Review – Collage of the Arts

There aren’t a lot of reasons to check out a high school production if you don’t, in fact, go to school. Either you’re a parent of one of the kids or you’re hoping you might catch the next Snakadaktal before they go big. Regardless, what you expect is a whole mess of mediocrity and one or two gems, and in that respect Collage of the Arts doesn’t disappoint.

There were a variety of performances at this event. The opening act was a choreographed dance to Michael Jackson’s “Bad” by girls who were twice as young as that song. This was followed by four students on an acoustic guitar who, with what was either boredom or serenity, plucked through a composition their guitar teacher had written (oh my!). Then there was another choreographed dance the MC assured us would be “fiery,” which I took as my cue to studiously examine my shoe. The following barbershop piece was completely up-staged by a solo performance from a girl who had the sort of range and stage-presence that will get you to the second round of Australian Idol. Look out for a Charles Campbell student in the next season, I guess.

She was followed by an aspiring thespian who couldn’t sell the melodrama of his Shakespearean monologue. Not to worry, James Earl Jones wasn’t built in a day. The climatic piece was another choreographed dance, this one circus-themed, which was a bit more ambitious in how it flitted from “Dance of the Sugar Plum Faries” to dub-step stop-motion. I can’t help but think the students might have performed better, however, if they hadn’t been chemically sedated before they got on stage. Perhaps it was a direction from the Department of Education.

The final act, Dirty Boulevard, had a chilled sound and their lead singer could really belt it out when she had to. Should you check it out? Well, it’s not “Glee”, but it’s pretty cute to see stage-hands that are almost as small as the chairs they’re lifting around so why not?