Thursday, July 26, 2007
New Plano company's risk with 'High School Musical' pays off
12:16 AM CDT on Sunday, July 29, 2007
By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News
PLANO – A new theater company that chooses Disney's High School Musical as its first production gets a guaranteed audience of young fans and their parents. But it is risking its first impression on audiences with very young performers.
Teatro delle Muse has announced an entire inaugural season in residence at Plano's ArtCentre Theatre, and sure enough, it has led with High School Musical as its initial offering. Actors carrying a big show just don't get much younger than these: In the cast I saw Saturday evening, one of the romantic leads hasn't started high school yet. Heck, in the alternating cast, the male romantic lead is 12.
You have to admit that's preferable to seeing 30-year-olds playing high school kids, as so often happens. (I remember one local Grease where the median age must have been 45.) High School Musical, after all, is a parable about cliques learning to get along. The star of the basketball team has met a girl over the summer – speaking of Grease – and it turns out she's the new math genius in school. Nobody knows they met singing karaoke. Will they break out of their own little groups and audition together for the school musical?
In the performance I saw, at least, most of the central roles came off very well. These young people didn't exactly just walk in off the street. A number of them have performed for adult companies all over the area. Many have studied extensively at children's theaters such as Arlington's CATS (Creative Arts Theatre and School). Two sisters in the show have teamed up with a third to sing the national anthem at a Rangers game. Some of these kids already have agents.
Directors Bill Fountain and Sarah V.C. Henderson have done better by the young people than by at least one of the adults: Michael Lemming is awkward as the basketball coach.
Curt Mega and Brittany Stene, though, are terrific as the leads. Though Mr. Mega looks more like Harry Potter than a basketball star, he's athletic enough in his singing and dancing to make you forget that. Michelle McElree and Zac Ramsey hoof nicely as the villainous big cheeses in the drama club who think they should be the stars of the show.
It's legitimate to ask whether Teatro delle Muse actually does better by High School Musical than one of our big metropolitan high schools might – some of them turn out amazingly polished productions.
At a school, you'd have real athletes playing the jocks, the physical production might well be handsomer and more lavish, and the kids in smaller roles wouldn't look like they had been triple-promoted in junior high. But there's probably a higher concentration of really talented, experienced kids here than most individual schools could muster.
“In a local show, it's hard to find an entire cast that can sing, dance and act. Teatro delle Muse found a few performers that were able to pull it off: Michelle McElree effortlessly pulls off Sharpay's nasty narcissism, Shaun Senter as her brother has a strong flair for comedy and was amusingly entertaining, Curt Mega as Zeke had a great comic timing and a very strong stage presence, and Randell Robertson was enjoyable to watch as she pulled off two different characters convincingly. This show is successful. While theatre is an artistic and a business venture it also has a third function that is equally important: it serves the community. Teatro delle Muse is providing a show that the community will love going to.” –Pegasus News
From Today's Dallas
Morning News, July 30th 2007
Theater Spotlight of the Week: Sarah Henderson
High School Musical
- When: Friday, July 27, 2007, 2 p.m.
- Where: Art Centre of Plano, 1039 East 15th Street, Plano
- Cost: $15
- Age limit: All ages
The new theater company, Teatro delle Muse, is getting ready to present their first full production, and it is going to be a big one since it is the stage version of the popular High School Musical. I got a few minutes out of her hectic week to talk to Sarah Henderson, the Artistic Director of the new company, who is also co-directing the show with Bill Fountain. She talks about the goals for the company, the popularity of the show, and teaching youth musical theater. (The saga of my audio recorder continued onto this week, so this interview has been transcribed.)
Let's start off by talking about your career in the DFW community and how you founded Teatro delle Muse.
Well, actually, I worked at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and left theater to raise a little girl, and it just so happens that all the theater productions that I took her to see, she wanted to be involved in theater. So after taking her to a few auditions and learning how community theater worked, which was quite a shock for me, I became involved with Frisco Community Theater first, and stage managed some shows for them. I was an Equity Stage Manager. And from there, I worked with Rover Dramawerks and taught several different theater classes all throughout the metroplex. Eventually, I just decided I would go ahead to start my own theater company. Bill and I wanted to do High School Musical. We were doing Sideways Stories from Wayside School with Rover Dramawerks, which was a wonderful big hit, very proud of that show. Bill and I cast this little girl in the show, and we were talking and I said, “I want to do High School Musical.” He said he wanted to do it too, and we didn’t have a contact with a company that wanted to do it, so we decided to start our own company, and things just fell into place.
So what is the main goal for the theater company?
We want to produce family-friendly theater in the Plano area. We feel there is a really big need there. I love children’s theater. I love working with children. I like to find shows that aren’t dumbed down for them. And when you find shows that aren’t dumbed down, you make sure that you are actually giving the child credit that they can understand real theater. But also, the mom or dad, or whoever brings them to that show is not bored while sitting there. So that is our main focus to produce family-friendly theater. Keeping with that theme, we actually want to expose classics, where we pick a classic each season. Finally, our goal is to find a local playwright with an unproduced work, and make that work into a production.
There are tons of theater companies in the DFW community so what makes you all stand out and stay for the long-term?
Well, we planned out our first season. Obviously, our first production is High School Musical and tickets are selling like crazy. I’m very proud of the production. Next is First Kiss, which is by a local playwright, and it is a wonderful script. I will be directing that show. After that, we will have Beauty and the Beast, again, another family show. And finally, we have Glass Menagerie. I think we are trying to cater to all tastes in theater. I am hoping that by doing that, by finding only the best of the best, that we will have a long-term relationship with the city of Plano and the DFW community.
So this first season you are trying to find your niche?
Right. Well, we have done our homework. When I said we decided to start our own company, it was a year’s worth of work there -- planning, creating a business plan. We were making sure that we weren’t just making art, but running a business too. I think a lot of the time, creative people don’t look at the business side of theater, and that’s something we tried to bring in outsiders so we don’t neglect that. We are spending money on advertising. For High school Musical for instance, we are running ads on Radio Disney. We have, of course, newsprint advertising, Dallas Child Magazine advertisements, and those have been running for four months now to let people know what is going on. I think a lot of the smaller theaters don’t have a high turnout because people don’t know about them.
Right, very true. I wanted to ask you what you think makes High School Musical so popular?
What made Grease so popular? You have probably heard it referred to as the new Grease, just the cleaned-up Disney version. It is a great storyline. Honestly, if it hadn’t become so popular, I wouldn’t have known about it. My little girl, when High School Musical originally released, she was 8 and was crazy about it. Well, let me see it. I want to watch it. So I sat down and watched it to spend time with her, and I fell in love with the silliness of the cliques and the jocks. It had this wonderful message that you don’t have to do one thing. It lets kids know it’s okay to be a basketball player and a singer, like in the show. In real life, it’s okay to do new things, try new things, and see if you like them.
The actors in the show range from 12-23, and they are all playing high school kids. We have two older than that, but they are playing adults. As the directors, one of the things Bill and I made them all do is a character analysis. We were very detailed with them. They have been working over 8 weeks on the show, rehearsing at least 5 nights a week. The thing we tried to do is really remember what it really felt like when you were a teenager when you were trying to pull away from something and how you were conflicted because you didn’t want to lose your friends. You wanted to know if you fit in, but you were curious about trying new things and what it felt like when someone made fun of you.
One of our favorite characters in the show, Sharpay, is just mean, but we were able to take the character and really develop her with the actress, and have her make sure the audience felt sympathy for her. If she wasn’t the star of every show, she didn’t know where she belongs. And what is it like to not know who you are? There are some really deep life lessons in the show, and that’s why I feel it isn’t dumbed down for the kids. It is a good show, it is popular and will bring people in. But we hope that when they are sitting there, we actually do have a chance to teach a lesson to these children.
I wanted to ask you about the obstacles of teaching youth musical theater, because it is the combo of acting, singing, and dancing. So how does this all come together?
We are very lucky that we set aside a large budget for this show. So we were able to hire people to come in and make sure that every aspect of that had the best people we could find working with them. There are two choreographers working on the show, one Musical Director, two directors, and you have all of the designers, stage managers, producers, and so on. We covered every aspect of that by making sure we had the right people that we knew could handle it. We did interviews that were open to the public and they submitted their resumes. The Advisory Board as a whole picked the people, not just the directors. So it wasn’t t he directors calling personal friends. It was the Advisory Board meeting and picking who was going to be the choreographer, and we chose two. We chose one that had a really good resume, but had not worked with children. And we chose another who had a really good resume, but was a teacher. So we were able to make sure that they worked together and the younger cast members were able to learn while they were here. We weren’t saying, “Memorize this,” and then they were done. They were taught something.
And there are two new songs added to the stage version?
Yes, we are very excited about that. “Cellular Fusion” is a necessary song to kinda tie everything together . In the film version, tthey obviously didn’t have the many obstacles of scene changes and explaining things, but you do when you take a film script and turn it into a stage script. That song is in there for that. And then “Counting On You” is a moment in the play where the two lead characters are being confronted by their friends saying, “Hey, you can’t do this. We need you. You’re leading us to victory, so you need to be with us.” We are very excited about the choreography.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
We have kids coming from as far away as Texarkana performing in the show. We had overall 6 audition rounds to make sure we picked the right people who had the right chemistry together. If you show up, you might see someone from your hometown, even if you live in Fort Worth, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Texarkana, or Euless. They are coming from everywhere. I think it is a really good family show, and I truly believe parents won’t be bored sitting there. It will be a good family night out.
Thank you so much, break a leg, and I wish you all the best.
Thank you so much.
High School Musical runs from July 27 to August 12. Call 972-424-MUSE for tickets or purchase online.
High School Musical
Profile
By
LAWSON TAITTE
/ Staff Writer
One of the great things about live theater is that new companies keep popping up all the time.
You could say
that the Dallas area is an
especially volatile theatrical
market right now. We have lost some
notable groups in the last few
years, but this week alone three
fresh companies are opening shows.
Teatro delle
Muse, the new tenant of Plano's
ArtCentre Theatre, launches itself
with the Disney Channel's popular
High School Musical. Bill
Fountain (also a playwright with
work in this initial season) and
Sarah V.C. Henderson are directing.
Classics from
Tennessee Williams and
Shakespeare and
, and Disney's Beauty and
the Beast, are also on the
initial season's agenda.
Since
December, a new group called the San
Jacinto Project has been offering
work on the CenterStage of the $48
million Criswell Center in downtown
Dallas.
Published in The Dallas Morning News: 07.27.07 |