Junior High presents version of The Bachelor

Tuesday night, “Prince Charmin from Kingdom of Ultra Soft” had the pleasure— or misfortune— of choosing between several Disney princesses to win his affection in Copperas Cove Junior High School’s production of The Bachelor: The Royal Edition. The play was an original musical written and produced by the school’s 7 th and 8th grade choir. It was directed by teacher Susan Owens and student directors Caylyn Schaefer and Elizabeth Sawyer. “What we do every year is I give them a list of songs that we own and I say, ‘Let’s put it together into a musical’. ‘What can we do with this?’ I just listen to all of their ideas and then they start writing a script, and as we go along the script is developed and eventually it becomes a show,” said Owens. “This year was definitely one of the best writing teams.” Each class period had their own scene in the play. Owens said that it’s a very inexpensive way to do a musical and that it gives lots of kids the opportunity for stage time. 120 students performed in Tuesday’s musical and several had main character roles. By coming up with the musical on their own, the students gain a greater understanding about the entire process involved in bringing a musical from concept to final performance. “It was really cute. I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of laughs,” said Linda Hines, the grandmother of one of the students in the play. Brelan Lofton, who acted as “Jesse Fullofmyself” was an audience pleaser. The audience laughed at many of his self-aggrandizing comments and many complimented his performance after the play’s completion. “It was scary because I did a lot of improv and I thought I was gonna get in trouble because like half of that wasn’t on the script and they wouldn’t open the curtains and everyone was looking at me,” said Lofton. “They made that character especially for me.” “We had several that did improv when things didn’t go right. It was great… I thought it was fun. I really did,” said Owens. “The number one goal is entertainment. Is the audience entertained? That’s what I’m more interested in than anything. And it was entertaining, so I’m very happy with it.” Owens had several nice things to say about her students and was proud of their performance. Many of her students came up to her after the musical to ask for her opinion on their performance. They were proud of their performance, and their teacher’s opinion mattered.