Chalkboard Theatre’s presentation of ‘Back to the 80s’ featured lively numbers to tunes like ‘Wake Me Up before You Go Go”, ‘Footloose’, ‘Mickey’, ‘Morning Train’, and ‘Footloose”. (Lexi Bainas/Citizen)

Chalkboard Theatre’s presentation of ‘Back to the 80s’ featured lively numbers to tunes like ‘Wake Me Up before You Go Go”, ‘Footloose’, ‘Mickey’, ‘Morning Train’, and ‘Footloose”. (Lexi Bainas/Citizen)

VIDEO: Lively songs, colourful costumes take crowd to 80s in Chalkboard Theatre show

Big hair, leg warmers, acid wash denim: must be the 1980s!

Back to the 80s — this year’s musical from Chalkboard Theatre Society — offers a nostalgic look back to everyone’s high school years.

All the things we remember are there: the desperate worries about trying to fit in, the ‘in’ crowd made up of the hot guys from the football team and their pretty cheerleader girlfriends, the hopes for the future.

And most of all: the music. Probably everyone reading this could sing every word from every top hit from their graduation year.

In the case of this show, it’s the music of the 1970s and 80s. Young Chalkboard Theatre performers dance to such faves as ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’, ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’, ‘Footloose’, ‘500 Miles’, ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’, ‘Material Girl’, and ‘The Time of My Life’.

The story revolves around a man looking back from the year 2000 and remembering. He tells his story and it appears before the eyes of the audience, who are then whisked back into all the whirling colour and craziness of the 1980s.

Next up for Chalkboard Theatre is their bootcamp, in which the kids spend a day learning choreography, singing, and acting for Monty Python’s Spamalot before reviewing it and than performing it the following day. The fun takes place Saturday, June 22 and Sunday, June 23, with one session for six to eight year olds and another for performers aged nine to 18.

Check out www.chalkboard theatre for registration information.

Cowichan Valley Citizen