Cappies Review: 'Bring It On' Performed At Alexandria City High School

By Elijah Kassa of Justice High School

A snare cracks in the back of the room, a bass drum fills the air, the lights come on and Alexandria City High School takes the field in a bold new production of "Bring It On!"

Based on the 2000 film of the same name, and premiering at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia in January 2011, with music by Tom Kitt and Lin-Manuel Miranda, lyrics by Amanda Green and Miranda, and book by Jeff Whitty, "Bring It On" tells the story of Campbell Davis, a high school senior cheerleader who is set to be the captain of her cheer squad and take the team to Nationals. However, after Campbell's next door neighbor Eva unleashes a plot to steal the captain position from her, sending her to another school, Campbell must learn to adapt to her new environment and learn some hard lessons along the way.

As Campbell, Maria McLemore led the show with powerful vocal quality and well-placed awkward energy that balanced the dramatic and comedic elements of her character's growth arc throughout the show. Lilac Haynesworth gave a magnetic performance as Danielle, using forceful diction and emphatic vibrato throughout songs and scenes to deliver the poignant messages of the show with an upsetting level of realism. Backing both performers up (often in more ways than one) was the cheerleading ensemble who brought an electric energy to scenes and stunts alike, executing lift after lift throughout the show with unfaltering care, safety, and precision.

Choreographing many of the numbers in the show were Jayden Benitez, Ariana Singleton, Sydney Payne, and Isabel Hurd who used dynamic switch-ups in dance style throughout numbers to highlight the contrast between the two high schools and assist in the subversion of expectation the show creates. As a student director Yahney-Marie Sangare expertly utilized her own experience as a cheerleader in the blocking, creating smoothly flowing blocking in scenes with almost all the cast present and assisting the student choreographers throughout rehearsals. Behind the scenes, KD Bectel did a single-handedly excellent job in calling the mass of technical elements in the show, between working with wing managers Quinn McBride and Thomas Newill on set changes, to lighting and projector cues, to the canned music calls of the entire show, controlling the flow of the entire production.

Alexandria City High School's "Bring It On" took on a poignant show, deconstructing topics like white saviorism, systemic inequality and age-long troupes through the lens of something as seemingly mundane as cheerleading, to drive home a message that it's not any sort of trophy that matters, but the people around us.

Carpe Diem!