High School Oopsical

Caracas has plenty of entertainment options and often gets "big name" players here.  Just two weeks ago the Jonas Brother's were here and played to a completely sold out arena.  We saw advertisements for "High School Musical" Summer Celebration, and thought it would be fun to take the kids.  The HSM tour had been here 2 years ago and everyone said it was wonderful.  Our group bought 17 tickets at $350 BsF a piece.  We were up in the bleachers — the floor seats were around $500 BsF each.  We all met at our apartment, the kids brimming with excitement.  Madeline and her buddy Hana each dressed up in their own Disney sanctioned HSM costumes (Hana the cheerleader, and Madeline as Sharpay).  We loaded up everyone into the vans and took off with cars full of squealing children to head for the show.  Fortunately, my husband was thoughtful enough to fortify us with enough adult beverages to endure the trip.    The show was to begin at 7:30 so we left at 5:15 in anticipation of the traffic.  We arrived at the theater at 7:00 and proceeded to the Will Call office.  It seems that they had run out of the paper to print tickets so we had to wait a few minutes.  We finally got our tickets and proceeded into the arena.

I had been to the High School Musical show in Houston a couple of years ago — so when I saw the stage I was surprised by the difference.  The original show boasted a huge moving stage with levels and a large video screen.   As shown above, the stage here was a simple black platform, a back drop and two blowup "East High" mascots.  Hmmm.  I wondered if something was up.  The concert started exactly at 7:30 - half of the locals were not even in their seats yet.  Two people dressed as cheerleaders came out and started speaking spanish.  First they introduced Kelsey - I knew it was not going to be the real Kelsey as she just had a baby and is way over 30, but I figured the rest of the crew was not doing much so why not tour Latin America?  Then they introduced Sharpay and even though I could not distinguish facial features from our seat (see above picture) I knew it was not the "real Sharpay."  The rest of the 'actors' came out for a production number and with binoculars I was able to tell that most of the kids looked a lot like the original actors, but were not the real ones.  The second number was "Get Your Head in the Game" — near the end of the song, there was a commotion near stage left.  It seems that an angry parent had rushed the stage.  All of a sudden the lights went on in the theater and the music stopped.  The actors all ran off of the stage.  It was about 7:45.  

Our party sat in shock trying to figure out what was going on.  We then saw a man jump up on the stage and start gesticulating obscenities towards the back of the stage and to the crowd.  The people in the VIP section started screaming and yelling and booing.  People on the floor began to leave in droves.  We did not want to leave as we thought we were safer where we were, not to mention that we had little clue what was going on.  We slowly figured out that the people on the floor were outraged that the show was being performed by look-a-likes and not by the real performers.  We had a few "little kids" in our party and after about 30 minutes of waiting to see what was going on, they began to get cranky and hungry.  We loaded up the first van with Chris, Tara and some of the little kids to go home while the rest of us decided to stay and see the show (if it ever restarted).

About 45 minutes into the wait a few people came on stage and began reading statements that (in translation) went something like "At no time did we ever say that the original movie actors would be performing......"  The floor seats that were left went wild with screaming and more of them began to leave in droves.  The man said that the performers would restart in 20 minutes for anyone who would like to see the show.

So we decided to wait.

And we waited, and waited, and waited.

There were no bulletins, or updates.  Just an empty stage and people without a clue what the heck was going on.  After about an hour after the man left the stage, he came back and said that the show would start in 5 minutes, but the people in the front few rows had to "push back" for security reasons.  Well, that was met with some disappointment as well.  The crews brought in more barriers for in front of the sage and a row of security officers were placed along the front of them to keep the actors safe from the 12 die hard children who were left in the front  and determined to stay for the show — bedtimes be damned.  The people finally moved back and the show "re"-started.  The actors lip synced and danced their feet off.  From where we were sitting, you could not tell the difference — and actually the "Troy" character may have been a better dancer than the original one (no offense to Zac Efron of whom I am a HUGE fan).  The kids had a ball after all and we were home at around midnight.

Only in Venezuela?