Performance Report 2

This performance report is over the “Side Show the Musical” which was presented by the students and teachers of University of Texas at Dallas at the University Theatre. While there were multiple performances from April 8th to April 17th this report will focus at the performance that happened at 8 pm on Friday April 16th.

Being a musical this play was mostly delivered in the form of quick tempo songs which the actors could dance to. This was done mainly by one or more of the actors acting out their role to the song they were singing while being supported by an orchestra that was located behind the curtain. While I was unable to get a good look at the orchestra it had a good assortment of instruments ranging from horns for the more jazzy numbers such as “The Devil You Know” to drums for the introduction of the cannibal king and applied a number of crescendos and ornamentations throughout the play. These drums however did overpower the singers from time to time. Also it should be noted that the actors needed some skill at holding still since parts required part the cast to freeze so that one of the lead characters could sing out what they were thinking in the form of a musical monolog.

Now being a play the performers were dressed in accordance to their parts. These costumes ranged from the well dressed Buddy and Terry to the shirtless ‘Cannibal King’ Jake. Also it should be noted that the performers could be split into the main characters (Daisy, Violet, Buddy, Terry, and Jack) and the side characters who usually took the roles of the supporting vocalists during the play. The orchestra seemed to be wearing dark formal clothes however as stated earlier I was unable to get a good look at what the orchestra members due the curtain in front of them and my seating location. Of the remaining performers the stage crew dressed in colors similar to the backgrounds they were moving in front of so that they would draw less attention while the light director and greeters were casually dressed.

During this performance the performers made use of a number of different props which ranged from boxes to mikes to even a cage. One may even consider the actors themselves as props since at moments during the play the actors would freeze to show that one of the main characters was thinking and the lighting director was able to create interesting effects with their shadows.

As for the audience it seemed that this performance attracted a full house. Based off what I saw it seems that 30% of the audience was comprised of parents and teachers while the remaining 70% were college students. This large proportion of students is likely due to fact that as this performance happened on a Friday evening. Since most evening classes are Tuesday and Thursday this performance was more accessible than the Thursday performance. Also since most students likely already had to be on campus on Friday for afternoon classes this made this much more accessible than the Saturday performance.

Prior the beginning of the performance while the orchestra was doing a final check on their instruments the audience was engaged in soft chatting amongst themselves and a few of the students in the audience seemed to passing the time playing hand held video games. Based off the games I saw the majority of these audience members were playing games of the Pokemon series which means there might have been some wireless interaction amongst the other video game players in the audience. Unlike my report on “Shakespeare in Song” it seemed to me that the majority of the students at this performance were here for scholastic reasons and not here to support friends on stage. Also the audience began to become slightly restless prior to the beginning of the play since the play began fifteen minutes late.

Based off my past life experiences of growing up in Texas musicals while not happening everyday are something one will experience time to time. Be it in a childhood cartoon or performed by a rogue group of singers at a local mall it is quite unlikely that a local audience member would have not heard a musical prior to attending this performance. So this performance was able to expect the audience to understand this culture more than someone new to musicals and thus was able to a darker play than they would have been able to do with an audience of members outside this music community. As such while I would say someone who had never seen a musical before could attend they would have come out of it with much less than the average audience member. Also this common knowledge among the audience members likely contributed to the large number of the audience members that gave standing applauds at the end of the show.

So in summary this performance, like any other musical, relied on songs to give the majority of its story to the audience. Now while this performance was less open due to its darker story the majority of the audience were native to the region and well versed with this culture. This knowledge led to a greater understanding and an excellent reaction at the end by the audience.