CAS 15: Reflection Bugsy Malone

Chelsey Hadeed
CAS Reflection
Bugsy Malone

Bugsy Malone

            As tradition, my school does a primary school play every year, this year the title was Bugsy Malone, the Musical. The stage was continuously full of excitement with kids between the ages of 8-12.  The talent portrayed by the young students was beyond amazing and the audience was captivated by every act.

 Although it was during my last 2 weeks of school, where exams were coming up and papers were due I still volunteered my time to help with the play. Having never heard of or seen the play until the day before I was extremely stressed, nervous and confused. The dress rehearsal was the worst, I had no idea who the main characters were, who needed to have a microphone and what side of the stage individuals were entering and exiting. It really was a disaster. I decided the best way to do it though was being calm and take everything one-step at a time.

My main job was to make sure all actors and actresses had microphones and that they were switched throughout scenes. In order to do so, I made a list of the microphones and where they needed to be in each scene. The stress eased as the list was a good guideline. However, the first night of the performance felt like a disaster. I based myself on one side of the stage with my partner on the other yet it was extremely stressful. I didn’t have a script and never new which scene we were on, kids didn’t know if they had to have microphones or what was going on, we were all a little clueless. Thankfully the audience never noticed our stressed.

The second night of the performance was a lot better and I had mastered my task. We did have a few mess-ups but overall it was a pretty good show. I enjoyed working backstage and the crew was very nice. I love watching the play from backstage and feeling the nerves of all the kids before they go on. It always looks like they are having so much fun and makes me want to be on stage with them – but maybe one day. 

Overall, I am happy I volunteered, I carried on the stress well for the 3 long days and nights and once the audience was happy with the performance so was I.  Yes, it was stressful but, no one said it was going to be easy.