High School Musicals: First group of seven high schools to form a competition circuit where each...
...school performs a musical and they compete against each other over how well they perform. Each competition circuit must have seven and only seven schools in them and their competition season would start the second Sunday after the start of the Spring semester and every other Sunday from then forward until the season is over. [The students would learn and rehearse their musical during the Fall semester and then have a weekend between competitions to learn from the last competition to become better at the next one. By these competitions happening on Sundays, they also don't then conflict with Saturday sports events so high school athletes can be both in a sport and perform in the musical group.] In negotiations between choir directors, all of the musical directors (who are also choir directors) meet once a year at a summer conference of all competition circuits within a state/province to determine which musicals are done by which schools (no two schools perform the same musical in the same year in the same competition circuit [so people who attend all the musicals in a competition don't see the same one twice]). The order they perform at the different schools (must not be the same order at each competition so schools don't get an advantage by performing at a certain time everytime), and determine any changes to standard equipment (lighting boards, spotlights, sound boards, microphones, etc.) each school must provide to all the other schools in the same competition circuit as well as any rule changes. [At this multi-circuit summer conference, there will also likely be workshops for the musical directors to learn the latest tricks and technologies to take their musicals to the next level.] As for which school gets to perform which musical, the poorest ranked high school of last year gets first pick of the musicals and then second poorest ranked school and so forth. [This gives the "struggling" schools a better chance to improve in their rankings in the coming year by allowing them to get "first" pick of musicals.]
When a US state (Canadian province, etc.) has seven competition circuits, the schools in each of the circuits change every year for seven years so no school competes against another school within seven years. This will still enable schools to have rivals but these would only last for one season as far as the students are concerned since the entire student cast will roll over every four years. [The idea is to break the dominance of any school within a circuit so not to depress poor-performing musical groups year after year. Each year offers new competitors for every school. That and the students get to visit new schools every year for their four years in high school.]
There must be at least fifteen-minute intermissions between musical performances to give the audience time to stretch their legs, go to the bathrooms, and buy snacks at the concession stand. [The concession stand sales will become a major funding source for the hosting school's musical group.] As negotiated at the summer conferences, each school must commit to a certain minimum advertising budget to promote all the musicals which will be performing at their school when they are the host school. The public must be able to buy an "all day" pass to all of the musicals or purchase them "a la carte". To help "a la carte" people know when to show up, the showtimes of each musical must be clearly listed in the advertisements. To ensure "a la carte" people don't "accidentally" stay past what they paid to see, the entire theater must be evacuated between performances. [This will also help increase concession stand sales, give a chance for the leads of the just-performed musical to receive congratulations from the audience, and enable the stage crew of the next musical to get things ready for their performance with the stage curtains open and without an audience watching them do so.]
The musical group of the school hosting a competition does not perform at all. [Thus they don't have to rush around getting their make-up, costumes, etc. ready but can just focus on acting as hosts for the visiting schools. For example, the school's lighting board operator shows the lighting board operators of the visiting schools the unique features of their board, how their lighting arrangements are done, and then sits next to the visiting school's lighting board operator during that school's performance to help where help is requested.] For sound acoustics and viewing ability of the audience, the musicals must be performed in a theater designed for live performances and not in any school gym BUT the musicals must also be broadcast live into the school's gym where the visiting schools are allowed to watch them. No student, school official, or relative of a student (parent, sibling, uncle, etc.) of a visiting school is allowed into the theater, but are allowed into the gym. [This will then reduce biased and fake applause by classmates and relatives to try to influence the judges. Besides, classmates and relatives can see their student perform at their school before the competition season starts and then very likely once more at the end as an encore performance closing the season ... as well as being an opportunity to raise funds for the next year's season.]
Each musical competition must have at least one "clarity" judge (judging how everyone on stage can be clearly heard [or not] by the audience ... from the lead roles to one-word bit parts), "lighting" judge (judging the lighting done by the group's lighting crew), "singing" judge (must be the hosting school's choir director), "pit orchestra" judge (must be the hosting school's orchestra conductor), "choreography" judge (judging how well the cast and, for scene changes, stage crew move on stage ... this judge could be a school or local dancing teacher), "costume & make-up" judge (judging how the costumes and make-up look and operate on stage), and three "overall impression" judges. A video camera must be trained on each judge's scoring sheet and these video feeds fed to big monitors in the gym so those there can watch the judging as it is done. Judges are to use big thick red markers which they use to mark up photocopies of the musical while it is being performed and which those in the gym can see them use as they use them. Also, each judge must have a demerit button located by their non-writing hand that they press everytime they judge the group on stage to have committed a demerit. Then each judge's demerit scores are shown by the video monitor showing that judge's scoring sheet and their demerit score shown as the judges press their buttons. There must also be an overall demerit score tally screen that totals all the demerits from all the judges into one score.
The winners of a competition are announced after the last performance is done in the gym. The judges making it clear that what was shown on the demerit scoreboard was just an estimate of demerits and not the final count of them. That and the judges held private meetings after each performance during the intermission and may have adjusted their scores then. Each specialty judge ("clarity", "singing", etc.) awards a prize to the best musical group as far as their specialty category goes. Then the "overall" judges give one or more specialized overall award. The head judge (one of the overall judges) then gives out the overall ranks starting with fourth place (no sixth or fifth place awards given) and moving up one rank each award until the "Best Musical Group" award is given.
When a US State (Canadian province, etc.) has seven competition circuits, they can have a "champions" tournament where the best musical groups from each of the seven circuits compete against each other. [
Total number of high schools needed: 49 ... seven high schools in each competition circuit TIMES seven circuits.] The poorest performing high school in all of the seven circuits should get to host this "champions" tournament [so their school's musical group gets the added revenue from the tournament's concessions sales to help them become a better school for next season. Revenue from ticket sales are equally divided among the groups competing in the tournament.] This tournament held the Sunday after the regular season of the seven competition circuits are over. When a state, province, or, for small states/provinces, region has had seven "champions" tournaments, they can then hold a "champions of champions" tournament where the winners of the "champions" tournaments compete against each other. [
Total number of high schools needed: 343] When a massive state/province, region, or nation has had seven "champions of champions" tournaments, they can hold a "grand champions" tournament where the "champions of champions" then compete. [
Total number of high schools needed: 2,409] When a large nation (like the USA), group of nations, or continent has had seven "grand champions" tournaments, they can hold a "supreme champions" tournament. [
Total number of high schools needed: 16,807 ... there are estimated to be only 22,000 high schools in the USA.] When the world has had seven "supreme champions" tournaments, it can hold a "world champions" tournament. [
For a "world champions" tournament to be possible, it means there must be 117,649 high school competition musical groups world-wide.] All musicals performed for the "world champions" tournament must be in English.
The schools in a competition circuit can pool their resources together for the super-big monitor that shows the live performances in the gym, the secondary big monitors that show live each of the judge's scoring sheets, the cameras for the super-big monitor and scoring sheet monitors, judging platform (which is always against the back wall in the theater behind the audience), and other equipment that is only needed for such competitions. Schools cannot pool their resources for equipment used on stage so each school gets their own and thus can practice with it during rehearsals.
[This challenge will be the next evolution of special singing groups in high schools. Originally, there were barbershop quartets when schools were mainly for only boys. Then when girls were added, the barbershop quartets evolved and expanded into swing choirs due to wanting to have at least one male tenor, baritone, and bass (barbershop quartets commonly had two tenors) and at least one female soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto. Swing choirs usually had the girls sit on barstools and the boys stand next to them. The "big" choreography done by swing choirs was the boy moving to the other side of the girl when the next song was sung and the group as a whole swaying their torsos and moving their arms as they sung. Swing choirs evolved and expanded into show choirs due to wanting to both increase the number of students who can be part of these special singing groups and to add chorus line choreography to the performances. This challenge evolves show choir into competition musicals.
Currently, show choirs try to have some kind of a theme to all of their songs and some have even tried to do condensed musicals ("mini-musicals") since just a random group of songs isn't as entertaining as a theme or mini-musical. This challenge simply has these special singing groups take the next evolutionary step and perform actual whole musicals and to do so in competition with other schools. With six musicals performed on a Sunday, this means most competitions will start around 10 am and end around 10 pm. A full day of musicals that musical fans should love.
As for musicals performed by high schools today, their students spend a lot of time and effort for usually only two or three performances of the musical. This challenge enables students to get more mileage out of their time and effort by having them perform their musical at least eleven times. Likely three times before the competition season starts (these three being for their local community) ... and then six times in competition (actually there are seven competition weekends as the school hosts one of them) ... and then one last time at home as an encore performance ending the season. And if they are the best musical group in their competition circuit, they can then go on and compete in the "champions" competition ... and if they win that, then the "champions of champions" ... then "grand champions" ... then "supreme champions" ... and then "world champions" for a grand total of sixteen performances of their musical.]
Future Challenges: First seven-school competition circuit in:
1) USA
2) Canada
3) UK
4) India
5) Australia
6) New Zealand
7) Japan
8) China
9) Russia
10) Europe (excluding UK)
11) Central or South America or the Caribbean
12) Asia (excluding China, India, and Japan)
13) Africa (including Egypt)
14) Middle East (including Israel)
15) First "champions" tournament.
16) First "champions of champions" tournament.
17) First "grand champions" tournament.
18) First "supreme champions" tournament.
19) First "world champions" tournament.
20) First international organization of competition high school musical groups. It must be open to all high school musical groups in the world to join. It must hold an annual five-day (Monday-Friday) summer conference for all musical directors and their assistants as well as competition judges. This organization will set the rules for the coming Spring competition season. Only musical directors (not their assistants, competition judges, or even association officials) vote on all rule changes and equipment standards. These rules and standards will be what all "champions" tournaments and higher must abide by. The conference must offer at least eight workshops a day for everyday of the conference (except the last day as that is when rule changes are debated and voted upon) that are meant to improve the skills and knowledge of musical directors. The annual conference cannot be held on the same continent again until it has been held on all continents (except Antarctica). The corporate headquarters of this international organization must be located on and have its public entrance somewhere on Broadway Street in New York City and have a Broadway Street mailing address (P.O. Box address not allowed). [Broadway is where live theater is king and thus is an appropriate location for such an organization, which can benefit by being exposed to the surrounding theater community.] To win this future challenge, all of the executive officers of this organization must have been high school musical directors employed by their schools as full-time choir directors. [This way the executive officers of this organization can better understand how the organization's members (all are choir directors) view things and its members will feel that they do.]
21) First winner of the "world champions" tournament to perform their musical live on a US broadcast network at the start of its prime time.
22) First US broadcast network to air pre-recorded recording of the seventh through second place musical groups of the "world champions" competition and then the winner of the "world champions" competition performing their musical live on the air. All seven performances aired at the start of the network's prime time for all seven days in a row.
23) First theme park (e.g., Disney World), Broadway theater, Branson theater, or Las Vegas casino to hire all seven musical groups of a "grand champions", "supreme champions", or "world champions" tournament to perform once everyday for the entire summer. Park must hire the entire musical group (including lighting and stage crew as well as their musical director and at least one assistant musical director), pay for their transportation to and from their location, put them up free in their or local hotels (and provide free shuttle service between the hotel[s] and theater), allow them to eat free at their park/casino restaurants (or at least one Broadway, Off-Broadway, or Branson restaurant), and pay them at least double minimum wage as they would earn for 40 hours for each week they perform and then a matching amount put into a college fund for each of them. The theme park and casino must assign one of their large theaters for these groups to perform at.
24) First lodge of an adult fraternity (e.g., Freemasons, Elks, Odd Fellows, Moose, etc.) to officially sponsor a high school's musical group and, while wearing their full regalia (to pay honor to the performers), attend their pre-season performances, all-day competition hosted by the high school, and their encore performance. [The lodge of an adult fraternity would benefit from the good will their support of such high school musical group would generate and the high school musical group would benefit not only from the financial support from the lodge but also their attendance of their home performances (pre-season ones and season encore) and all-day competition. The morale of any performer is greatly boosted when performing before a full theater.] To win this future challenge, the lodge must cover all costs of the high school musical group.
25) First international adult fraternity to officially sponsor ALL of the high school musical groups within the territories of all of their lodges (each lodge actually directly supporting just the high school musical groups in their territory) and, while wearing their full regalia, attend the pre-season performances, all-day competitions, and encore performances that happen in a lodge's territory. To win this future challenge, the lodges of the international adult fraternity must cover all the costs of the high school musical groups that are within their territories.
26) First video documentary to follow seven of the highest rated high school musical groups in the world as they start their competition season and then all the way until their seasons ends.
27) First TV reality show to follow seven of the highest rated high school musical groups in the world as they start their competition season and then all the way until their season ends. Each season, a different group of seven high school musical groups are followed. To win this challenge, the show must air for at least three seasons.
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