Review: Brigadoon the Musical - Governor's Program for Gifted Children

The curtain opens and a forest is seen on the stage. It doesn't hit you that the trees are fake unless you stare at them long enough to realize that in some way, the look a little bit cartoonish. They don't keep your attention for long when the two guys stumble onto the stage and claim they are lost. After a bit of searching the Scotland map, they conclude that they are where "nothing" is on the map.

Suddenly, soft music and the words, "Brigadoon" are heard. A fair is happening in a town, and the two men, Tommy and Jeff, are soon involved in the goings on. This magical town is called Brigadoon and it only appears every 100 years. Because of this, the town has never heard of modern inventions such as telephones. It also means that the people there dress in traditional Scottish tartan clothes.

The Governor's Program for Gifted Children is currently performing this play. The costumes of the cast definitely recall the idea of Scottish tartan except for Fiona, who wears an all red dress. It would seem that there was a better choice for her costuming, but it is understandable that her character is supposed to stand out as one of the main characters in the play.

The set is expertly made. The trees make you think of real trees. The logs where characters sit look like real logs surrounded by moss. In general, the cast did a great job. However, the score for the musical includes very high notes. There were only one or two songs where all the members of the cast did not strain their voices in order to reach the notes that they were supposed to sing. It may not be legal since the play is not in the public domain, but if it were, a good idea would be to lower the score by two or three keys so the singers were not straining to reach the high notes in the songs.

There were also times that the mics obviously messed up and words could not be heard. The cast depended on the mics to be heard. There were a few times characters forgot lines, but it was opening night and this was probably the first time many of the students had ever performed in front of an audience. In general, the entire story could be understood and it was an enjoyable performance. Two more performances remain. One on Thursday, July 19, 2018 and another on Friday, July 20, 2018. Both of them are at 7pm in Tritico Theatre on the McNeese campus.

While all the actors did amazing jobs remembering their choreography (which was more believable as a town dancing when it wasn't completely perfectly done in synchronization), the one person who stood out in her performance was Belle Fine as Meg Brockie. Other cast members include Liam Wubben (Tommy Albright), Jeff Douglas (Jake Touchet), Ella Theriot (Fiona Maclaren), Mark DeFalco (Charlie Dalrymple), Hailey Williams (Bonnie Jean Maclaren), Ryan Gunton (Frank), Sydney Brummett (Jane Ashton), Stoney McKnight (Kate), and Ben Songy (Stuart Dalrymple). The townsfolk of Brigadoon were played by Tyler Alphonse, Cate Anderson, Penina Berman, Grace Bettis, Adair Brown, Dominic Bruno, Ran Cappel, Zoe Cappel, Julia Day, Isabel Jackson, Darren Metoyer, Vivienne Ragnone, Condoleezza Semien, Jesse Shuff, and Isabella Soileau.

The Governor's Program for Gifted Children is a seven week program held on the McNeese campus over the summer. Students stay on the campus for those seven weeks and have a variety of curricula in the arts and sciences available to them. To find out more, head to http://gpgc.org.

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