The premise of the show was that a young genius was being stopped from being awarded his two doctoral degrees by an "incomplete" in Music Appreciation 101. He confessed he'd been bored with the musicals that his professor had made them watch and had quit, so now, in order to finish the class, he was cramming in all six of the shows he'd formerly avoided. Using his invention of some type of fancy machine, we were treated to compressed versions of these musicals and then he'd add some dialogue (while they set up the next scene and did costume changes) about what he'd learned from the plot and songs.
And--seriously--they were a remarkably talented ensemble cast: singing and dancing with not a single cringe-inducing moment. Talent, talent, talent coupled with obvious practice, practice, practice. The whole event was two hours, including an intermission, and featured big production numbers and solos from...
- Hairspray
- Annie
- Footloose
- Wicked
- Les Miserables
- Mary Poppins
When I first looked at the program, I was a little dismayed wondering how they could possibly do numbers from each of those very different shows and make it work. Or even do justice to the music. But---wow oh wowee--I cannot explain how professional they were. Lights, staging, music done by a keyboardist, drummer and guitarist, choreography, children, teens, adults, old people. Pretty awesome job...
But--I've spent too long on the reason I was there. Let me get to the point of this post. As I sat in a cultural hall where I'd never been, in a part of town about 20 miles from where I live, I thought, "Wouldn't it be fun to get up there at the mike and do a little test?" I'd say my name, describe my family tree a bit (just mom's maiden name and mine) and point out that I was from Star Valley, Wyoming, and then ask for people who had any connection to either my married family or my birth family or Star Valley to stand and explain. I figure I'd definitely get at least one, and probably many more.
You see, even though my small, small hometown in Wyoming is still very small, its influence is wide-ranging. In fact, as my children have discovered, it's international. We have yet to live somewhere that hasn't revealed another family connection or Star Valley connector.
Why just last week, it happened again. We were having Reading Week at our school and one of our teacher's husband is a promoter for the UFC , so she asked if he could invite a couple of his clients to be guest readers for the students. On Thursday, three hunky looking guys with malformed noses came striding through our hall and we joined the third grade for a fun session with these dudes. The kids got to ask them questions and then they read a cute kid book to us. At the conclusion, some of us teachers were standing there and struck up a little chat with them and we asked if they'd done sports in high school--of course--wrestling mostly. So I added that my brothers had both been wrestlers and that the U.S. Olympic champ Rulon Gardner was from my home town. Sure enough, one of the fighters piped up, "I lived there once--Star Valley, right? My dad was building some rich guys a log house in Jackson and we lived in Star Valley for two years." Okay. Small world!
But not really when you're from Star Valley. We should start a Facebook page or something: Times When Being from Star Valley Yielded a Connection to A Total Stranger Somewhere in the World. So, it would have been fun last night to ask the several hundred people in attendence (many of whom were LDS--which increases the odds for the SV connection by a large measure) how many of them had a SV hook. Try it sometime when you're with a bunch of total strangers. You'd be amazed how often that you'll have that in common with others.
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