THE MERRY WIDOW
McLean High School
May 1960
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The 2 leads   Leads discuss in front of all  
The two leads -- Richard Bowers & Lynn Rasmussen -- and right, the crowd at Maxim's.
girls dance   Guests at the Pontevedrian Embassy  
The girls at Maxim's, and the Ball at the Pontevedrian Embassy.

girls dance at Maxim's - closeup   Girls dancing at Maxim's -- alternate take/12
(left) Merry Widow - those girls at Maxim's. (Closeup from earlier shot; click to enlarge.)
(right)  A different dance shot.  I see the chairs in front are empty, so maybe they let the phtographer come in and make a nuisance of himself at a rehearsal.  
Girls' curtain call  
Girls' curtain call.

 So many beautiful ladies, so little time.  What ever was I doing during high school?

Curtain call  
Final curtain.


Curtain call w/arrows,names  
click for larger photo -- may take a moment to load . . .

Hi, Ellen!  Hi, Minnie von Zahn!  But for so many other names, I'm clueless.  Please e-mail me if you have even a guess.  Thank you, Eddie, Gary Ellison,  Hunter, Jay Hoofnagle '61 for writing.   Are the thespian revivalists in the Class of '59 going to invite Mr. O'Rourke up to tell us how to build a stage set in 6 weeks flat?  (Walter O'Rourke, 722 Kawana Rd, Columbia, SC 29205).

Five years earlier, McLean High School was cow pasture -- the Espey Farm, others.  How did it happen?  Who built the sets?  How did the furniture get scrounged?  And the costumes!   Where did we get the energy?  In the middle stands the inspiration for it all, Beverly Skrinak (dark dress), then a recently-minted B.A. from Catholic University.  
--jerry  '60

ABOUT  "THE MERRY WIDOW"

Franz Lehar's (1870-1948) classic operetta from 1905 predates the many innovations that Americans brought to the musical comedy on Broadway later in the century.  The plot is complex but the issues raised are never serious, the action stops for the singing instead of integrating the two.  It is a tradition of musical farce running back two centuries at least, to the birth of opera in Italy.

Today finds a website and many performances (find the "diary" link somewhere on the left) in celebration of the 2005 Centenary of the operetta. 
Remind yourself of the music (in English) here, before buying one of the tons of CDs on amazon.com.

--end Merry Widow

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home page for McLean 1958-1960  (list of other pages/photos)
rev 12/06  Mar2011