" title="Andrea James Lui"> Andrea James Lui

This week I scored a free ticket to opening night of Bring It On: The Musical at what was the Canon Theatre and is now the Ed Mirvish Theatre. I was very eager to be impressed by cheerleading stunts that would throw me back to my cheerleading days at York University (pictured). I was not disappointed – particularly by the opening number… before any characters had been introduced and there was therefore, no expectation of lead actors having to participate in the stunts.

It quickly became clear that the cast was composed of singers, dancers, and cheerleaders. The singers were fantastic singers and although I appreciated them learning to sing in a double base and twisting out of them – the stunts were obviously best left to the actual cheerleaders – whose basket tosses were off the hook, including the pike twist at 0:55 in this promo video:

It was also very cool to see legitimate hip hop dancing and a bit of rapping in a musical – I’d definitely like to see more exploration in this avenue of musical theatre – perhaps in “8 Mile: The Musical“. I’m sure Eminem would love that… because I might.

Aside from the spectacle of this show and its fantastic casting (which I was disappointed to find was all-American – because I like to support local talent), it is only loosely held together by a Single White Female-esque storyline. On the other hand, the teenage demographic that a cheerleading-movie-to-musical-adaptation attracts is likely not concerned with anything other than high energy spectacle and I’m pretty pleased with a new generation discovering the theatre at all. I hope it was as groundbreaking for the youngsters as Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon were for me.