A Sensational Comeback to Schutz’s Theatre

The Bye Bye Birdie Production Was a Stunning Success
By Aya Kordy

Obnoxious voices can be heard around campus, hollering, “We love you Conrad”, the voices belong to the Schutz Drama/Music students who recently put on a successful production of the hit play Bye Bye Birdie.
The setting is the late 1950’s, when teenagers from across the United States were going crazy for the gorgeous rock star, Conrad Birdie (Dikran Alexanian). However, his manager Albert Peterson (Antarah Leet), will soon go into debt after staking his financial future on Conrad’s success. He is under even more stress when his secretary Rosie (Aya Kordy), becomes increasingly frustrated with the time and money Albert is losing on his project with Conrad. The play takes a dramatic turn when Conrad receives a draft notice warning him that soon he will have to join the military. Albert attempts to hold a farewell party for Conrad, and his plan is that Conrad must kiss one lucky girl chosen at random.
They will appear on the Ed Sullivan Show before he leaves for the army. Kim MacAfee (Tonya Drummond), from Sweet Apple, Ohio, is the chosen lucky girl to be kissed. More problems unfold when her boyfriend, Hugo Peabody (Marwan Zahran) arrives on the scene, and feelings of jealousy arise.
Meanwhile, Rosie reaches a boiling point and becomes fed-up with the insulting treatment she receives from Albert’s mother. Eventually, things take a turn for the better. Kim and Hugo resolve their problems alone, while Albert sends Conrad off to New York with his mother. He then surprises Rosie by retiring the music business and gets a job in Pumpkin Falls Iowa. The plot is both exciting and funny involving many dramatic situations.
Tickets for the Thursday show were quickly sold out leaving only a limited number of seats for the Friday show. Over two hundred people attended this must-see performance, “I loved the merge between the light comedy and the drama, the overall mood that was set with the music and the singing certainly awed me”, stated Yassin El Naggar, a 9th grade student. People agreed that it was certainly a sensational comeback to Schutz’s theatre, with the remarkable co-operation of Bob Medina, the play director and Upper School art/drama teacher with Gregory Leet, the music director and K-12 music teacher.