Hi, everyone! I’m Alexa, and I’m an actor in The Night of Your Life: The Mixtape!!!
For so many of us at Nathan Hale Theatre, musicals have always been part of our lives. Whether it’s our favorite Disney stories, movies, live performances, or even our own performances, musicals tell us stories about adventure, love, family, nature, and life. To me, NOYL is our humble attempt to show our appreciation and gratitude to these musicals for guiding us through our lives so far. We’ve assembled songs that we feel follow the themes of life, things like imagination, growing up, friendship, identity, aging, and so much more. Every single person involved with this production has worked together to create something that represents our experiences, our passion for theatre, and our identity as a community. To give you a taste, look no further than the great Shakespeare:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
Thank you for reading, and please see NOYL! It will be great, I promise!
