School News Briefs Performing Arts News
Too Fabulous to Fail! Typically, every other year, when St. Johns does not produce a St. Johns on Broadway, the Performing Arts department presents a spring musical-- a festival of singing, dancing, and acting with a full band on stage and a crush of music and activity. This year, however, due to limitations presented by COVID-19, theatre and dance instructor Kim Cadley-Mach and Director of Bands Michael Warren were forced to rethink. They couldn’t have as many people on stage at once, couldn’t put the whole band on stage, and had to limit groups interacting with each other. The answer? A Spring Musicale. They opened up the never-before-used pit of the stage for the band-- that gave them more space. Then they selected a show with care-- small groups on stage at a time, with musical band numbers and dancing interspersed throughout. The result was truly Too Fabulous to Fail, a story about a small town girl moving to the big city to pursue her dream of becoming a musical theatre actress. Naturally, along the way she manages to become the CEO of a major investment bank, runs that into the ground, gets pursued by the police, jailed, does a musical number from lockup, and manages all of this while occasionally fleeing from old ladies dressed up like Elmo. What else would you expect? “I was so impressed with all of the cast, crew, dancers, and band performers for this show,” said director Kim Cadley-Mach. “Everyone understood the issues we faced with COVID, rose to the challenge, and performed beautifully. I am so proud of all of them!” The band, in the pit, played for dance numbers, scene-changing interludes, and occasional commentary, which provided an extra layer of fun and interest to an already outstanding show. “I was really proud of the entire band and their performance in this show,” said Director of Bands Michael Warren. “It was something new for them in a lot of ways-from piecing together musical commentary, of sorts, to our first time using the pit-- and they really rose to the occasion and have a lot to be proud of.” Another outstanding performance from St. Johns’ Performing Arts department. As Mrs. Mach summed, when COVID gave them lemons, these students definitely knew how to make lemonade!
S T. J O H N S C O U N T R Y D AY S C H O O L M A G A Z I N E
SUMMER 2021
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