The Musical Theatre Society presented their Fall 2018 Broadway Cabaret October 18 and 19 at 8 p.m. in Swope Recital Hall.
The cabaret featured songs from Rent, Wicked, West Side Story and many more. Graduate assistant Sydney DonGiovanni studying to receive her master’s in secondary education directed the show. DonGiovanni is currently serving her second term as President of MTS.
Usually, the first show of the year has general Broadway songs that the audience would know; however, the Fall 2018 Cabaret was a little different than the past fall performances. “I wanted to have a good mix of older songs that people knew and newer songs that people have never heard of. I’m not expecting people to look at this setlist and know every single song on it,” DonGiovanni said. “I wanted to bring new songs into the audiences’ scope of Broadway.”
Carly Hanna, senior English creative writing major and film minor was one of the main choreographers for the Fall 2018 Cabaret. Hanna has been involved with MTS since she was a sophomore.
“I really like choreographing because I used to be a dance major and I don’t get to dance anymore, and I like to do that here,” Hanna said.
Hanna was interested in becoming a choreographer since her very first show and proceeded to go through the process of performing, shadowing and assisting to become a main choreographer.
The practice process for the Fall 2018 Cabaret was about five and a half weeks since auditions. The first two weeks of practice were generally practicing piano parts, teaching harmonies, and singing through songs. Depending on the timeline, choreography with the recordings was usually a couple weeks, but the schedule for the fall performance allowed one week. Once the music and choreography came together, the cast ran through the show by acts. Act one was one night, act two was rehearsed another night and the then the final show was put together and rehearsed fully.
“The hardest thing about [choreography] is a time limit. We have to make up the dances in a few weeks and then teach it in about two weeks. So, we don’t have a lot of time to work with people who aren’t classically trained,” Hanna said.
MTS has a diverse group of people, and any major is free to join and share their musical talent. “It’s so fun to see all these different people come together because of something that they love to do,” DonGiovanni said.
Watching people grow is one of DonGiovanni’s favorite things about MTS. “Being able to see that growth and know that I had helped them in some way was really cool,” DonGiovanni said. “It’s one thing when you talk about people growing, but when you actually see, it’s a different story.”
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