‘Showstoppers’ delivers high-powered performances

Thayer Middle School students filled the CFA’s Hale Theater with song and dance last night (Tuesday, May 21) with Showstoppers, an energetic and highly entertaining musical revue. 

The night offered 20 performances in all with many of the featured songs from Broadway or beloved Disney films. The Middle School Ensemble consisted of 69 students while the stage crew numbered 12 students, all under the direction of Middle School Theater Director Tara Corcoran ‘88 P ‘19. Middle School World Languages Faculty Javonna Corbin served as choreographer while Kevin Quill and Alice Fu handled vocal direction and accompaniment, respectively. 

Song and dance numbers included renditions of, among others: “There’s No Business Like Show Business” from Annie Get Your Gun; “Hard Knock Life” from Annie; “Just Can’t Wait to be King” from The Lion King; and “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now” from Hairspray. 

The successful night was also a bittersweet one for the Middle School’s longtime theater director. While Corcoran, who first returned to her alma mater as a faculty member in 1994, will continue to teach her Middle School classes and serve as an advisor next year, she has decided to step away from leading Middle School drama productions. Corcoran used the director’s note on the final page of the Showstoppers program to dedicate her final Middle School production to her mother, whom she called “the best teacher I ever had.” She thanked her mother for teaching valuable life lessons and said those were the same lessons she tried to instill in her theater students.  

“My deepest hope is that I have shared those lessons with my students and that they have found them as rewarding as I have while also discovering a sincere appreciation for all art, for all creativity, and for beauty in the simple things,” Corcoran wrote.