TV/Broadway Producer Bernie Kukoff said, “What you did here is what had to happen, its where it all starts.” Mr. Kukoff was referring to the debut of the stage adaptation of the show he wrote over 20 years ago. What we do on stage today is what determines how people will see us tomorrow. In accordance with this philosophy, what the young ladies and gentlemen of Cameron High School did with the musical Rags to Riches will go down as a large highlight in their high school years.

Rags to Riches also seems not only to have been a big part of the past 2 months for cast members, but a positive experience as well. Lighting Technician Hunter Johnson said, “I guess I’m not technically in the musical- I am part of the cast, but I’m not an actor. Seeing things from the lights booth, it’s just different. From up there, everything seemed to go great. I have heard a lot of good things about it.”

Such an example of the positive opinions of the presence of the musical exists in several words by Junior Shawn Crawford. Shawn said, “I really liked the musical. I went to the Thursday and Friday night showings.”  The tickets were $5. Shawn is not made of money, so the fact that he came to two nights must say something positive about the show.

Sophomore Christian Brock said, “I found the musical to be very well written, the songs were picked out well, and I thought the characters matched their descriptions well.”

Students were more than ready to share their thoughts on favorite scenes. Shawn said, “My favorite part was the bar-fight scene.”  The bar scene included tossing chairs, fist fights, and people getting hit over the head with break-away bottles.

Christian said, “ My favorite scene was the lobster scene;.”  The joke he is referring to references the fact that the six orphans have made a breakfast fit for a football team. This breakfast includes lobster which Senior Molly Long’s character, Rose, proceeds to ask for at the end of the scene, saying, “Pass the lobster.”

Even the leads have learned from this theatrical production. Musical Male Lead Zane Clark said, “My character was Nick Foley, a self-made millionaire. He was always looking out for himself. Nick never had to worry about anyone but himself. After the shows I have done, playing dad character after dad character, I have learned that characters can not be stereotyped. He was not just a dad, Nick was a street fighter, he was a business man, and he was a stud.”

The musical had its flaws, but they seem to have been minuscule. The errors were in such a small margin that none of the interviewees gave any commentary as to what they might be. Director Mr. Derek Williams said, “The musical actually went really well. Of course we had a lot of setbacks- Mrs. Harper got sick and we had various random technical issues- with all of that I still do not think the audience still had a clue anything was out of order.”

In the immortal words of Poet William Shakespeare, “All the world's a stage- and all the men and women merely players.” No “woeful ballad” was Rags to Riches, but perhaps it will live on in the memories of all who saw it.