Music feeds the soul

This week, I was tasked with heading to Athens High School to watch their performance of “Annie” and take pictures of the musical. It was a Friday night and the next morning, I was heading to Door County but we were leaving at 5:30 in the morning.

Needless to say, I was a little despondent that I was going to be traveling from Marshfield where I live, to Athens at 7 at night and returning to Marshfield, just to leave for Door County the next morning.

However, the performers, director and the everyone else involved in the production made going to the musical turn from a chore, into an appreciation of performing again.

I “performed” in two musicals in high school, if that’s what you want to call it. My style of dancing and singing on stage was so poor, it could have been confused with some sort of medical episode.

The musical was set in the Athens High School gym which was far from anything I was used to. However, I was pleasantly surprised that they set up a lighting and sound system that seemed to be extremely professional and well put together. The performance astounded me.

These kids, although I’m sure they were nervous, conducted themselves with a stage presence that eluded to the fact that they weren’t nervous at all. I appreciated the fact that even when a line was missed or a dance move went awry, they were able to push through and keep the show moving.

Seeing the musical made me reminisce on the times we spent on stage and how fun that was in the moment.

I remember being extremely nervous before performances. “Who was in the audience? What if they see me screw up a line or note? Will I get made fun of ?” All these things ran through my head before stepping on stage. Our choir director Kevin Spindler was very blunt in his methods of getting us to be more relaxed on stage. He would invite the student body in for one of our rehearsals in order to rip the band-aid off so to speak and help us be more comfortable when the actual performances were to take place.

In the end, I appreciated that I got the opportunity to go to the musical even if I was tired the next morning.

To be honest, I could probably still relive those times because my mom was sure to buy the disc version of our performances and show all our family members back in the day. Watching yourself perform is kind of like hearing your own voice, some people love it but it’s probably in my top-5 things I dislike.

All-in-all, I enjoyed my time at “Annie” and “It’s a Hard Knock Life” is still stuck in my head so I’d say the performers did a wonderful job.

Speeding

Through

L

ife