Davin’s Musical Theatre Musings

Every year at this time the campus is alive with a theatrical buzz as the entire school galvanizes its energies to put on one more spectacular musical. In recent years, the T. Gil Bunch Centre stage has been home to phantoms and ex-convicts: we have witnessed some memorable performances from our students. This year is no different as the students and staff work diligently to put the finishing touches on the Tony Award winning musical “In The Heights.” It seems fitting to hear from a cast member who has seen this bustle before and can offer insights into what the students go through and what drives them to perform year after year. Davin K has been in the past three musical theatre productions: he is a ‘lifer’.   Davin’s Musical Theatre Musings Hours of rehearsals and large portions of one’s soul are just two of the investments associated with staging a musical. Spending three years at Brentwood, devoting much of my time to the best performance possible, has been the opportunity of my too-short Brentwood lifetime. I have given three years of my life to shows here at Brentwood, as have many others, and as will many more to come. A performer’s role can be as simple as walking across the ever-daunting stage just once, or having a two hour show seemingly dedicated to you. In both cases, it takes more time than you would think including days of line memorization. For the freakishly gifted (those people make me green with envy) it appears to take mere minutes. Then, more hours blocking and topping it all off with character development, learning to be the new you. Putting on a show at Brentwood takes time and dedication to the art, but gives back so much. Working with actors head and shoulders above me in performance ability, and working with and on sets designed by masters of the craft give highlights to every day. In my three years of musical theatre, I have seen casts and crews come and go, friends and comrades lost every year to the horrid yet glorious fate that awaits us all: graduation. Putting on a show such as “Les Miserables”, “Phantom of the Opera”, or “In the Heights” is a learning curve for us all, but certainly a path well worth taking. Davin K, Musical Theatre Lifer & First XV Prop