January 7, 2021

  We started off the day strong- watching the musical movie, Dreamgirls (2006), featuring famous actors such as Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy. 

This film followed three young girls, Effie White, Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson. Together they make up the Dreamgirls. In the first scene, they enter and perform in a talent singing show,  singing a song that Effie’s brother wrote, and although they lose, they meet Curtis Taylor, a car salesman who becomes their manager. He gets the girls their first job- singing backup for the famous singer James Early. Following there, we watch as the girls’ careers progress, how they grow individually and how they handle every conflict and problem that life throws their ways. It was a great movie, although, we agreed, it contained a bit too many montages. We enjoyed it nonetheless. 

From there, we went to lunch, and from there we began to write the songs for our own mini-musical. We had already decided the plot for our play- a modern day (quarantine-day) Cinderella. Instead of losing a shoe, she’d accidentally take the prince’s hand sanitizer. From here, we took it one step at a time, first deciding how many songs  we wanted to have, and settled on 3 songs and one reprise. We decided to make the songs our opening number, comedy number, and finale. From there we all chose a song we saw fit to serve as a tune for our opening number. Among  the entries were the Heathers opening song, Beautiful and the ABBA song “Dancing Queen.” We took a vote, and chose Dancing Queen. When we ultimately  chose an ABBA song for our comedy number, it only seemed right that we chose another ABBA song for the finale. We then split into groups and began writing our parodies. 

Here’s a little snippet from the finale, which my group worked on:

But I say (So I say)

Quarintine’s not over,(Thank you for the music )

But we’re together(the songs I'm singing)

We can know it’s not forever (Thanks for all the joy they're bringing

Now we’ll live despite it. Moving past Covid-19. (Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty)

Remember hygiene. (What would life be?) 

Life can be more than just quarantine (Without a song or a dance, what are we?)

So I say quarantine’s not over.  (So I say Thank you for the music )

But we can be happy (For giving it to me)

 

From there, we reconvened, and accompanied by karaoke tracks presented and performed our parodies. Truly was a super fun day!

- Nora Mayral Boyle