Every year, Amador Valley High School and Foothill High School (both located in Pleasanton, CA) come together to put on a musical. This year, they presented Thoroughly Modern Millie, which premiered in 1967 as a movie musical. Having graduated from Amador Valley a few years ago (and being an avid fan of musicals), I made a trip home and therefore, had the chance to see this musical, as directed by Mark Aubel (my high school choir teacher!!).
While I’d never heard of this musical before, I thoroughly enjoyed not only the storyline and soundtrack, but also the performance put on by this talented cast of high school students.
First off, props to Richard Morris, writer of the original movie musical, for creating the characters of Bun Foo and Ching Ho, thereby giving Asian American actors a chance to make a name for themselves in Hollywood. (Keep in mind, this premiered in the ‘60s, a time in which Hollywood was heavily dominated by Caucasians–more so than today!) Additionally, I’m intrigued by the depth of the characters and the complexity of the storyline.
To give a brief synopsis, (spoiler alert!), Millie hopes to marry Trevor Graydon, who is in love with Miss Dorothy Brown. That said, Mille actually likes Jimmy, but has it in her mind that marriage is more about money and wealth than love; sadly, Jimmy likes Millie back, and Ching Ho also falls in love with Miss Dorothy Brown. Meanwhile, there’s a persistent black market issue: white slavery. (I told you it was complicated!) As for who ends up with who and whether the issue gets resolved, that’s for you to find out yourself.
The only issue I really had was with regard to the characters of Ching Ho and Bun Foo–their dialogue was, for the most part, in Cantonese but their songs were in Mandarin. Given that they’re from Hong Kong, it makes sense that they might know both dialects; however, I would’ve liked to see more consistency in the writing there. (I’m fluent in Mandarin, and saw the show with my friend who’s fluent in Cantonese–we were both fairly confused by this aspect of the musical. To be fair, audience members who aren’t familiar with either language probably wouldn’t be affected by this language inconsistency…the English subtitles were enough to keep the show going!)
Now, I haven’t seen the original movie musical, so I can’t formally critique or commend this particular version that I did see. I might also be biased to a degree; after all, the director was my choir teacher for four years...however, I’ve always been impressed by how talented the kids in my town are, and this year’s show definitely didn’t disappoint.
The fact that Amador Valley and Foothill are able to join forces and put on a high-quality musical every year really goes to show that big talent can come out of small towns. To my friends in Pleasanton, if you haven’t yet been to an Amador/Foothill musical, you should go–if not this year, then next! And to all my theatre friends who haven’t yet seen Thoroughly Modern Millie, let’s make a date out of it!
