Don't worry, we won't let you be the last to know that the jukebox musical paying tribute to Britney Spears will make its West Coast debut at a local high school.
Playing one weekend only at Frontier High School, "Once Upon a One More Time" recontextualizes the Princess of Pop's songs with a fairy-tale overlay.
Director Tevin Joslen said he initially thought to pass on the musical, which debuted on Broadway in 2023, but was so surprised by the story and how perfectly he saw it would fit the talent at the school.
"It's easy to look back at the height of Britney's career and view her as two-dimensional, the same way we view our favorite fairy-tales like Snow White and Cinderella," he wrote in an email. "But when you look a little closer and with a little more empathy, at her interviews and cultural attitudes towards her, the early 2000s highly objectified and stereotyped a young aspiring performer and then criticized her for it.
"In 'Once Upon a One More Time,' we get a chance to look at Cinderella and other fairy-tale characters with a newfound perspective. That, similar to Britney Spears, they are only the face of the story, and don't find that they have much agency or say in how their stories go."
The musical has some similarities with the 2023 movie "Barbie," Joslen said, but with fairy-tale princesses and characters instead of Barbies questioning their existence.
"The Britney Spears songs are used as a way to empower Cinderella, Snow White, and others in order to take control of their stories and rewrite them," he wrote.
While Spears' music was familiar to the cast, the singer's history, including media attacks and a conservatorship that lasted from 2008 to 2021, led to a few lessons.
Joslen wrote, "They knew about the 'shaved head' era and I found myself having my own 'leave Britney alone, moment as I explained how that moment came out of a young girl being exploited, controlled, and critiqued with very little empathy or consideration for her well-being. It was important for me to not let this musical teach them about and celebrate the early 2000s objectification of Britney Spears."
The show's set list is fun, the director said, including the titular number, a reworking of "Hit Me Baby One More Time"; "Toxic," now a villain song sung by Cinderella's Stepmother; and "Circus," which is sung by the "very self-involved Prince Charming."
"Once Upon a One More Time" is the biggest production Frontier has put on since Joslen started teaching at the school.
He wrote, "We have giant moving staircases, a 12-foot-tall scaffolding that rolls all about the stage, a LED light curtain that a student has had to code, more than 15 dance numbers, tons of costumes, some of which were designed by our Fashion Club, and with a new musical that didn't give us any previous productions to look back to as a reference."
Joslen looks forward to audiences coming out for the three performances to experience the "immense amount of hard work and creativity" from the student body and the community its has cultivated.
Showtimes are 7 p.m. Friday and 2 and 7 p.m. Satuday at the school, 6401 Allen Road.
Admission is $11, $16.75 for premier seating in advance, $15 or $20 after. Visit Frontier's gofan.co to purchase.
No comments:
Post a Comment