Kiss Me Kate!

Maria Miralda

Journal Prompt

Kiss Me Kate

I have been to a few live performances before, one of them being Rent on Broadway! I’ve also been to a bunch that my high school put on, and I enjoyed all of them very much. I have a weakness for musicals, since I myself am a singer. Kiss Me Kate was similar to the performances I’ve seen in that there was a lot of talent in the performance. However, most of the musicals I’ve seen had a steady plotline and this was confused me a lot. It kept changing from reality to the play within the play and at times it was a little hard to tell what was going on. I didn’t know what to expect because I had never heard of Kiss Me Kate before. I think I would’ve liked seeing the actual play The Taming of the Shrew better than this adaptation of it, but it was still enjoyable. I performed The Taming of the Shrew with my fifth grade class, so when I saw that this musical was similar to it I was so excited to see it! I didn’t really like how it kept switching between story lines though.

As I’ve already stated, I love to sing so the musical theatre genre is one of my favorites. I’m not much of an actor, but if I were, I would be on that stage singing my heart out! Some of my favorite musicals are Wicked and Anything Goes. My high school performed Anything Goes four years ago and it was absolutely fantastic. There were three shows total and I went to all of them. That’s how much I loved it. What I like most about musicals I’ve realized is seeing familiar faces on stage. I always took every opportunity I could to go see my high schools’ plays and see a few of my friends performing. Without that aspect, some of the excitement of seeing a musical was taken away. It was still a great experience to see these talented people show us what they can do. The way the musical was performed was very similar to the high school productions I saw though. It wasn’t professional like a Broadway show, it was quaint and fun.

I haven’t read Shakespeare’s version of Taming of the Shrew or seen it, but as I said before, my fifth grade class did an adaptation of the play. I recognized that part of the storyline, which was really awesome. I thought the play could’ve done more to integrate The Taming of the Shrew into the show. The transitions between reality and play were a little rough at times, which made me and my classmates confused. It was hard to tell sometimes who was who since all the leads played two characters. They also didn’t show the entire play, only the key components. I wish they had focused the show on The Taming of the Shrew rather than the characters off stage (the backstage scenes).

Overall, I didn’t like the storyline very much but I was very impressed by the talent at Penn State! It encouraged me to look into the music program they have here. Now I’m scheduled to take a music course next semester. Although acting is not my strong suit, I would love to be a part of a musical group at Penn State and be in a few performances myself! Going to this show definitely inspired me to achieve a goal that has fallen off into the sidelines lately.