Union High School’s Humanities Club spent Leap Day and March 1 touring Cleveland, including the Museum of Art, the musical “Memphis” at Palace Theatre and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is truly a museum to students born in the mid-1990s.
After four trips to Chicago and Indianapolis last year, “I was trying to look into other places we could go driving” by charter bus, said French teacher Jamie Whitfield, who served as one of two chaperones for 20 students who paid their own way.
Fret not, Detroit, the Motor City, is on DUHS’s bucket list, too, but it came down to the availability of a musical.
“Downtown is very business-oriented,” she said. “When we drove through at 5, 6 o’clock, it was bustling with people.”
By 7, it was relatively deserted.
Humanities Club caught Tony-winning “Memphis” the night after its opening.
On Thursday, they went for two hours to the rock shrine, moving out Women in Rock for the Grateful Dead exhibit opening April 12 which coincides with the 27th induction.
Inspired by actual events, Memphis is about a white radio disc jockey who wants to change the 1950s world and a black club singer seeking her big break.
It won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and features a Tony-winning book by Joe DiPietro (“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”) and Tony-winning original score with music by Bon Jovi founding member David Bryan.
Directing was Tony nominee Christopher Ashley (“Xanadu”), with choreography by Sergio Trujillo (“Jersey Boys”). The Associated Press called it “the very essence of what a Broadway musical should be.”
“Memphis was
amazing,” junior
Jeremy Collins said,
who liked seeing Janis Joplin’s sports car. The Chieftain Marching Band drum major has seen Styx in concert twice.
Junior Ethan Dussel liked seeing Kurt Cobain’s last guitar, though the Nirvana front man committed suicide in 1994 — the year before he was born. On Whitfield’s April 8 birthday, in fact.
Davy Jones of the Monkees died in Florida on the day they arrived in Cleveland.
Michael Jackson and Madonna memorabilia is within their memories, as are early rap.
While their parents’ bands may or may not be their cup of tea — either is “Glee,” for that matter — they have been bombarded with rock since childhood.
“I’d rather buy a CD than buy music off iTunes,” Dussel said. “I like AC/DC’s older stuff. I bought Van Halen’s new CD. It’s horrible.”
Junior Sydney Foote has electic musical tastes. She went to a Keith Urban concert last summer and likes Queen and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, pairing electric orchestral intruments with laser light shows.
“Our whole family is going to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers in May,” said Sydney, who has been a trap shooter for six years. “I want to see Metallica in concert.”