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Courtesy photo |
The
Upscale Singers will appear at The Satisfied Frog on
Sunday April 9 with their Western/Broadway revue "How
the West Was Fun" that will take you down "The
Old Chisholm Trail" and teach you that "You
Can't Get a Man with a Gun." The director of the
group, Margaret Watson, is in the front row at the far
left.
(Click
picture to see larger image) |
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Broadway
goes West, upscale fun ensues
Eighth grader adds choreography to musical
revue
by
Chris Moore
DESERT FOOTHILLS - How fun was the Old West, really? Now's
your chance to find out, thanks to the Upscale Singers, a
group of North Valley residents, ranging in age from their
30s to 70s, who sing in various community choirs, choruses
and theaters as well.
They're calling their new musical revue "How the West
Was Fun" and it is made up of "old cowboy favorites
and Western Broadway tunes," according to the group's
director, Margaret Watson. Songs will include "Jungle,
Jangle, Jingle," "The Yellow Rose of Texas,"
"The Old Chisholm Trail," the Irving Berlin favorite
from the Broadway show "Annie Get Your Gun," "You
Can't Get a Man with a Gun," and tunes from "Shenandoah."
Narration
will link the songs together and, according to one of the
singers, Sharon Mills, "provide a sort of story line,
a progression through Western history." Watson selected
the music for the show, lending an ear to what she called
"music that would give the flavor of the Old West."
When the group decided it wanted to change direction a couple
years back, some members who knew Watson from the Desert Mountain
Country Club asked her to take over and she happily agreed.
Prior to that, under a different director, the singers performed
mostly classical choral works, but once at the helm Watson
retooled the singers into more of a Broadway based musical
revue group. |
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Last
year, for Mother's Day, The Upscale Singers performed their first
revue, a tribute to mothers which Watson directed called "Broadway
Mama."
"How the West Was Fun" will be made all that much more
fun when 13 year old eighth grader Aundreea Hardy of Canyon Elementary
School in Peoria performs a special dance she has choreographed
for the show. Hardy, who has studied dance with Debbie Allen and
Kevin Federline and used to teach dance at Stagedoor Dance Center
in Phoenix, says her dance will be "sort of ballet and lyrical
with a little Western movement in it." Hardy's choreography
is set to a medley of two songs, "The River Is Wide" and
"Shenandoah."
"How the West Was Fun" will be performed Sunday, April
9, at The Satisfied Frog, 6245 E. Cave Creek Road in Cave Creek
at 6:30 p.m. A fundraising auction will be held before the show
starting at 5 p.m. Tickets are $30 for adults and $15 for children
12 and under. For information, call (480) 488 9225.
Reach the reporter at cmoore@thedesertadvocate.com. |
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