All people Lower Footloose by Ivana Clapperton, Graveney College

In line with the Graveney web site, the Sixth-Type Theatre at Graveney Society (STAGS) was established by a gaggle of scholars in 2005. As a wholly student-led manufacturing firm on the college, every year a number of college students work collectively to supply a musical for the college and local people. Latest productions embody Legally Blonde (2022), Bugsy Malone (2018) and naturally, Footloose (2023).

Whereas backstage preparation for the play was not fully clean, with technical difficulties concerning microphones materialising simply minutes earlier than the curtain rose, the efficiency of each the ensemble and the orchestra was positively magnetic. The performers exhibited chill-inducing vocal skills: there wasn’t a dry eye left within the viewers after Eve Weir and Angel Brewg’s efficiency of ‘Studying to Be Silent’, and Sadie Jean’s electrical singing performances as main love curiosity Ariel left viewers shocked. The standing ovation obtained by the ensemble after the ultimate music was unquestionably well-deserved.

There’s nonetheless a palpable ambiance of exhilaration and pleasure within the air following the opening night time efficiency, and already discussions over who will type subsequent 12 months’s STAGS manufacturing crew have arisen. Outdoors the efficiency corridor, each onstage and backstage solid members are congratulated by family and friends who’ve come to witness their contribution to this unbelievable play.

Louis Frank (actor for lead character Ren McCormack) was capable of describe the expertise of performing: “It was nerve-wracking as a result of we had spent so lengthy rehearsing, and everybody wished it to go completely,” he mentioned. “Nevertheless it went properly, and hopefully the opposite performances will too. We’ve created such a close-knit group within the means of crafting this play, and I couldn’t have requested for a greater solid to carry out it with.”

The success of this 12 months’s ‘Footloose’ leaves me and lots of others excited for the long run productions to come back; I’ve little question that every new technology of STAGS must combat to uphold the hovering commonplace set right here right now.