical at Live Arts has been working hard holding auditions, designing, casting, and reading those god-forsaken 100 pages of script more times than anyone thought possible. And tonight we’re finally going to start the next phase - all the cast members are meeting for the first time in a sort of pre-rehearsal.

But admittedly, the hardest part of getting through these first few weeks of production (alongside of my AP exams, which are still going on, by the way) is how I have to do it all without coffee. I know, crazy, right? But you see, after my experiences during Mother Courage, I figured it was time to pull the curtain on my coffee drinking days; at least until college :P. A teenager getting to the point of three cups a day is pretty disgusting. Hot chocolate’s been a pretty good substitute…

Now, speaking of High School Musical, I know what you’re going to say:

“That’s so lame!”
“Why is Live Arts doing a crappy kids musical?”
“That music makes me want to strangle small animals.”

I felt the same way before I got involved. And I’ll admit, I finally watched the movie a few weeks ago, and absolutely hated it. But the stage version’s better - especially Live Arts-style. I just wish I could have convinced more people to audition. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the people that were cast. But I think we still technically had less males audition than there were male roles… See, upper-elementary schoolers were all-for auditions; so were college kids. The former are legitimately allowed to like the movie - the latter are old enough for it to be cool to like kids movies. Unfortunately, high schoolers (what we needed) are all at that awkward stage where they’re so insecure about themselves that they wouldn’t dream of acting in a musical that could jeopardize whatever “coolness” they possess. Snap.

Oh, and you can all pretend like you’re not going to go see the show, but we know you’ll be there in the back row.

We know.