Nandan Nair

This past week, I was a part of Singin’ in the Rain Jr, a spin-off of the original movie Singin’ in the Rain with the Central Middle School (CMS) Drama Club. It was the musical of the year, and it was my first and last play with the CMS Drama Club.

It all started off in September. It was announced in school that there would be auditions for the four major roles in the play: Don Lockwood, the famous actor and main star of the picture; Kathy Selden, the young actress that Don falls in love with, Cosmo Brown, Don’s best friend and vaudeville partner, and Lina Lamont, Don’s “leading lady”, with whom he has achieved global fame. So, I decided to audition for Cosmo, as I liked that he was like a comedian in the show. I filled out the form and auditioned. While I did not get the role of Cosmo, I did get the role of Dexter, the director of the movie. This worked well for me, and I enjoyed my role.

For the first month or so, we only worked on reading our lines and singing the music. Later, we started to map everything out and outlined how we would act on stage. We also went through the “blocking” of the music dances (I did not need to worry about this because I was not involved in any of the dances.) Going into November, we started working on perfecting for production day and memorizing our lines.

We had a dress rehearsal on the day before the premiere. We performed for the senior citizens in Quincy, MA. This was a good start, and we performed in front of our first official crowd on Thursday evening. Our second performance was on Friday, where did even better than the premiere. Our final performance was on Saturday, and we went absolutely above and beyond any of what we had done earlier.

It was an amazing and fun experience.  I got to wear a mustache. Being a director, the character had to yell at others for messing up. It was fun. I watched numerous clips from the original movie to observe this character and understand how he acted and I thought I was able to get into the skin of Dexter. It was entertaining and I wish I had done it in the last two years as well.

When we finished our last showing, after we did our usual “ear-curdling scream”, the principal told the audience about how long we’ve been practicing, and congratulated us on a spectacular display. During the last 4 months, I have met many new people and made good friends. It was a hectic schedule but I know that I will miss that routine. I want to thank all the teachers and friends involved in the production and congratulate everyone on a great show. Incidentally, this was my first play and it will always be a very good memory. Have a look at Dexter and let me know your thoughts.