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HOLLAND
COLLEGE • April 29, 2003
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INSIDE |
FEATURES
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| {The
play’s the thing Students at Colonel Gray High School get ready to dazzle audiences with Carousel By Sean Kelly Surveyor Staff The cast of Colonel Gray's musical production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel shuffle into the cafeteria and start to chat as they wait to begin another day of rehearsal. They've been rehearsing almost every day after school for over a month and will continue at this pace until they hit the stage of the Confederation Centre in early May. Peter Krauskopf, the director of the production and art teacher at the school, begins by circulating a release form. One of the actors was hit in the eye the other day and the school is making sure every one knows, even though accidents are few and far between, there is some potential for risk on the set. "Hand these around, and of course, if you're over 18, you can sign the forms yourself," he says, sending copies of the form down two rows of cafeteria tables where the students are seated. * * * High school musical productions have become a spring staple in Charlottetown. Each year, the musical productions alternate between Colonel Gray and Charlottetown Rural high schools. These musicals are major endeavours, said Krauskopf. Funded entirely from ticket sales and driven by volunteer participation from students and staff, they consume thousands of hours of work. They don't do it for the money. "If we have full houses at every performance, we'll probably break even," said Krauskopf. He listed the number of students it will take to produce the play from start to finish. "Let's see, there's 54 in the cast, 20 in the pit band, 12-15 in the painting crew, we have 12 in the stage crew, 10 or so in the makeup crew, we have 10 on costumes and half a dozen for publicity," he said. "Those are all students. We have a dozen or so teachers who are either supervising or volunteering to help out." Sometimes people don't realize how much work these play actually take, said Julia Sauve, Carousel's choreographer. "But it really pays off when you see the transformation from the first read-through to closing night," she added. Carousel is Sauve's fifth time working with Colonel Gray. Krauskopf said the organization of Carousel began well before the auditions. "I probably began in November, 2001, reading through several plays and looking at them for content," he said. After whittling down the list to three plays and presenting them to a committee in the spring, Krauskopf said Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel was the one which really stuck out. "It came down between, I think, Pyjama Games, Little Shop of Horrors and Carousel," he said. Krauskopf took two weeks just before school started to block (set up the performers' positions on stage) and edit the production. The interesting thing about choosing Carousel, he added, was it contained a much heavier theme than other musicals the school had produced in the past, so much so, that when the production tours to perform at schools in the area it's being shown to grades four and up. "It deals with issues like spousal abuse, which isn't something that people like to talk about all that much," he said. Considerations about how explicitly these themes would figure into the production led Krauskopf to edit the script and modernize it. "For instance, one of the lines reads ‘Got so mad last night, he hit me,' and we decided to change that to he almost hit me," he said. By doing so, he said he was able to insert innuendo into the script and hint at the actions carrying the themes. "I think (our actors) can, and are relating to this sort of innuendo better than they would if it we went with straight direction of the play," he said. Pointing around the cafeteria to different principal performers, Sauve acknowledged the presence of character symbolism in Carousel. One girl she pointed to represents innocence. Another is supposed to represent evil. "It's a very good cast, very good. Everybody's getting a feel for their parts even though at first we weren't sure of a few." She pointed again to the "evil" character, who was fumbling through a scene with the "innocence" character's husband. "For a while we couldn't decide to cast those two either way. But so far, it seems we've made the right choice and both are starting to settle in," said Sauve. She said the darker theme is a break from the usual over-the-top productions the schools does. "Two years ago the school did Beauty and the Beast, and well, it was Disney, so there wasn't much room for the kind of (character) development that Carousel allows," she said. Another thing helping along the production is the level of talent some of the performers are bringing to the school stage, Sauve said. "Mostly everyone in this production has had some form of theatrical or stage training. Our principals are all very talented young people and they help to keep the bar high. And they also help the others to bring up their level of performance as well," she said. Krauskopf said it's one of the things which has has kept the rehearsal segment of the production on schedule. "Carousel's first act contains two of its largest musical numbers. They took us close to a month to get out of the way," said Krauskopf. With those mastered, the dialogue portions should roll along much faster. Education is a concern for the students involved, as many of them are in their senior year of high school. Krauskopf said while the play is time consuming, most of his actors do well in their studies. "People that sign up for the musical here at the school never seem to have a problem with their schoolwork," he said. "They're like the cream, you know, they rise to the top. "They wouldn't be involved in this extracurricular activity if they weren't. The school has a policy - if you're failing a course, you can't participate. In fact, it goes for all our extracurricular activities. Also, if there is a student who is struggling with marks in the mid 50s, we wouldn't consider them." For the students, working on the musical is a chance to get to know people they didn't before. One thing that really sticks out in a person's mind after graduating from high school and moving on is their musical experience, said Sauve. "More than clubs or sports teams, I think, is that memor." Maggie Wright, who plays Carrie in Carousel, said working on the play has been an amazing experience. "You get to know people you didn't before and you get to do stuff together, like, after we finish rehearsal all of us will go out and play ultimate frisbee." Wright, who had previous stage experience, said working on Carousel was similar to what it was like in other productions she'd worked in. "There's the usual cast backstage talk," she said, "but overall, everyone's been great." * * * After the rehearsal, Krauskopf returns to his office in the school's art department. It's almost half past five. Students Amy McKenna and Nelly Silva are still working on the logo for an ice cream-wagon prop for the play. "That looks good girls," says Krauskopf. "But I think I have the wagon entering from stage right." The girls moan in disbelief. The logo is on the wrong side. "No, no, that's all right, it can be on both sides," he said, urging them to continue in the morning. Colonel Gray's production of Carousel runs at the Confederation Centre Friday, May 9, at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m. and at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for students and seniors are available at the Confederation Centre box office.} |
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