I attended the Friday night showing of Side show the musical. I got there fairly early and although the theater was initially pretty empty the theater gradually got more crowded as it got closer to eight o'clock. I was surprised to learn that the musical was based on a true story and that the sisters, Daisy and Violet had appeared in the movie Freaks (Program 5). I remember watching that film in High School and as the musical about the sisters was about self acceptance, it really surprised that the sisters appeared in the film because from what I remember it was a fairly mean-spirited, very exploitative film. The musical was backed up by an ensemble that included a good deal of brass and woodwind instruments, as well as both an electric guitar and an electric bass guitar as well as a drum set and a percussion section. However the one instrument that suprised me was the synthesizer since in my head I was expecting a variety of instruments more akin to that of a classical orchestra. The music however was what I expected from a musical. The opening piece "Come Look At The Freaks" is the main piece that stood out to me (Program 1). The song starting out fairly softly while the theater was dimly lit. This conveyed a upon the audience a mood of uneasy mystery, that was appropriate considering the subject matter. The music eventually became much more intense in a way that was meant to grab the audience's attention. I was fairly tired when I showed up to the musical but the opening song really woke me up. There were some musical segments that were repeated or revisited during the course of the musical. One thing that was constantly repeated was the way Daisy and Violet song their names to introduce themselves. Another recall was featured in "Finale" when they re-used many of the musical elements from the opening song. The chorus sang the same background harmony from the opening song and the lyrics were very similar if not identical. However instead of the whole Freak Show singing it was just the Hilton Sisters singing. Another important change was that the music was much more subdued and almost sad sounding for this version as opposed to the grandiose feel that the opening number had. There seemed to be less of a distinct brass dominated sound during the finale. I was caught off guard when the musical performance ended, because I was expecting there to be a happy ending and I thought that it could have just been the start of another intermission. Most of the musicals I have seen have been on TV or were movies so they were previously filmed. This gave me the impression that the performers would move more when they sang. However since it was live theater it makes since that they would want to stand still and sing in a position where they could project to the theater as they best could. This may just be because I was sitting in the third closest row to the stage, but to me the theater felt very intimate. There was a wide variety of people in attendance. There were a lot of students as well as families. To my left there was a young couple and to my right was an old couple who were apparently there to see their grandson play the drums. When Jake "The Cannibal King" ran up to people in the front rows at the beginning of the play I thought that there might be a greater degree of performer-audience interaction. This ended up not happening and there ended up being a fairly standard amount of audience participation, they ended up cheering after every song. In conclusion I learned about musicals and learned how all the factors combine to form a compelling end result, by watching one firsthand. It was much more effective to experience firsthand instead of watching it on youtube or reading about it.

Works Cited

Side Show. By Bill Rusell and Henry Krieger. Chor. Robert Longbottom. University Theatre, Dallas. 16 Apr. 2010. Performance.

Side Show Program. Dallas, 2010. Print.