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Detention (The Musikal)

2010 · Green Pastures Camp for the Performing Arts

Detention (The Musikal)

A musical comedy about a roomful of so-called "rottest kids in school" who find themselves serving detention together. As the show opens, the students slouch into room 215 reading off their detention slips — pants too low, skirts too short, texting in class, a smoking habit, a three-year-overdue lunch bill — and singing the anthem that names their lot in life: Detention!

When a tornado warning blows through, the locked-down delinquents are herded into the strangest possible refuge: the school's pre-school library, surrounded by children's books and toys. As the storm crashes overhead and the lights flicker, the kids pick up the kiddie books and begin acting out the fairy tales and nursery rhymes inside them — Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks, Snow White and the dwarves. Into this misfit crew wander two outsiders: Braden, a polished honor student who has "never had a detention" in his life, and Eli, a quiet, hulking boy nobody dares to talk to.

Through the fractured fairy tales and the long night of the storm, the detainees find their way past their attitudes and reputations toward friendship, understanding, and — as the closing number puts it — looking out for the rainbow on the far side of trouble.

Musical Numbers

Act I

Act II

Cast

Production Notes

Detention (The Musikal) was written and directed by Ken Bradbury and staged in April 2010 as the second joint production between Routt Catholic High School and Triopia High School. Music and vocal direction were by Roger Wainwright, with choreography by Annie Schone, Logan Bobb and Hannah Stephens.

The production moved from its previous Buena Vista venue to the Green Pastures Camp for the Performing Arts, which offered more room for the show's demanding staging — Bradbury noted in his first rehearsal that the blocking would be especially complicated because the entire cast remains onstage throughout the show. Technical direction was by Chuck West and Steve Eisenhauer. Costumes were by Karol Hill and Dana Homer; stage managers were Katie Heiterscheit and Samantha Dubois; Elisabeth Werries served as prompter, C.J. Beckwith ran sound cues, and Cory Andrews handled lights.

Photos

Performer mid-song on stage Performer in red stage lighting Two performers in a dramatic scene Two cast members on stage