Curtain Call For Chicago

Today marked the end of our Chicago performance! We performed two days in a row and I feel so happy that it ended so well 😆 Unfortunately, it was flu season in school which meant that almost everyone was sick. It started off as one or two people coughing and before we knew it, everyone was dying from sniffles and coughs. In my case, the cold hit me hard for my throat and I couldn’t make a squeak. But in the luckiest turn of events, I managed to belt out ‘When You’re Good To Mama’, the iconic song of Mama Morton for both performances. The staging of our show was most interesting, as it wasn’t your typical “here’s the stage where we perform, that’s the seat where you’ll sit and watch”. It was fully immersive, with the stage going around 3 of the 4 sides of the Drama Studio like a catwalk and the audience located in the middle with swivelling chairs as well as at the front of the whole stage for a 360 degree view. The nice mix of songs, dances, and acting made Chicago even better for the audience. Since it was done in school, there were some measures taken to lessen the ‘crudeness’ of the original show, but I don’t think that took away from enjoying the show. Playing 2 main roles — Mama Morton and Mary Sunshine — and being the chorus singer took a lot of effort but I had fun nonetheless. Especially because Mama and Mary were drastically different characters, I was able to experiment with my characterisations of them. The iconic ‘Cell Block Tango’ was performed extremely well by the dancers and singers and even though we had shortened the run-time, people were able to follow the story without trouble. We had a short after party but since everyone was worn out by the show, we headed back home early. It was my first time being casted as someone who has a strong character like Mama Morton, and I couldn’t be happier with how I portrayed her in the musical. It feels as if my field of ‘playable characters’ expanded significantly.