{"id":2156024,"date":"2025-11-14T09:27:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T09:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2156024"},"modified":"2025-11-14T09:27:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T09:27:31","slug":"the-cult-of-celebrity-in-a-high-school-play-arts-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-cult-of-celebrity-in-a-high-school-play-arts-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"The cult of celebrity in a high school play | Arts & Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Alicia Alvarado plays \u201cRosie\u201d and Khalil Khan-Farooqi plays \u201cAlbert\u201d in Theatre Aspen Education\u2019s seventh-to-12th grade musical, \u201cBye Bye Birdie,\u201d which runs through Sunday at the Aspen District Theater.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Theatre Aspen Education\u2019s<\/span><\/a> production of\u00a0 \u201cBye Bye Birdie\u201d opened Thursday night at the Aspen District Theater at Aspen Middle School, with performances to continue Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. The show is directed by Caitlin Cremins, with music direction by John Konstantopoulos.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBye Bye Birdie,\u201d which features actors from seventh to 12th grades, is not so loosely based on Elvis Presley and the events surrounding his being drafted into the army in 1957.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the musical, teen heartthrob Conrad Birdie has been drafted into service. His team comes up with the idea to choose a girl from his fan club to kiss on the \u201cEd Sullivan Show\u201d after singing a new song \u201cOne Last Kiss.\u201d Birdie comes to a high school in Sweet Apple, Ohio, to find his girl. Shenanigans ensue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBye Bye Birdie\u201d premiered on Broadway in 1961 with Dick Van Dyke in the starring role. The play won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and a Best Actor award for Van Dyke. \u201cBye Bye Birdie\u201d spawned a sequel, a 1963 movie and a production was made for television in 1995. But most relevantly, the play became a staple as a go-to high school musical that has endured for over 50 years. If you\u2019ve ever done any high school theater, there is a good chance you\u2019ve performed in \u201cBye Bye Birdie.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Khalil Khan-Farooqi plays the lead Albert Peterson in the play. When asked why is \u201cBye Bye Birdie\u201d still relevant today, Khan-Farooqi responded, \u201cThe play satires the idolization of pop stars, sort of making fun of that, and I think that\u2019s relevant today with social media and social media stars and influencers and that whole culture, which makes that commentary more relevant than it has been. On social media and on the internet, some of these cult followings have become dangerous whereas in the play it was all pretty innocent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Khalil Khan-Farooqi stars as \u201cAlbert Peterson\u201d in Theatre Aspen Education\u2019s musical, \u201cBye Bye Birdie,\u201d which runs through Sunday at the Aspen District\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Khan-Farooqi said the play also speaks to the generational divide which seems to reinvent itself every generation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of the story is the tension between teenagers and their parents and the adults in the community, and I think that conflict is still common today,\u201d Khan-Farooqi said. \u201cIt has not gone away since this play\u2019s inception, and we continue to see how teenagers and adults can share viewpoints during times of rapid cultural change, which is happening in the play but is also happening today. Things are changing fast and the way parents and teens react to it is very different.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Khan-Farooqi\u2019s family moved to the Roaring Fork Valley from Grand Junction nine years ago when he was in third grade. He has three sisters. One of his older sisters was acting in productions and encouraged him to try out for \u201cMadagascar Jr.\u201d when he was 8 years old.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, she forced me into it but I ended up falling in love with it and I\u2019ve pretty much done every show that\u2019s been offered since.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Khan-Farooqi said that even though he was young, he loved the sense of community he felt with theater.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had played some sports and saw that there were two different sides rooting against each other and I liked the way in theater everybody followed the same story, and everybody followed the same group of people. And I really appreciated the sense of community that it fostered and that regardless of what their background is, they all clap for the same people \u2014 which is something extremely powerful,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Khan-Farooqi said he will continue to pursue acting in college, but he\u2019s interested in politics and thinks his acting skills will come in handy in that arena.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Alicia Alvarado plays \u201cRosie\u201d in Theatre Aspen Education\u2019s musical, \u201cBye Bye Birdie.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI think a big part of the political world now is being good at acting and telling a story to an audience, whether that audience is sitting in a theater or the entirety of the United States, you\u2019re still crafting a story and emotionally connecting to the audience,\u201d he said. \u201cI find that to be a driver for why I want to pursue politics. I want to find that same experience where I can bring people together on a larger scale and maybe convince them, help bring them together because now is a very divided time, and I feel like I understand how to bring divided people together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This weekend might be Khan-Farooqi\u2019s final performance as an actor in high school. As he looks back, he is immeasurably grateful for what theater has done for him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a part of Theatre Aspen and the high school theater productions has had the greatest impact on me as a person, both as an actor and as a human being,\u201d he said. \u201cI am very appreciative to everyone that has helped me become the person that I am today and helped train me to tap dance and be empathetic towards other people. It all sort of wraps into theater, and I want to thank the people that did that for me.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aspendailynews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alicia Alvarado plays \u201cRosie\u201d and Khalil Khan-Farooqi plays \u201cAlbert\u201d in Theatre Aspen Education\u2019s seventh-to-12th grade musical, \u201cBye Bye Birdie,\u201d which runs through Sunday at the Aspen District Theater.\u00a0 Photo by Emily Taylor Theatre Aspen Education\u2019s production of\u00a0 \u201cBye Bye Birdie\u201d opened Thursday night at the Aspen District Theater at Aspen Middle School, with performances to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2156025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[412834],"class_list":["post-2156024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-lead-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/The-cult-of-celebrity-in-a-high-school-play.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2156024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2156026,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156024\/revisions\/2156026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2156025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2156024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2156024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2156024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}