The state of the department

The fundamental disagreement Ms. Lowery and we have is that we want to be competitive. We want to put on productions that are good, yes, but we want them to win a lot of Cappies. That gets us recognition from other students and from the administration.

Ms. Lowery doesn't really care about competitiveness. No way we're competing with those $10K shows. She wants our program to be big, to get lots of people involved, in one whole We Are Family I Got All My Sistas With Me type of deal. Which I'm not saying is a bad thing. Lots of people is good. Buuuuuuut...

I think she agrees that we could be competitive. This isn't necessarily the play-vs-musical debate, but a musical to the scale of what's planned may not be the best at highlighting where our actors shine and giving us a better shot at Cappies.

This is just TJ culture for your nerves. People sign up for stuff that wins tons of awards. That's why people hit up orchestra and band, but not chorus or theatre. People don't want to join activities just because of anything idealistic, they want to be recognized, they want trophies, they want lines on their resume, they want something more than the pride of being on a stage. (This isn't good or bad - just TJ.)

So by focusing on being big for big's sake, Ms. Lowery's priorities clash with TJ's priorities. I believe that if she focused on being competitive rather than being big, the people would come. She would get her big department. She would get more people joining a successful department than if she just tried to lasso people in for the sake of having people is what I think.

Does that mean that the spring musical won't be good? No, it'll be good. Fiddler was good for a high school (feel free to disagree). Was it worth cutting into One Axe and taking four and a half months of time? Ehhhhhh, that's another Pastebin. And we can do another musical and turn it out and work. But will it be fantabulous 10/10 spectacular Cappie quality? No.

Just my thoughts. Could be wrong. -Adam