South_pacific

Jeff Green | Apr 06, 2006

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South Pacific -- Those singing nurses!

byJenniferBennet

South Pacific, the musical, is soon to be performed at Sharbot Lake High School , thanks to the hard work of the North Frontenac Little Theatre Association. I'm a member of the chorus of nurses stationed on a Pacific island during the Second World War. The musical has so many great songs it's hard to single out one, but the chorus takes part in some of the best, such as 'Bali Ha'i, 'I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair' and 'Honey Bun'. You'll be tempted to sing along. And we nurses not only sing, we also get to wear colourful, 1940's style costumes designed and made by Geoffrey Murray, who teaches at Sharbot Lake High School. For us, it will be summer in April as we dance in cotton tops and shorts yes, we nurses are singing in our civvies, not our uniforms.

We're a big group of nurses. When you come to the show, don’t expect to see us a lot - we're background people after all, filling in behind the dramatic love stories happening on centre stage. But you can expect to see a lot of us, including myself, Tamara Carmichael, Marilyn Hopkins, Lucy Kellar, Linda Laraby, Donna Larocque, Kathy Lowery King, Karen Reynolds, Deanne Mitchell, Barb Rodgers (our esteemed choreographer, who has her work cut our for her!), Deborah Spaar, Melisa Tallion, Kelly Weatherby, Karen Wolsey, Lydia Sargeant and Pam Woods. We still haven't figured out how we'll all fit on stage for our big finale kick line!

One of the directors characterized the women of the chorus as being in two groups, the young nurses and the mature nurses - who are "over 21." I'm thrilled by that description.

Having a big chorus, the bigger the better, is a way to involve as many people as possible in all the fun and some of the music. We're working hard, so we hope you’ll come out and look for the nurses in the background on Thursday April 27, Friday April 28 or Saturday April 29 at 7:30 p.m. or on Sunday April 30 at 2 p.m.