We stand behind the black and heavy curtain. We hear the audience, their laughter, their talks. We can hear some familiar voices. Through a little opening in the curtain we see the lights darkening and the music starts. All of a sudden an adrenalin wave hits us and we feel cold and warm at the same time. Our cast and us two, we dance and hug to wish each other good luck. We remind each other of all the work and time we put into this project and to each give our best. It is a very emotional but focused moment and we think about how it all started, just before the summer holidays.
Singing, acting and dancing have always been activities we enjoyed doing. Having the opportunity to do a musical at school was therefore a blessing. Since first grade, watching other classes’ musicals, we had always wanted to make our own experience backstage.
By Anouk Héritier and Cindy Seibt (photos: Daniel Nussbaumer and Ida Weiss)

In the beginning, we were able to chose between two musicals and our group unanimously chose “Crazy for You”. Before the start of the term, we each had to prepare a song and act out a short monologue. Based on these performances and our wishes, our teachers assigned roles. Most students got a role they were happy with. As the term started, so did our preparations. We began by deciding to adapt the musical to a modern setting. This enabled us to explore a greater range of characters with different backgrounds and created more space for us to interpret our characters ourselves. What followed was a lot of rehearsing, creating choreographies, thinking about costumes and so on. We organized some extra rehearsals in our free time to practice choreographies. It was hard work, but the group feeling was amazing. Getting deeper inside our own characters and seeing other students growing into theirs was a lot of fun. Initially, some students struggled to identify with their characters. However, the more we each grew into our character, the more we ended up enjoying playing them. Looking back, everyone has really grown to like her/his/their role. It was a lot of fun, for example, playing someone mean, or a gangster who is lazy the entire day. In the beginning, we significantly underestimated the effort it took to stage a musical; the long days before the shows were especially tough. Fortunately, Ms. Kowalska and Ms. Baumgartner, along with many other people, were extremely patient with us and always encouraged us to fulfil our potential. The make-up and professional lighting & sound facilities of the Roxy Theater added enormously to the value of our experience and gave us a much-needed final energy boost.

Oh, there is our cue! We part the curtain and step through. All nervousness fades the moment we step on stage. We can barely see the faces in the audience. To stand on stage is incredibly thrilling! The hard work, the time invested, the nerves and lack of sleep all suddenly feel worthwhile. None of us will ever forget seeing the audience enjoying the musical, or the many positive comments after the shows.

Now, four weeks later, the musical seems rather far away. Nevertheless, the memories are still very present in our daily lives. The songs and the lines we spent so long learning are stuck in our heads. And so, to quote the songs we sang: it sometimes looked like the French Revolution but we learnt how to be a naughty baby. And before the audience might have started throwing fruit at the curtain, we wanted to slap that bass: we got rhythm, the music and the energy for it. Thank you for a lot of fun and a few broken teeth!