So over the weekend, Music Man and I took our three munchkins to see a local community theater production of Oliver!

This was fun on several levels. First, because as some of you know, Music Man and I met while doing the same production at the very same theater, with the same community theater group, eighteen years ago.

(Stopping for a moment to realize eighteen years ago. Holy cow.)

Since I can't sing (though I can act), I wasn't a cast member of the production eighteen (OMG. eighteen?!) years ago. However, I was the Assistant Director/Stage Manager, and, as I am fond of telling people–that was great, because when I met Music Man, he was merely a cast member. Which meant that our relationship started off on the right foot: he had to do what I said!

Heh.

(Not that that lasted for very long.)

Anyway, after the production, we took the kids backstage to show them the set and the props table, the green room, the dressing rooms, etc. One thing we didn't show them was the little dark corner of the wings where the Assistant Director/Stage Manager caused one of the cast members (ahem) to…er…nearly miss his entrance.  Heh.

But the really neat thing about this particular production of Oliver! was that they cast most of the male leads as women, and the smaller female leads as men. A real gender switch–and my word! It worked! It worked really well.

What I mean is, we had a Mistress Bumble ("One Boy For Sale"), a female Fagin ("Reviewing the Situation"), a female Artful Dodger (she was fabulous). We had a Mr. Corney as well, which made for a very fun rendition of "I Shall Scream"–in which case the woman (Mistress Bumble) was the initiator, and Mr. Corney, true to the original role, was the shy widow(er).

Nancy (who was a woman) was fantastic, and so was Bill Sykes (a man). He was the best Sykes I've ever seen–including in professional productions. (And because of our past, Music Man and I always try to see a production of Oliver! whenever we can. We even saw one during our visit to London twelve years ago.) 

If you haven't seen Oliver!, I highly recommend the show. The songs are simply wonderful–in fact, we were playing the soundtrack all week before the show and the kids have been singing them ever since. 

So. Have you seen Oliver!? If so, what's your favorite song? (I think mine is "It's A Fine Life" or maybe "As Long As He Needs Me.") What about other well-known plays that have been adapted? How did it work?