Student Blog: A Broadway party to pass the torch

My younger brother Josh and I have always had a strong bond over our mutual passion: we are both theatre kids. While I am preparing to graduate high school, Josh is an incoming freshman, and him and his friends are about to join the crazy and loving Agoura High School theatre community that I am leaving.  We both wanted to think of some way to bridge the gap between my high school theatre family and Josh’s 8th-grade theatre friends, all who would be together next year. After much brainstorming, the Broadway Bound Party was born. The name is inspired by “Disney Bounds,” a term that Disney fans use to describe when you wear Disney character-inspired outfits to the Disney parks, and the fact that I will be moving to NYC for musical theatre next year.

While anyone reading this website has probably thrown a few Broadway-themed parties, the point of ours was to form new bonds with kids who will be spending transformative years together.  Dressed as their favorite Broadway character, guests were put into random teams through tickets passed out at the front door. With this group, they rotated between three Broadway-themed games against other teams.

Here’s how I threw our Broadway Bound Party:

Step 1: Send the invitations

I found a template on Canva that I customized to send to all of my and my brother’s theatre friends.

Step 2: Plan Decorations

We transformed our house into the streets of New York City, with New York-themed decorations like street signs, a photo wall with props, a red carpet, and a sign for our front door that said “Stage Door.”

Step 3: Plan Food

To go with the New York-theme, all food was classic NYC street food: hot dogs, black and white cookies, pizza, soft pretzels, corn beef sandwiches, Dr. Browns, just to name a few.

Step 4: Plan Games

To keep around 35 theatre kids entertained, we had to have some Broadway-themed games: (charades, trivia, and a game where a kid pulls a random word from a bag and has to sing a show tune that has that word in it).

The party ended up being a blast, from seeing everyone’s creative costumes to getting competitive over games, to the inevitable piano sing-alongs,it was a great way to bring everyone together. All of the incoming freshmen could feel the sense of family that we created, and had a great time getting to know everyone.

Aside from all of the fun decorations, food, and games, having this party was so important to me to make sure that the community that I have loved for four years was being left in good hands. Especially as my brother and his friends were starting their high school theatre journey, it was so reassuring to see bonds being formed, hanging out and laughing over the thing they love most: musical theatre.