'Room to Grow' Needs Money to Grow

Musicals are a rite of passage in school. This is probably why Disney capitalized on the theme by creating High School Musical. And HSM 2 And HSM 3. Check out any school billboard advertising their annual play and you’ll find a handful of titles that get recycled year after year: Grease; Annie; Bye Bye Birdie; Oklahoma; Guys and Dolls; Fiddler on the Roof. 

In the last few years they’ve added Wicked, Seussical - the Musical, and Little Shop of Horrors, as well as more adult-themed plays like Rent. But overall, it’s the same well-worn tunes sung by a small number of lucky actors and backed up by a large chorus made up from the bulk of the student body.

Bridget Straub and Laura Hall are planning to change that routine, and they have exactly one week to do it.

They’ve joined the online pledge site Kickstarter to help fund their musical Room to Grow. These women must reach their goal of $7,500 by 8:32 pm Saturday, November 12 or all the money raised thus far gets refunded to their contributors.

Bridget and Laura met nearly a decade ago when their daughters were in kindergarten at . They each also had 3-year old daughters and the girls were inseparable – particularly during rehearsals for school plays. Bridget is a novelist (Searching For My Wand) and blogger (bridgetstraub.com) while Laura was the musical director and improvisational pianist for the show Whose Line is it Anyway? as well as half of the musical duo The Sweet Potatoes.

A couple of years ago, Bridget came up with what she describes as “a loose interpretation of The Old Woman in the Shoe,” and expanded it into a tale about an artsy Eight Is Enough-sized family who outgrows their home and moves into a conventional white picket fence neighborhood. As Bridget developed the story and lyrics, Laura created the catchy tunes.

The most unique (and possibly marketable) quality about this play is its huge array of memorable characters. Unlike most musicals which merely present love-struck leads and their two zany best friends, Room to Grow has over 20 principal characters including parents, children, grandparents, neighbors and pets who each have a generous number of lines and solos.

“We wanted to create a show that would present a positive message,” Laura explains. “It is about pulling together in difficult times, acceptance and the importance of family and friends. And we also wanted it to be fun, with songs that kids could perform well, and that family audiences would enjoy.”

The world premiere of Room to Grow was staged at Colfax Charter Elementary School in August 2010 with eight different casts of children ranging in age from 5 to 18. The theatre holds an audience of over 200, and every performance nearly sold out. A year later, kids are still singing catchy songs like “I want to go to Rio! R-R-R-Rio de Janeiro!” and “Pull together … there’s nothing we can’t do!”

Now Bridget and Laura would like to expand Room to Grow to other schools, camps and community theatres. Their Kickstarter budget would pay for rehearsal space, theatre rental, costumes, lighting, sound, musicians, publicity and anything else to get the play up and running.

“We want to do the production of the show so we can get a good recording of it, have industry people see it, and get some reviews, so we can then market the show to a wider audience," says Laura.

They’re trying to get the word out through social media, particularly through Facebook and blogs like Sanemoms.com, TheBloggess.com and Mommyshorts.com. They created a short video for their Kickstarter page, and even sent a letter to The Ellen Show trying to generate interest.

So for the next week, Bridget and Laura will be calling, writing, texting, and emailing everyone they’ve ever met or hope to meet someday in an effort to make their dream come true.

The clock is ticking.