Cry Baby, the musical, was performed in the Rose Hall Auditorium of the Marshall Family Performing Arts Center at Greenhill School this weekend.

The cast and crew of Greenhill did an outstanding job presenting the musical based on the 90’s film written and directed by John Waters.

The musical pokes fun at America’s ideology of the 1950’s. To this day we become nostalgic when we remember the “happy days” of bobby socks and poodle skirts, the innocence of leaving your house and car door unlocked and stay-at-home moms serving cookies and milk after school. But we often forget the racism, class distinction and double standards that were visibly connected to that era.

Those of us who lived it remember the transitions that occurred in that decade.  Music was one.  The fifties came to be with the gentle, sweet sounds of Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney but transitioned to the hip-shaking, gyrating moves of Elvis, Rock and Roll and teenage Rebellion. 

“The plot of Cry-Baby centers on a bad boy-good girl romance.  Cry-Baby Walker is a young man born on ‘the wrong side of the tracks’ who serves as the leader of the Drapes, and Allison Williams is a ‘good girl’ who does not feel totally at ease amongst her ‘square’ community.  The two teen-ages meet at an Anti-Polio Vaccination Picnic organized by Allison’s grandmother.  Cry-Baby and Allison fall in love instantly, but their hopes and dreams are crushed by class differences and jealousy.  However, Cry-Baby is a musical comedy and must end well with the young lovers reunited after many trials and tribulations,” Adult Production Staff Director, Valerie Hauss-Smith, said in the program’s Playbill.

Several members of Central Christian Church attended the Saturday afternoon performance to enjoy the rollicking musical with 50’s style music and to support the church’s Assistant Music Director, Tim Caffee.  Caffee was Associate Music Director/Conductor for the musical and performed with the “Crabapple Band.”

It was a fun afternoon and Central Christian Church gave a “thumbs-up” to Greenhill School, its staff and students for a remarkable job.  Central has always promoted the arts and used the stage as a thought-provoking channel and tool for teaching moral responsibility.   The church is home to the Westside Players, a theatrical group founded by the late Ed Delatte.