Rock of Ages (High School Edition), performed by Centrestage Youth Productions was a lively and entertaining production, which the whole audience seemed to enjoy.
This well-established company works tirelessly to fundraise for themselves in order to give young people in the area a chance to be a part of an amateur dramatic group. Their hard work certainly paid off tonight.
Sherie Christian, who wants to make it big in acting was played effortlessly by Morgan Dunn. Her note perfect singing went hand in hand with her slick acting. She is a star in the making. She was well supported by Amy Marsden who played Justice Charlier (an owner of a nearby club) and together these girls held not only the singing together, but the show.
An aspiring rocker named Drew Dupree played by Patrick Grice and the comic timing of Hamish Naylor (Lonny Barnett) added support to the girls, giving the show, as a whole, strong foundations.
The choreography by Lauren Bonthuys was slick and energetic. The cast of around 40 local youngsters certainly did her proud. From large group numbers to smaller routines, each member of the company knew what they were doing and it was clear that a lot of hard work had gone into not only teaching the routines but also learning them.
The band (under the direction of Matt Lemon) consisted of five musicians who were very much part of the show. They were surrounded by the simple yet effective set, which was used to its full potential. The costumes showed the personalities of the individual characters and added to the vibrancy on stage.
At the beginning of the show, on occasions, microphones were a little late coming on, and some lines were missed, however this small technical glitch was identified and sorted quickly, impacting on the show very little. Lighting was incredibly in time with certain musical numbers, adding to the overall effect and performance.
It was clear that the whole cast enjoyed performing in this show…just as much as the audience enjoyed singing and clapping along! With well-known classics such as ‘Waiting for a girl like you’, ‘I wanna know what love is’, ‘The Final Countdown’, and finishing with ‘Don’t Stop Believin’, …what is not to enjoy! I was left singing the songs on the way home!
Rock of Ages continues to run at the Point until Saturday 4th August with a matinee on Saturday.
