Seussical The Musical

Nici Benois
Suessical The Musical (Extra Credit)

Suessical The Musical, was extremely awesome. Mike, Deanna, and I went to go see it the last performing day at Clackamas High School. The colorings, the costumes, the lighting, and the set itself were extremely colorful, and not overly suffocating. When I first heard of this play I was really excited to see some of Mike’s old classmates perform because I only knew them from one improv night. So what I am going to talk about would be the Design Elements. First off the costuming, because it was what made me so excited to see the show. Every costume was unique; all made from neon colors and many types of material. When I think of the costumes, it makes me think back to wicked. All of them were different and none were repeated once throughout the show. One of my favorite characters costume besides the cat in the hat, was Gertrude the bird. She had a neon yellow costume, with bright pink heels and feathers throughout the play, and later in the middle of the show they had a feather boa pulled out to be her new “tail” feathers to become of importance to Horton the elephant.
Second off, the scenery itself. I really thought that the Clackamas high-school did really well with the budget they were given. The colors were also painted in black-light neon, and used black-lights through certain points of the show. The stage itself was a proscenium arch that was given three levels of platforms, and had objects such as a flying plane throughout the show.
The lighting was extremely cool because it was like our magic theatre production but better. It had the main stage lights, the lighting coming out of the pit, and lighting going into the audience. It made it very pleasant to view the actors in all areas of the theatre itself, and made it easy to recognize who was who.
For the first time in my life with a musical, besides the Broadway productions, would be that the music was actually really well played by the pit orchestra. It was a little loud, but it went well with the vocals of the actors. Also for sound, the microphones kept cutting in and out especially on Andrew Garcia who played the cat and the hat.
All in all, I really liked this show because it was upbeat and moved smoothly between scenes, and I didn’t feel like I was waiting forever for comic relief. I really wish as a class we would have at least seen one musical, because they are one of my favorite types of theatre.


~Nici Benois~