The Musical Theatre Society Fall Broadway Cabaret
On October 12th I attended Slippery Rock’s Musical Theatre Society’s Fall Cabaret. This year, the cast of 64 talented singers and dancers performed seven-teen songs from the beloved Broadway classics such as Hamilton, All Shook Up, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and many more. All were played beautifully to the accompaniment of a live band.
The show was directed by Rachel Sobota, with assistant directors Brody MeKenna and Andrew Borcherding. The choreography was done by Mindy Clearly and Sydney Don Giovanni.
The Cabaret kicked off to a somewhat slow start with a set of songs from Godspell. I felt the energy was lagging and cast was lacking in enthusiasm in this opening song, but this was only a minor hiccup. The tone changed rather quickly by the next songs as we were given stunning performances by Anna Roe singing “Not for The Life of Me” and Antonie Dodson’s emotional solo in “Solla Sollew”. As always, the men’s ensemble left the audience enraptured in laughter and excitement with their performance of “To Life” from Fiddler on the Roof. The female ensemble’s performance of “Mama Who Bore Me” from Spring Awakening, featuring Sa’rai Freeman and Alex Bradly as the soloists, left me in awe; the energy and passion put into that piece was astounding and easily stole the show for me. Other acts such as “Forever Yours”, “What You Mean to Me”, “Marian the Librarian”, “Just Another Day”, and “A Step Too Far” made me speechless. Alex Scabis’ performance of “You’ll Be Back” from Hamilton had the audience falling out of their seats laughing.
The Cabaret closed with most of the cast in “Burning Love” from All Shook Up, we were all enchanted by this group and left the building that night in amazement. While I really enjoyed this year’s Cabaret, it was not without its faults. There were a few times where the singers were either being drowned out by the band, muffled by their own mics, or had the mics so close to their mouths you could hear them breath. It was very distracting and took away from an otherwise perfect performance. Over all, this was a wonderful performance and I look forward to the rest of their productions in the upcoming year.
