Brigadoon - A Great Musical

Our high school put on musicals every year for which we were renowned. My freshman and sophomore years we had a couple of professional-class singers, one male and one female. That was perfect for the typical love story musical. Bill Anderson was a year ahead of me and the girl, whose name I forget, had a career performing in New York. The two of them had very impressive voices, very, very mature for high school kids.

This is the main entrance to my high school. The auditorium was just to the left of these doors.

Mr Spanogle and Miss Buffington were the sponsors and directors of the musical. I believe Miss Buffington coordinated just about everything except the play itself which Mr Spanogle directed. I was part of the choir. Later, during my junior and senior years when they decided to put on class plays because all the good singers had graduated, Miss Buffington later chose me as the male lead twice and directed both plays I performed in - Annie Get Your Gun and Pillow Talk.

Watch TCM - Brigadoon (1954)
Movie starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse
Brigadoon is a fantasy story that I came to love. The other plays I was in was involved with were fun and nice, but somehow Brigadoon really struck me. The story involves two American tourists who stumble upon Brigadoon, a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years. Tommy, one of the tourists, falls in love with Fiona, a young woman from Brigadoon.

If you ever get the chance to see it, whether on stage or movie, I suggest you watch it.

PS As a member of the choir I got to watch rehearsals over and over as we had to get in sync with the actors and the orchestra. Being a choir member is nothing unusual so I don't really have anything to special to say about it.

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