Following in Cannon Falls’ footsteps from 2016, the Triton school of Dodge Center showed the musical Bye Bye Birdie. Although the auditorium was small, all of the seats were filled and the space on the small stage was used up very nicely. Since the room was tiny, there wasn’t enough space for a band to play the musical numbers, so a lone pianist performed her way throughout the entire musical. The opening scene featured Rhylyn Peterson and Tess Zastrow, Albert and Rosie, who both brought out the humor aspects of the show right from the start. With Zastrow’s sassy attitude and Peterson’s hilarious reactions and facial expressions, the pair played off each other nicely. As the first song played and Peterson (Albert) began to sing, the audience was wowed with his incredible voice and couldn’t wait to hear more.

As the show progressed, there were some differences spotted between Cannon and Triton’s show. Triton tended to bring the funny lines and reactions to the forefront of everything. Lasting facial expressions and huge body actions contributed to this immensely. This was shown in my favorite musical number “Honestly Sincere” as Conrad Birdie, the famous singer who would bestow one kiss upon the lucky Kim MacAfee, sang in front of the townspeople of Sweet Apple, Ohio. Girls immediately started fainting while others went nuts and tried to touch the legendary singer. The desperation was felt in the audience as girls were held back by boys although some escaped and crawled on the floor to Conrad as a result. Someone even jumped on his back which had the audience laughing even more than they already were. All of the actors and actresses didn’t hold anything back during this number and it really showed because everything looked real. Another difference was visible throughout most of the musical numbers: While Cannon had a lot of dances and choreography, this show focused more on the acting than the dancing. However, even though there wasn’t much dancing, there was still a lot of energy.

Overall, Bye Bye Birdie was a hit and the cast did such a nice job in making the musical funny and lively. It brought back so many memories of our very own musical while also creating new ones. Jasmine Schulz loved the classic line of “Brace yourself chick” which was even printed on the back of the shirts of the Cannon Falls theatre kids. Noah Woxland also did a phenomenal job of playing Kim’s dad, Mr. MacAfee, in which Jasmine greatly enjoyed his rant about the three words he never wanted to hear which included puberty as the first, Mussolini as the second, and the third was respect. Undoubtedly, this show will be missed by not only the Cannon cast, but the Triton cast as well as they performed their last show on the Sunday afternoon of April 8th.