Cindy And The Sprite Girls

It's always fun to see a creative endeavor come to life.

Last night, we went to the "world premiere" of a musical, "Cindy & The Sprite Girls," at Gunston Middle School. How many middle schools would attempt to put on an ORIGINAL play, much less a musical?

Yet Gunston pulled it off. The play, written and directed by Gunston's Theater Arts teacher, Sharon Steen, with original music scored by Band Director Matthew Rinker, is performed by a talented cast of sixth through eighth graders that includes an excellent Cindy in the lead role. It's a cute story about the anxieties of middle school, set against the casting of Cindy as Cinderella in her first school play.

For a first performance of an original musical, we were quite impressed. With a little editing--there was a bit too much repetition in places and it was a tad long--it could be a great performance for middle school theater departments around the country, with simple enough songs and music for sixth graders, but catchy enough lyrics to keep the adults tapping their feet.

We particularly liked the songs "Nerds" and "Snobs", dealing with some of the typical cliques that develop in school (and the eventual resolution into a much nicer rendition as the cliques break down).

Clearly, a lot of hard work went into this production (and you could feel it in the adrenaline-laced squeals of the cast members right after their first night was done). (And no, our middle schooler wasn't one of them, but we think he was inspired to give it a try next year.)

For you Arlington readers, Cindy & The Sprite Girls has three more showings: today (Saturday March 17) at 2:00 pm, and next weekend: Friday, March 23 at 7:30 pm; Saturday March 24 at 2:00 pm. All performances are at Theatre One at Gunston Middle School, 2700 S. Lang Street (just off Arlington Ridge Road). Admission is a bargain at $3.00. Make sure to take your middle schoolers (and soon to be middle schoolers).