By Kate Watson - The Weekly News
If you're at all familiar with the phenomenon called High School Musical, you'll know that its catchy teen anthem Stick to the Status Quo is meant to be ironic.
The story's real message is that it's important to be yourself and follow your passions, and that's a message that local singing sensation Dunnery Bond thinks we all need to hear.
"There are a lot of great songs in this show, but Stick to the Status Quo is definitely my favourite," says the 15-year-old performer who's playing the part of Kratnoff, a brainy student, in the Neptune Theatre production of High School Musical.
"It's about some people wanting to reveal their secret passions, and others wanting to keep everyone in the place they think they belong."
The stage version of High School Musical has several characters, like Bond's Kratnoff, who are not in the movie version. For instance, local actor Geordie Brown is playing Jack Scott, the news announcer at East High.
"My character is shy and bookish," says Brown, a recent graduate of Dartmouth's Prince Andrew High School. "Until he gets in the announcer's booth. Then he really comes out of his shell.
"I come into the booth during transitions in the show and kind of set up the next scene. It works really well."
Brown says while most people assume that High School Musical will only appeal to fans of the movie version, that simply isn't true. He says the new characters, the big dance numbers and the immediacy of seeing the story as live theatre will appeal to a very wide audience.
"This is definitely going to be a hit with the younger crowd, but I predict that everyone is going to catch the High School Musical bug!"
Bond, who lives in Mount Uniacke and is a Grade 10 student at Shambala School in Halifax, was recently named the winner of YTV's The Next Star. The show focused on equipping six singers under the age of 16 with the skills to become pop stars. For the finale, over 350,000 people voted, and Bond emerged the winner and got the opportunity to record a single - I Dare You to Shine - and film a professional music video.
k-watson@ns.sympatico.ca
