Amalia and Olivia Reflect on the 24-Hour Musical

05 February 2020

This collaborative activity stretches students’ creative muscles as they are challenged to come up with and perform a brand-new musical in the brief span of only 24 hours. Students and volunteers dedicated an entire day to this special activity.

24-Hour Musical performance 2020 Little Red Riding Hood Wolf

With the clock ticking, our performers even stayed overnight at school to maximise their limited time. After a frenzied day of practice, the curtain came up on our performers. How did they do? The students share what it was like in their own words:

24-Hour Musical performance 2020 costumes

The 24-hour musical was fun but hard and tiring. First, we started with some small, simple exercises so the teachers could do casting. Once we the casting was finished, we read the script together as a group.

We started doing the dances and the songs, and it was very tiring because we had to sing and dance at the same time while smiling. Then, we separated into groups so we could learn our lines by scene. After that, we did a run-through of the play with everyone.

We had pizza for dinner and then learned the “Smooth Animal” dance, which was fast and difficult. We then went to sleep at 11:00, but the biggest surprise was when we were woken up. We were woken up by the sound of four extremely loud trumpets, a trombone and banging drums. We were all so tired, but of course, to make the play work out we had to practice a lot, so after being woken up they made us dance both of the main songs at least twice.

We then had breakfast, returned to the auditorium, did another run-through of the play, had break, got our costumes, had lunch WITH our costumes on and finally did another run-through of the play with all the songs, costumes, props and dances. The most fun part for me was seeing each other’s characters, their looks and how they acted. Thanks to all the teachers that helped us with this play. In the end, the play came out very well and it was very fun. I would love to do it again sometime!
Amalia Morel (Grade 7)

24-Hour Musical acting performance Juilliard nurse wolf costume

My experience in the 24-hour musical was amazing. Everyone was so kind and so fun to work with. I loved how everybody collaborated with each other because it was very important to work together if we wanted to have an amazing play.

The first day we started by introducing ourselves by some games and after that the teachers divided us into two groups to do a game using improvisation because it was very important if we forgot a line in the show because if we did we had to improvise.

After that we practiced the big songs to see how well we knew the lyrics, then we got our characters which was very exciting.

All the teachers took a scene and started practicing them. By then it was already pretty late so we all were really tired. Then the pizza came, and after we practiced more. It was really hard to memorize so much in so little time, and we were all really scared that we were all not going to remember our lines but then it was all much better because we were getting used to it.

The next morning, we kept ppracticing until two hours until the final show. At this point we did one last run-through that was really scary because lots of us thought that we were going to forget our lines in the middle of the play.

I think that in general this show was AMAZING and we were all super into character. I would really like to thank all the teachers for being so helpful and for always being there when we had problems. They were so amazing and because of this we had the best 24-hour musical in the entire world. Olivia Del Valle (Grade 6)

24-Hour Musical performance 2020 Little Red Riding Hood

Thanks to Amalia and Olivia for sharing their reflections on the experience. In addition, we would like to thank the Arts Department, the four helpers from Grade 9 and all of the staff members who volunteered their time to make this activity a smashing success. You have wowed us yet again!