HONK! Play Critique

On November 7, the arts department of Hillsboro High went to see Trevecca’s Nazarene, Mrs. Moon’s alma mater, performance of HONK! the musical. The musical is basically an adaption of the old children’s story about the ugly duckling. I was very excited initially mostly because of the fact that we got to leave school for it. More importantly though, I was very excited because it was a musical, my favorite type of production! HONK! follows the story of a duckling called ugly and his struggles with being different.
To be completely honest, I would have to say that majority of the acting was very mediocre. I know it wasn’t supposed to be like something off of Broadway but I expected a lot more, and I felt like only a couple of actors came through with that. The acting was not terrible, but it wasn’t spectacular either. I felt like some characters were not putting their all into their characters. I also felt like some people should not have been casted into the roles they had received. Many times a background character would outshine a main character during the performance. Pertaining to the acting, I think that the fact that it was a musical added more stress to the actors which consequently could have placed a strain on their acting abilities. This is because they were most likely more concerned with their vocals. Something I did like in their acting was the fact that they used little children, I found that very adorable.
I loved every single tech element, especially costumes! The set was very simple. It put you in the mindset that you were off somewhere at some lake with the rest of the characters. When the story moved to different locations, the set corresponded. For example, the main character winds up in the home of a house cat and chicken, both whom have been domesticated. The set for this scene basically consisted of a giant cat scratching post and a futon for the chicken. I loved how the set basically went hand in hand