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Kids shine in NORD show
There's no kids like NORD's 'Showkids!'
Thursday, August 18, 2005
DAVID CUTHBERT
Well, it had to happen. With so much energetic, young talent singing and dancing on NORD's Ty Tracy Theatre stage, the proscenium couldn't contain all that vitality and 27 young people spilled into the aisles on either side of the audience singing Hairspray's revved-up finale "You Can't Stop the Beat."
You couldn't stop "Showkids!" either, which has emerged as a hot ticket summer show, a revue of Broadway songs routined like a professional entertainment, with special material, clever segues from one section to ...Read More
Kids shine in NORD show
There's no kids like NORD's 'Showkids!'
Thursday, August 18, 2005
DAVID CUTHBERT
Well, it had to happen. With so much energetic, young talent singing and dancing on NORD's Ty Tracy Theatre stage, the proscenium couldn't contain all that vitality and 27 young people spilled into the aisles on either side of the audience singing Hairspray's revved-up finale "You Can't Stop the Beat."
You couldn't stop "Showkids!" either, which has emerged as a hot ticket summer show, a revue of Broadway songs routined like a professional entertainment, with special material, clever segues from one section to the next, the progression of material through various show biz eras, choreography the equal of any adult musical and most of all, the kids themselves; all ages, sizes, colors and levels of ability; diverse, disciplined and delightful. It's the 40th anniversary of NORD Theatre's Youth Workshop.
The show opens with an original title song by director Ricky Graham and musical/vocal director Jefferson Turner:
Showkids,
Each summer we're showkids
New-comers and pro kids
Performing at NORD.
Showkids,
We're hopelessly show kids
We're 'I gotta crow' kids
We won't be ignored."
The first act features Broadway songs and segments, beginning "cute" with Amelie Daigle, Rebecca Farley and Erica Golay as "Follies" "Broadway Babies." After that, we're into Fosse territory, with everyone in black, each with a distinctive sequin appliqué. The chorus tells us they've got "Magic to Do" and they don't lie. Dwayne Sepcich, incipient leading man material, offers a great "Corner of the Sky," which Colleen Robinson in granny get-up tops with "No Time at All," Stephen Schwartz's life-affirming anthem that will have you laughing through tears.
Then we're into "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" with Josh Eichorn an exceedingly engaging Joseph with some funny business with the front row and a sweetly sung "Any Dream Will Do."
Ashleigh Hoppe begins a serious "What I Did for Love," only to be bedeviled by the smaller kids interrupting her with "Tomorrow," which launches Hoppe on "Little Girls" from "Annie," with Graham lyrics on what it's like to be in a show with small kids, like "The Sound of Music" or "Gypsy," with armies of bratty little choristers trying to drown her out with choruses of "The Lonely Goatherd," and "Extra! Extra! Hey Look at the Headlines!"
This cues "Kids" and the boys doing a great job with "Tough Guys" from "Bugsy Malone."
From the stage version of "Thoroughly Modern Millie" we get one group of flappers singing the infectious "Forget About the Boy" and another doing the up-and-at-'em "Not for the Life of Me," combining them in counterpoint and culminating in the title song. Fabulous singing and dancing. But there's more to come with "All That Jazz," with two extremely lithe and supple dancers, Jannae Pack and Victoria Lawrence leading the company and "42nd Street" as a fitting finale, with precision tap that's spectacular sounding.
Act Two consists of numbers from more recent Broadway shows and a '50s show sliding into a '60s show about racially diverse kids finding a common denominator in music, something we're watching happen.
With everyone in green T-shirts, there are six songs from "Wicked" the Oz-before-Dorothy musical. One line of "One Fine Day" sounds like they could be singing about New Orleans: "Every way that you look in this city, there's something exquisite you'll want to visit," while another lyric sounds like "Showkids!" staking their claim:
"One short day
And we're warning the city,
Now that we're in here
You'll know that we've been here
Before we are done."
"Seasons of Love" from "Rent" is delivered exquisitely by the older kids lined up across the stage, singing with budding maturity.
Then it's back to fun and games with Harold Jenkins and Kristin Cusanza and hand puppets giving us a taste of "Avenue Q." Everyone sings "Little Shop of Horrors" (there are lots of chorus numbers, and the massed sound of pre-and-teen voices is great), but then Sepcich and belter Hoppe bring down the house with a rafter-rattling "Suddenly Seymour."
From "Grease," the older boys shine on "Beauty School Dropout," and another striking young leading man, Querido Arias, shares a sultry "Summer Nights" with Courtney Kettengell, while Michael Moore, a big-voiced kid with a Beatles moptop, makes his mark with "It Takes Two" and "Without Love" from "Hairspray." From that giddy show, we also get pulse-pounding renditions of "Welcome to the '60s," "Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now" and "You Can't Stop the Beat," which you want never to end.
Graham directs with the same savvy and showmanship he would give any adult show. The choreographer, Susan Heflin, is a revelation, a major, imaginative talent, who had Karen Hebert assist her on "All That Jazz" and "You Can't Stop the Beat."
The four-piece band led by Jefferson Turner (who did all the music and vocal arrangements) really cooks and Bob Bruce's colorful scenery and sparkling costumes were all thriftily recycled from previous shows. The uncredited sound is the best heard at NORD in years, the showy and dramatic lighting by Gary Solomon, wigs (some of them doozies) and make-up by Roy Haylock.
"Showkids!" has been a very special show for everyone concerned, not the least because so many obstacles had to be overcome to bring it to fruition. When try-outs began, NORD Theatre was the only office in Gallier Hall without phone service from a fire five months before. Rehearsals had to be delayed while the air-conditioning was fixed. There was no budget for scenery or costumes.
"The only things I bought for the show were the green T-shirts," Bruce said. The rest came from NORD's costume stock, freshened with trim, hats and pure creativity by Bruce and longtime assistants Sondra Auzot and Jean Chester (who have also been tearing your tickets and handing out programs at the door for years).
Graham, the city's most popular actor-director-playwright, got his start at NORD "40 years ago in a show like this one," he said. "As I stand in the back of the house, I'm so proud of these kids, because I remember the first time I got a laugh or applause. I know what they're feeling."
In the year he's been director of NORD Theatre, he has directed three shows, all of them original works, upgraded the technical end of the theater, and brought in many professionals to work with the kids.
"I'm in awe of the parents who put in so much time down here," Graham said. "Diane and Carey Hoppe, Phil and Georgeann Wagar, Martha Marasco and our interns, Bryan Hymel, Andrea Marasco and Christina Peck."
Carol Bennett is new to backstage work, but since her son Alex, 14, is in the show, she's pitched in, "I help with the costume changes, which are really quick," she said. "This show is so fast-paced, they're constantly in motion backstage as well as onstage. But when they do have a moment, they'll watch each other in the wings, applaud each other, slap each other on the back . They've all become friends, they go out together, e-mail each other, it's like they can't get enough of one another."
Querido Arias, at 15, a six-year veteran of the NORD theater program, says "I'm here because it's exhilarating onstage and I've met some of my best friends here."
Jeremiah Craft, 11, says, "I'm not the youngest in the cast, but I am the littlest." His best friend in the show, he says, is 17-year-old Josh Eichorn, "because we did 'Annie Get Your Gun' together here last year." Jeremiah has a drum solo in the show and at one of the run-throughs, was showing Eichorn how to properly hold drumsticks. "He's a cool little guy," Eichorn said. "And we both like those big, get-in-your-face kind of numbers."
"I have a new respect for Ty Tracy," Graham said of the theater's late founder, who ran it for 43 years and mentored him. "NORD's budgets are tight to nonexistent. I was also unprepared for the layers of bureaucracy involved in working for the city, the frustration in trying to get help in solving the theater's many problems.
"What I'm proudest of is what we've put on the stage," Graham said.
"The best thing I can say about this show," Bruce said, "is that I know Ty would have loved it."