Cruising Carlisle

I know what you're thinking: "How good could a high school musical be?" But hats off to the leads of Carlisle High School's production of My Fair Lady; this former musician was truly blown away.

Professor Higgins was played by Senior Josh Tewell, whose depiction of the character was uncannily like Rex Harrison's. He skillfully mastered first the heartless and then the romantic ego of the professor and topped it off with a superb British accent. (This show would have really suffered without a great accent on a Brit who is a self-proclaimed phonetics expert.)

Speaking of accents, Cassidy Dermott brought an equally impressive dodgy British tongue to Eliza's character. Her voice was so clear and sweet that for a moment I was sure I was back in the Gershwin listening to Elphaba (Wicked) sing Gravity! And while at 5'2" there were few likenesses to Audrey Hepburn, her ability to light up the stage stirred more empathy in the audience than even Audrey could. Cassidy's phonetic transformation was very believable, as was the chemistry that built between her and Professor Higgins throughout the development.

While the chorus and sets left something to be desired, Eliza's cronies' acrobatic stunts had me chuckling on more than one occasion. The most obvious weakness was the orchestration, which seemed to be comprised of a few talented musicians and numerous other tentative or unpracticed ones. It was actually painful to listen at times as they struggled to transition in and out of scene changes.

All that aside, Eliza and the professor really did make the show worth every minute of the 2 ½ hours I spent in my worn auditorium seat. And let's not forget that this is high school, folks. The tickets were only seven bucks a piece—a pittance to pay to behold a couple of talented performers who just may end up under the lights of Broadway.