Grease players rose to every challenge
By Chris Mac Kenzie
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — “They’re real troopers,” said Susan Lancaster, director of the student musical show, Grease, describing what happened when the electricity went off in the middle of the opening night. “Of course Joan Waterworth, our accompanist, couldn’t play her electric piano — and then I heard this dialogue from the actors that I’d never heard before. The kids were ad libbing! Filling the time until the lights were back on.”
The young actors, fifth through eighth grades, managed every little
crisis during the two-weekend run of the musical comedy with great skill, and had fun doing it. With the heavy cold rain threatening both weekends, Lancaster ordered a tent to be erected close against the back of the Woman’s Club where the show was staged. Since there is very little room backstage, the young actors went
outside to get from one side of the stage to the other, so the tent provided a dry path.
That heavy rain caused another change of plans. Saturday night shows included a 1950s style meal, hamburgers, chips and malts which were to be served drive-in style to people in their cars in the parking lot. “I couldn’t have my kids running around serving hamburgers in that rain,” Lancaster said, “so we moved it all indoors and people just held their plates on their laps in their seats. Nobody seemed to mind.”
The stage has no Green Room, so the 30 young thespians made do in all sorts of ways. The co-ed dressing room was the cellar, so the girls were all instructed to wear tights under their costumes, except for the prom scene when they appear in strapless evening gowns. For that, they utilized the small club kitchen.
The costumes can be credited to the mothers who supported the whole project. “It’s really a team effort,” said Lancaster, who has been directing these productions for 30 years. “We
couldn't do it without those dads and moms. Some of them were in the earlier shows as students themselves. This year was unusual, since all six performances were sold out five weeks in advance.”
Some folks who had seen the original Broadway production wondered a bit at the choice, remembering that the show had a good bit of rather raucous language, not really suitable for middle school kids. Lancaster explained. “When the publisher put out the version for school use, it had been cleaned up considerably, thank goodness!”
The cast includes three fifth graders, Cole Pulsipher, Ryan Krantz and Amber Blank. The rest are from Joan MacQueen Middle School. The male lead is Nate August, a sixth grader, and the female lead is Kaylyn Hopkins in seventh grade. Both have already had some professional experience in local San Diego theater.
Participating in the show, requires quite a commitment from the young
students. They must promise to keep up with homework assignments and
other schoolwork, despite a strenuous schedule of rehearsals for several months and the weekends of the show itself. The kids get some help
however. During rehearsals, their “special angel” Bob Howell runs his
homework club in the back of the auditorium, complete with healthy snacks and assistance as needed. When the actors aren’t on the stage, they can head to the club, work on homework, and still make their stage cues in time.
Howell has done this for years and is a much appreciated fixture of the school production.
Of course, there had to be a cast party after the last performance, Saturday night. It was, according to Lancaster, an award event equal to the Oscars, with awards given for those who forgot their lines, lost a prop, or otherwise made it a really big night.
So, another student musical is history but it will never to be forgotten.
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