8th Grade Musical Theatre Class Hard at Work on Mary Poppins, Jr.

This semester's 8th grade Musical Theatre class is hard at work on their production of the beloved musical Mary Poppins Jr.. This version stays a bit truer to the P.L. Travers book, with a script written by Julian Fellowes, more famous recently for writing the hit Downton Abbey series. The musical, with music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman and additional music and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, contains the songs we all know and love from the 1964 Disney movie featuring Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke, songs like 'Feed the Birds,' 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,' 'A Spoonful of Sugar', 'Let's Go Fly a Kite' and more. This stage production, which won many awards on both the London and NYC theatre stages, is especially entertaining as it calls in some of the darker elements of the original story while adding some wonderful new songs to the mix.

Why Mary Poppins, Jr.? Director and Middle School drama teacher Lydia Horan says it's "because we need a little magic in our lives right now! And because it centers on the importance of the family unit and spending precious time with our children. It's about a family that's off kilter and needs a little help or magic to center them. The father in particular, Mr. Banks, goes through a personal journey and with the help of Mary Poppins realizes he needs to focus his energy on being there for his wife and children. This show is filled with fun dance numbers and iconic songs from my childhood. It's beloved by so many people, you really can't go wrong. And with a stellar cast of Tandem 8th graders, it's 'practically perfect in every way.'"  

The Musical Theatre class, not the entire grade as in past years, is putting on the show, as 8th graders now choose between Musical Theatre and an art or music class, and must write an essay explaining why they want to take the Musical Theatre class to be considered. It's made staging more manageable and every student in the production is delighted to be there and passionate about performing.

Director Horan, who auditioned the 18 students at the start of the year, works with them in daily classes. Upper School drama teacher Perry Medlin is choreographing the show, which features some pretty high-stepping numbers. Upper School mentors help backstage, and two other 8th graders are running sound and lights. A handful of after-school rehearsals will pull the show together before it opens.

The show plays for three performances November 21-23, all at 7pm in the Community Hall.