High School Musical

With the amount of energy that was display at the Civic Theatre on Friday night, it’s a wonder the theatre didn’t catch fire, as RTSA returned to the Civic Theatre with their latest offering, High School Musical. 

If you’ve never seen the show, you would be forgiven in thinking you were actually watching Grease, as our our two leads, Troy and Gabriella meet on holiday, end up at the same school and ultimately, fall in love. Troy and Gabriella were played by Tom Skinner and Scarlet Lewis respectively. Both of these young performers were excellent in their characterisations and displayed fine singing voices. One particular highlight for me was the duet, I can’t take my eyes of you. Josef Sunmerscales and Sophie Antcliff played Chad and Taylor, the best friends of our leads and sang and acted their parts with ease, with Josef’s energy raising the roof of the Civic. Chester Williams, played the radio announcer, Jack Scott, whose delivery of the lines and facial expressions was spot on. I really enjoyed the side slide at the end. More great singing and dancing came from Josh Wilkinson and Brooke Green as Zeke and Martha. It was so nice to see Josh in a principal role after a few years learning the ropes in the ensemble. Freya Carr played Kelsi, the composer of Juliet and Romeo, the show that the students were going to perform. A great performance especially in the audition sequence. Ms Darbus, the drama teacher was performed with great authority and emotion by Lily Roddis, a really enjoyable performance. 
What I like about RTSA is that the relationship it has with its sister company RMTC, and it’s always great to see members from the senior company performing with the academy. In this production, Jack Parkinson played Coach Bolton, the father of Troy. Jack gave a powerful performance with some great emotion when the he realises that he needs to let Troy lead his own life. 
The standouts here, however are Chloe Hind and Charlie Fields as sister and brother duo, Sharpay and Ryan. These two young performers were an excellent pairing with Chloe delivering the bitchy lines that would be the envy of any diva, myself included, and Ryan being hysterically funny without going over the top. All the principals were well supported by Hannah Skinner, Scarlet Buxton, Kassia Hibbert, Sam Berry, William Pawson, Billy Newsome, Alfie Houghton and the extremely talented ensemble. 

Dee Bennie-Marshall, Director and Choreographer, and Matthew Symonds, Musical Director, have once again, with Charlotte Wall, Dance captain, created another RTSA triumph.

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