Unlike customary musical performances in the fall which celebrate in song the year’s end holidays, Beth and Al Mosier’s KidSing performance last week featured a meteorological phenomenon which will be all too common in the coming months: SNOW. Thirty-one young singers and dancers put on “Snow Biz!” an original piece by John Jacobson and Mac Huff, a duo that specializes in writing musical reviews for the younger set.
The premise behind the plot is that a blizzard has pounded Reading, and as weather forecaster Ms Storm Watch predicts, school has been closed for the rest of the week. Exultant children then perform a handful of scenes depicting things they love to do in the snow.
Two of the scenarios involve the inability to understand what the main character is saying. In the first, Professor Show-It-All is trying to explain why snow occurs is her heavy Teutonic accent, but succeeds only when a simpler version is converted to a song, “It Comes Out Snow.” Later, a snowboarder loses his vocabulary-deficient friends in his stylized explanation of what is happening out on the hill. Ultimately, though, everyone agrees that snowboarding in the snow and sun is really schwank, if you “Catch My Drift.”
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The comedian Zamboni brothers add to the festive atmosphere with their repartee and lame winter jokes. How do snowmen travel? By icicle, of course!
In a satire on the tragic death songs of the late ‘50s, “Snow Angel” is a doo-wop version of the unfortunate demise of a snow angel, created in the perfect snow of the early morning only to be destroyed by a snow plow. Overcome with grief, the choir sobbed its way through their shoo-bee-doo-wops in memory of their lost beloved.
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While the snow fishermen rejected attempts to sell them ice cream cones, they nonetheless asked themselves if sitting on a frozen lake with frozen face wasn’t a big mistake?
The mail must go through, even if there is three feet of snow on the ground. While the carriers are willing to meet the challenge, they find that the Postal Service cold-weather uniform is a bit cumbersome and inhibits their movements.
Other things one might do in the show is to take a sleigh ride, go tobogganing and dance the Toboggan Tango (although I’m sure Argentina must have plenty of ski resorts, my image of tango clothing doesn’t include parkas and boots), and hockey. There is plenty to do during the winter, and the show biz starlet echoes the feeling of the cast in ending the performance with “Snow Biz is my life!”
Compared with previous KidSing presentations, this seemed to be a more complicated production. The original music was totally unfamiliar to the singers, there seemed to be more between scene maneuvers, and a wider variety of costume and props. Nonetheless, the kids pulled everything off with aplomb and to the great satisfaction to the audience.
The Mosiers will be putting on a new show after the first of the year. The full house at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading can’t wait! More information is available at mosier-kidsing.com.
