Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs



The Class History reminds me of this stage play put on when we were in sixth grade. I'm sure it was a rousing success because what parent would NOT be thrilled by a darling child starring in a musical fantasy.

John Lee played the role of the prince who aroused Snow White from her slumber, but for the love of me I do not recall who played Snow White herself. She was an older woman, from 8th grade, that is, and John was in 7th grade.

He was probably chosen because he had that tall, handsome look that every prince should have, and whoever played Snow White was also a lovely person, presumably chosen to fit the model. Unfortunately for John, who was a talented singer, he only had about 3 minutes onstage since his only role in the play was to come onstage and wake the poor girl.

I was one of the dwarfs, Chuck Hendrickson was another one, and I don't recall anyone else from our class in any role, although presumably there were several. We wore long underwear that had been dyed brown - and carefully stitched in the appropriate place, if you know what I mean. Our highlight was marching onstage singing "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go!"

The script strayed from the original in that we - the dwarfs, that is - each had numbers, not names. Today I don't recall what number any of us had except for Dwarf #7, who was Grumpy in the movie, and was played by a 5th grader in our production; I recall his sheepish grin and lock of hair tumbling on his forehead but cannot recall his name.

At any length, the production was so glorious as to be recalled as part of our history and reported seven years later in the yearbook as indeed it should have been. It was our first legitimate broadway effort. I'm sure we were great.

2 comments:

  1. What I did not add to this posting was the experience of dressing in the boys locker room of the old gym. Being a sixth-grader, I was just a bit intimidated by all the 40-year-old high schoolers . . . well, they looked 40 to me anyway. They had just completed a practice, probably football, and one of them jumped atop the lockers, jumping up and down as to mimic a monkey, grunting, scratching, curling his arms as a monkey might do. I was in awe, especially because he was buck naked. I have no idea what possessed him to do that, other than being a male teen. The experience was a shocking introduction to high school athletics.

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  2. Pretty sure it was Bonnie Mack who played the role of Snow White.

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