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I Went to an Elementary School Musical

After the wild success of my blog last month recapping a trip to my girlfriend’s nephew’s talent show at a local high school (the alma mater of GOAT Tom Cruise) I decided to see if lightning could strike twice and checked out an elementary school production of Seussical, a musical based on the stories of Dr. Seuss and not Phil Collins’ No Jacket Required.  Full disclosure, while I am an avid theater goer this show probably would not have been on my itinerary if one of the players in the show were not my girlfriend’s niece.  And fuller disclosure, I probably still would have skipped it if I had not gone to my girlfriend’s nephew’s show (equal work, equal aunt’s boyfriend attendance #Feminst #Ally).  So let’s break down this production of Seussical (which started 12 minutes late! Who the fu*k do you think you are, Madonna?!).

High Property Taxes, Low Microphone Budget

Glen Ridge, NJ is pretty pricey and you would expect a town that wealthy to have all the best stuff.  Well the best stuff does not include microphones apparently.  The first performer, in sort of a narrator role, had the mic cut off for about 40% of their time.  This would have been bad enough, but there was something else ruining my mood…

Elementary School Seats, Gigantic Human

When I went to the talent show I sat in the middle row, which was basically a massive aisle seat with about 5 feet of leg room. But for Seussical, the seats were assigned and though I had an aisle seat, it was an aisle seat that I outgrew sometime around 9th grade in terms of leg room and outgrew in terms of hip and waist girth in early 2023.  I would end up only sitting for the first thirty minutes before my right leg fell asleep “from the cheek to the feet” (that is my version of from the river to the sea).  I ended up watching the remaining hour standing in the back of the theater.  It was at this point that I realized I was at least 40 yards away from my girlfriend and her family so I was just a random, middle-aged dude watching a bunch of kids perform a musical. Speaking of a bunch of kids…

6th grade seats for a 38th grader

What is this The Ten Commandments?

I think the show featured every child in the town.  I have never seen a Broadway musical with a cast half this large.  And the quantity of the cast was only the second most disturbing thing about casting…

Live Aid + Band Aid + The March on Washington = Seussical cast

Is This Dr. Seuss or Dr. Wokeness?

The Cat in the Hat and Horton are two of the most well-known MALE Dr. Seuss characters. In the show they are both played by girls.  This is how it starts. Next thing you know we will have male elephants competing in high school swimming meets against female elephants and we will have let it happen!

The show was the abridged version (75 minutes) instead of the 2 hour, 30 minute Seussical that Lawrence Olivier made famous in the West End.  All the kids seemed to enjoy themselves and other than a few of the dads wearing their financial firm fleece jackets, the parents provided a pleasant audience.  And one day the 773 children who filled the stage will be able to say the performed in front of a comedy legend.

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I Went to a High School Talent Show

This past week I watched the engaging and disturbing docuseries Quiet on The Set, about the awful and in some cases, criminal exploitation and abuse that went on during the Golden Age of Nickelodeon (as I said on this week’s legendary episode of Rain on Your Parade podcast – at 11 years old I was enjoying In Living Color, so I am not sure how children could enjoy the offerings of Nickelodeon, but alas, this was mere foreshadowing of the comedy stupidity that would come to define present day society).  So after watching all four episodes, I thought, “what better place for an unmarried, childless, struggling entertainer to go to than a local high school talent show?!”

Full Hassan Minhaj disclosure – my girlfriend’s nephew was in a rock band participating in the talent show, so it is not as funny or creepy as my set up would have you think.

The show took place at the Glen Ridge elementary school.  Despite the wealth of Glen Ridge, apparently their high school does not have a large auditorium on its campus proper and uses the elementary school across the street (this is particularly galling when you consider that A THE graduate of Glen Ridge High School is the GOAT, Tom Cruise.  The only other factoid I know about Glen Ridge High School is that in the late 1980s a group of Glen Ridge jocks sexually abused a developmentally disabled girl (the first book I read, for pleasure, so to speak, in college was Our Guys – an absolutely tremendous book about that shocking case, which forever imprinted Glen Ridge in my mind in a way that even Tom Cruise could not undo with 40 movies and many more thetans).  So, with that on my mind I went to see the talent of Glen Ridge High!

Piranha performing under a sign that I thought about cropping to make for a controversial social media story.

I will not disparage any of the acts, which other than a dance troupe and a gymnast, were all musical.  I was largely impressed with the talent, and when not impressed with the talent, the courage to be mediocre in front of kids and parents.  My girlfriend’s nephew is only in 8th grade, but played drums in a very competent rock band named Piranha. I would have awarded them 3rd place, but they did not place at all.  Their music evokes Green Day and I was particularly amused by their bass player, who seemed furthest along in his rock identity and enthusiasm (a sort of Flea energy with Buddy Holly look… glasses, he wore glasses).

First place is where the judges and I agreed.  I am assuming the girl was a junior or senior and performed really well at the piano, even doing a non-cliche version of Feeling Good, a song that I have grown to hate due to its overexposure in commercials, singing contest shows and Michael Buble.  She seemed to have the talent and poise of someone who has ambitions and parents willing to fund them.

Second place went to a duet that was good (both were good, but one of the singers might have won first if she was solo – a voice of incredibly clarity and tone and other things that might make me sound like I know what I am talking about).  But here is where I had a big beef with the judges.  There was a small child – I do not know if he was an elementary school kid allowed to compete in the high school show, or if he is just a sort of Gary Coleman-Webster type kid because when I told him after the show that he was great I was alarmed at how small and young he seemed.  Well what he did was perform Piano Man on the piano, with a harmonica in his mouth. His harmonica looked like orthodontist head gear because of his age and size and he was great.  I kept thinking, I cannot do either of those things and he is pulling it off well, and had the savvy to pick a song right in the wheel house of the 40 something judges (I am only saying that to make me and my girlfriend feel better – we were probably older than at least two and possibly all 4 of the staff/teacher-judges.

After the show I felt myself projecting my own indignity and frustration on him, but the kid seemed very happy to talk to his friend and take compliments from giant strangers.

Third place went to a good singer who I had disqualified because she sang the song Never Enough from The Greatest Showman, a song so schmaltzy that the only thing that could ruin it more was having videos released of corrupt New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez singing it to his accomplice then-fiancée as he proposed to her.  I, in fact, have had enough *drops mic*.

So that was my night at the Glen Ridge Talent Show – and on an unexpected positive note – almost all the kids (and parents) were off their phones!  Perhaps that is the key to keeping the youth off screens: make everything about them and their friends.