Footloose

High School Project 2011 Footloose Blog

High School Project 2011 Footloose Blog

Sunday, September 18

First I just want to express how proud I am of everyone in the cast and crew for stepping up to the plate and performing an amazing Dress Rehearsal for the teachers! It was 100% better than it was during the Tech Dress, and on Tuesday night the cast is aiming for 110%! It was the cast’s first time performing the show in front of a big audience and despite the shaky Tech Dress Rehearsal, the Dress Rehearsal almost went perfectly! But what is perfect in the first place anyways? Yes maybe the curtain didn’t go up on time, one of our cast members got a nose bleed during their number, and there were some trouble with the costumes, but I guarantee that the audience did not notice a thing. I know I didn’t notice anything from sitting in the balcony and I thought the show went really well! Each number and scene went amazingly well, the relationships between the characters have developed greatly, the dancing has improved so much and you could tell the cast was having the time of their lives! Gonzalo Arboleda certainly made that clear on behalf of the cast during his number “I Can’t Stand Still”!  The cast received a well deserved standing ovation from the audience at the end and I enjoyed cheering them on! I’ll be there in the audience Tuesday night for the first Preview and I am really looking forward to it. I am so proud of everyone in the entire show and I feel honored to be a part of this family. Break a leg! (Not really though!)

Saturday, September 17

The cast and crew have been working diligently since the Sitzprobe and tonight the work paid off as they did the Tech Dress Rehearsal. After spending this week on the main stage doing: Q to Q (which means they go from cue to cue for lighting, sound, etc.), stopping and starting in scenes to fix things that still do not feel right or perfect, finalizing who moves what where and when, moving people to make sure the maximum number of people can be seen, and nit picking every single thing, the cast and crew are ready to start previewing the show!

Now I would like to say that the Tech Dress Rehearsal went off without a hitch, but rarely any Tech Dress Rehearsals in ANY shows go off without any problems. Yes, there were some microphone problems, some quick changes that did not go so quickly, and some lines that were forgotten, but overall it was really good and by tomorrow night when we do the Dress Rehearsal and the preview for our favorite teachers, the show will be fantastic without a doubt! And to help make sure that will happen, the Wardrobe Department sat in tonight to assure that each costume was perfect. Each student was assigned certain actors/actresses and they eyeballed the costumes to see if they needed any adjustments or fixings for a quicker quick change. One part of the show which needed a faster quick change is the Prom scene, tonight only the guys came out at the start of the number and when the girls didn’t show up the guys improvised and sung the girls parts! We unfortunately had to do a take two on the Finale but it was worth it because the costumes looked amazing!

I had the privilege of a tour backstage tonight with Stage Manager Gerry Egan and I found it very interesting. I learned that not everything is actually backstage, some scenery or props like the gas pumps, lockers and tires travel to and from the Prop Shop as the show goes on, and some scenery, like the barn, the Burger Blast sign, the Prom decorations, the bridge, the church and the disco ball, hang from above backstage on wires! The Moore Home is the inside and outside façades of a house and it has wheels on the bottom so it can be turned around and then it can be placed on the stage by the press of a button! It is always hidden backstage by a curtain that can be moved up and down when the house needs to come on or off stage. If you aren’t impressed yet, the porch light on the house is even controlled by the lighting booth upstairs! Also on each side of the stage there is a changing alcove where actors/actresses can do quick changes, and their clothes are set up ready to be put on, on hooks and chairs. 

The cast had amazing energy tonight and I want to put in a shout out to Floydd Ricketts and his orchestra! They really help make the show what it is! (Which is amazing!!). Seeing the cast perform on stage tonight made the show feel real and exciting! It is such a big transition from the Jessica Tandy Rehearsal Hall to the main stage! The cast handled it wonderfully and each night they are making so much progress! I’m very proud of everyone and I am so honored to be in such a great show!

Sunday, September 11

Today was the day of the SITZPROBE! In other words, today was the day that the cast got to sing with the orchestra for the first time, and it was so exciting and fun! Kenny Johnson was extra excited, he kept up the energy by spending the entire rehearsal rocking out and dancing in his seat and acting out every song! He thinks it’s going to be one great BIG show! Everyone else was having a lot of fun as well, they were dancing in their chairs along with Kenny, and IMG-20110911-00308.jpgthey had fun! With the orchestra, the songs were so much more energized and the vibration in the room just screamed excitement! The opening was a clear example, it had never sounded better and I think the cast has never had so much fun performing this number! Gonzalo Arboleda, along with the rest of the cast were rocking out, jumping and dancing!

I later had the pleasure of speaking to Gonzalo and listening to him express his feelings about the High School Project: Footloose! and how it has changed his outlook on life. Gonzalo said “I don’t know if I ever believed in myself before this High School Project, and it has taught me to believe in myself, and that I should believe in myself no matter what.” He has gained confidence, friends, and amazing singing and dancing skills from being in Footloose! He is a positive role model for other kids who in the future want to try out for a HSP (High School Project) for a summer full of fun, incredible theatre experience, lifelong friends, and believing in yourself that you can do anything!

Today the Scenic Art Team spent all day painting the Mainstage floor and I snuck in to take a look and the scene was set up for the Burger Blast with the rolling hills of Bomont in the background and it gave me chills to see how spectacular it looked! Fantastic job everyone!

Thursday, September 8

I went out to the Shop today! The Shop is located in a big building near the London Airport and thanks to Anrita Petraroia, we drove out to the shop with student painters: Brea Mcallister, Clara Purdy, and Cosette Pin. There I met Richard Lawler, (the Head Scenic Artist) who told me all about The Shop! They are given sketches, pictures, designs and measurements of the scenic art they want made for the show, and the people and students at the Shop take it from there! For the High school Project, the scenic artists create and cut out the scenes, and the students design them and paint them. In Footloose!, the frame and roof of the Moore home, a big Burger Blast sign, the frame of the Barn, a bridge, rolling bases for the lockers in the school, and even the rolling mountains of Bomont were created to produce amazing scenes for the cast! I especially found the mountains of Bomont to be impressive, they are so beautiful and realistic that I was able to imagine them on stage! Today was the last day in the Shop and the students: Brea, Clara and Cosette, were finishing up painting the bridge. You guys have done some amazing work and should be very proud of yourselves!

With the cast still under the weather, and still adjusting to school and rehearsals, the run through of the show today wasn’t excellent, but still good. Daniel Newton was thankfully back with us, but he was saving his voice so he spoke and acted through his songs and it was almost more powerful than him singing his songs! Unfortunately though Katie Skok was absent but we look forward to having her back as “Burger Blast Betty” soon! The cast is so professional because even though they weren’t feeling 100%, they still pushed through it and they were all smiles! The harmonies were still amazing, the story of the show was still there, and you still felt like you had been on the journey with characters. The run through was solid, with very few minor mistakes. The mistakes though are a part of the process, and if we didn’t have mistakes, then we wouldn’t learn would we? The cast should not be discouraged, but empowered to improve for the next rehearsal and the soon coming opening night! Andrew Swan was very sure and motivated, he said “The show wasn’t what it was before, but we will build up to it again!”

Wednesday, September 7

Today was the first rehearsal after school started, and everyone was there from 4pm until 7:30pm. Well almost everybody, Daniel Newton had strep throat so he was unable to make it to the rehearsal but everyone wishes him a speedy recovery! I think everyone in the cast was feeling a bit tired and stressed, and a sickness is going around, but everyone was trucking through it and smiling and doing their best! Instead of doing a run through of Act 2 today, Heather Davies, Floydd Ricketts, and Amy Wright worked with the cast on different numbers and scenes from the show.

Wardrobe is working diligently on hemming the choir robes and sewing the snaps on them, and they are finished the gym uniforms! Prop Shop has run out of glitter for the stars and balloons, they need more silver glitter to finish off the 37 balloons to decorate the Prom scene. Jacob Feeney was working on a water jug, and Grace Day-Hodson was sewing covers for the Burger Blast baskets. They were also working on making the treads out of insulation for the tractor tire wheels!

Hopefully everybody will be healthy and back up to par soon as they adjust to going back to school and going to rehearsals! 

Thursday, September 1

Magic was created today as the cast did an entire run through of the show. As Heather Davies (Director) said afterwards, “this is a great step in the process”, and I completely agree with her. I think the story of Footloose has never been told as well as it was told today by the students. There has been so much improvement since the last run through! For the first time you felt like you were in the story with the characters, and you just wanted to jump into one of the dance numbers! The students have dug deep down to find their characters to create the close relationships between each other.

Chanel Danbrook (who plays Ariel Moore) and Gonzalo Arboleda (who plays Ren McCormack) created some beautiful moments together throughout the show, especially in “Almost Paradise”, and the relationship between Daniel Newton (who plays Rev. Shaw Moore) and Rebecca McCauley (who plays Vi Moore) has grown even more, you can see the struggle the two go through throughout the show and especially in “Can You Find It In Your Heart”. Ben Cookson (who plays Willard Hewitt) and Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane (who plays Rusty) provide the comic relief with their funny, awkward relationship, especially in the BBQ Dance scene at the beginning of Act 2. Rachel Ginther (who plays Eleanor Dunbar) also provides a giggle here and there with her cute but serious character and Sara Cerna (who plays Ethel McCormack) has mastered the motherly instinct as the mother of Gonzalo. Andrew Varkaris (who plays Chuck Cranston) has really developed his character of the jerk/bully and Nate Crocker (who plays Coach Roger Dunbar), Eric McDace (who plays Principal Harry Clark), and Scott Keyes (who plays Wes Warnicker) play their roles of authority really well.

Each number of the show was precise, energy filled, and fun! The opening contained a lot of energy and there was a smooth transition from the high energy dancing to the church choir. “Somebody’s Eyes” and “I’m Holding Out For a Hero” includes the amazing harmony between the trio of Olivia, Christine McKeon (who plays Urleen) and Allison Aspinall (who plays Wendy Jo) and Chanel, Sara and Rebecca have mastered the emotion and harmony in the song “Learning To Be Silent”. The last number of the first act “I’m Free/Heaven Help Me” was so intense and show stopping! You could tell everyone put their heart and soul into the last words “I’m free!” The second act opened with “Still Rockin’” and everyone rocked out in their cowboy boots thanks to Wardrobe! All of the hard work with Floydd Ricketts and Rick Kish has paid off by: Ben, Gonzalo, John Fellner (who plays Jeter), Jonathan Gysbers (who plays Travis), Andrew Swan (who plays Garvin), and Brendan Rodgers (who plays Bickle) who performed a phenomenal and hilarious rendition of “Mama Says”! I have to say that is one my favorite songs from the show. And I always wonder why the Finale has so  much excitement, energy, and smiles!

Overall this run through was amazing, and afterwards everyone cheered and even though the cast wanted to celebrate, Heather asked them to sit down and savor that moment, and that feeling. The cast and crew get a little break over Labor Day Weekend and they will be back rehearsing on September 7th!

Tuesday, August 30

Everyone was very busy today, before running Act 2 after lunch, the cast was hard at work working on staging, dancing, and singing. Some of the scenes that were reviewed and staged with Heather Davies in Act 2 were: Town Hall, the Churchyard, and the Moore Home. The BBQ dance was reviewed with Amy Wright and Floydd Ricketts, and Gonzalo Arboleda received vocal coaching from Rick Kish. The cast and crew then came together for a bag lunch and the different departments bonded together with the cast! After lunch, half an hour was taken for last minute reviewing and coaching. Amy and Floydd worked with the boys in “Mama Says” and Ben Cookson rocked out in his cowboy boots while Daniel Newton received vocal coaching from Rick for “Heaven Help Me” and “Can You Find It In Your Heart (Reprise)”. Everyone then came together to do an amazing run of Act 2! Despite some missed cues and some line mistakes, overall the run was really great! The dancing has gotten much better and the connections between all the characters have really developed. I noticed this especially between Gonzalo and Daniel in their scene at the Moore Home. The cast has improved so much I am really enjoying watching the show come together and just get better and better every day! I am looking forward to seeing another full run through of the show!

Props and Wardrobe were equally busy today. Wardrobe is busy catching up on alterations from the fittings and they are looking forward to finishing the choir gowns after school starts! In the Prop Shop they were carving tractor wheels out of foam, upholstering benches, and making a bridge table cloth for the Moore Home! Also they are still hard at work on the balloons.

In the afternoon a special event took place! Daniel, Rebecca McCauley, Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane, Jonathan Gysbers, Julie Bell (Public Relations Coordinator), John White (Director of Marketing) and myself, took a trip to Brick House Productions to IMG_0594.JPGrecord the radio commercial for the High School Project! It was such an amazing experience to see how this process takes place. Even though only 4 students were recorded, their voices, parts, and lines, will be doubled and tripled to make it seem like there are 30 people singing, when only 4 voices were recorded! Very cool. At first the group was recorded all together, and then each of them was recorded with their different part separately. Jonathan was singing the lead line so he recorded the lead line and he fit the part perfectly! Daniel recorded a surprising start to the broadcast and Rebecca held strong on her high soprano part! Olivia did some ad-libbing for over top of the melody and she showed us all up with her IMG_0595.JPGamazing Aretha Franklin voice! With all the different parts and takes recorded, the copying and pasting started and the outcome was incredible! It is really amazing what technology can do these days! Julie said even though she has seen this been done several times, she is still amazed every time! I was astounded how easy it was to just copy and paste the different parts to put them together to make the track sound like it was recorded all at once, and it was very impressive! I’m looking forward to hearing it on the radio!

Friday, August 26

Everybody cut Footloose! this morning on the streets of downtown London with posters, flyers, buttons, and a ghetto blaster playing the songs from the show! We were singing, dancing, and cheering our way on the streets and in Victoria Park to promote the show! Everyone in the cast dance rally.JPGand the crew dressed up in 80s clothing: leggings, leg warmers, arm warmers, bright colors, baggy clothing, sneakers and scrunchies and we paraded around downtown with cars honking and people waving at us, it was exciting!

John Fellner really got into the spirit of things and dressed in authentic 80s jacket, funky pants and a black afro wig! A-Channel was filming us and other Media from London and The Grand Theatre were taking pictures of us along the way, including our very own Emily Clark! I think we did a very good job in promoting the show, but even if we didn’t, everyone had a blast and it was still a lot of fun!

Thursday, August 25

The morning started off with some individual coaching. Daniel Newton was working with Heather Davies and Floydd Ricketts on “Heaven Help Me”. Heather helped him find the raw emotion and struggle in the song and he sang it beautifully afterwards! Gonzalo Arboleda was being coached by Rick Kish and they were working on Gonzalo’s upper register. Rick told him to bend his knees as he goes up the scale to propel the energy forward instead of losing energy and it really worked! Ben Cookson was working with Amy Wright on the choreography in the BBQ scene to add character and energy to his dance solo and they worked in front of a mirror to help see what the dancing really looked like! 

Today they ran Act 1, and it was very impressive! There was a lot more emotion, passion, and energy, the cast is really getting comfortable with their roles. The cast had so much energy that Gonzalo took a little fall while trying out his roller skates in the Burger Blast scene. Everyone gasped and was scared he had gotten hurt but he said “What? I’m fine, I’m alright!” We immediately all sighed with relief! The last number of Act 1 “I’m Free/Heaven Help Me” was astonishing, powerful and ground shattering! I don’t think they will able to top it!

Wardrobe is now altering the costumes for the cast, and they are still working on their two big projects of the choir gowns and the gym uniforms. I saw the collars for the choir gowns being sewn and the letters for the gym uniforms being cut out. Keep up the diligent work!

Props finished the gas pumps and they look amazing and authentic! They also finished putting glitter on the starts for the Prom scene. Now they are working on making cushions with some pretty funky material, the students designed the cushions themselves!

I'm looking forward to tomorrow!

Tuesday, August 23

“Once, you, climb up a mountain, you can’t back down!” This is exactly what the students seemed to do today, they kept climbing higher and higher up the mountain. This morning and afternoon the 4 boys: Brendan Rodgers, Andrew Swan, Jonathan Gysbers and John Fellner worked endlessly with Floydd Ricketts and Rick Kish to perfect the harmony of “Mama Says!” Ben Cookson later joined them to complete the quintet and everyone had so much energy that Floydd actually had to ask them to tone it down just a notch to save their energy for the day! I was amazed by the incredible harmony, and how many times Floydd, Rick and the boys went over each phrase and note to make sure every harmony was perfectly in-tune. Brendan said “you get to the point where you don’t even need a starting note, we can just walk into the street and start singing!” Which is perfect, seeing as the Footloose Dance Rally is coming up on Friday, August 26th and we’ll be walking around downtown and doing a short performance at the corner of Victoria Park from 12pm-1pm!

The students continued climbing up the mountain with Heather Davies as she went over different scenes in Act 1 to keep perfecting the movements and emotions of the characters. In Act 1, Scene 2, Heather kept trying different staging until it felt right to the actor/actress. I observed a powerful scene between Rebecca McCauley and Daniel Newton (who play Vi and Rev. Shaw Moore), and I was astounded by the deep emotion they were portraying in their characters. When Daniel is Rev. Shaw Moore, you see him as a troubled man with a death in his past, not a care-free young teenager. Today after he finished the scene he said he “finds that arguing with Rebecca is really hard!” Rebecca is great at finding the seriousness of the conversation and interpreting the emotions in this scene.

Wardrobe is almost finished with their fittings, they did 6 fittings today, including Rachel Ginther’s who was fitted for the Prom scene by Sarah Arrunategui, and now they only have 5 more fittings left to do! Kate Ward was working on the logos for the school gym uniforms, they are going to be grey with red lettering and Rebecca Saunders was making the labels for the Burger Blast uniforms.

The main project today in props was the gas pumps, the crew was just finishing painting them and then they were in the process of aging them! I watched Grace Day-Hodson and Jacob Feeney age a gas pump by dabbing paint on it and then wiping it off, which left the desired stain effect!

So everyone was climbing up that mountain today and no one has been backing down!

 

Friday, August 19

This morning the cast did their first run through of the show! Now usually a first run through can be horrifying, messy, choppy, unpredictable, but this run through was spectacular! It flowed really smoothly and there were a couple of mistakes here and there, but they did not compare to the moving moments that were created today between Chanel Danbrook (Ariel Moore) and Gonzalo Arboleda (Ren McCormack), Daniel Newton (Rev. Shaw Moore) and Gonzalo, and Daniel and Rebecca McCauley (Vi Moore).

All the students were chosen perfectly for their roles, after seeing the High School Project of Footloose you feel like you have been on the roller coaster and journey with them and you personally know the characters because they are portrayed so well by the students. Ben Cookson (who plays Willard Hewitt), Chanel, Rebecca and Daniel are just some of the many students in the cast who play their characters amazingly well! Some of my favorite songs are “Mama Says”, “Lets it Hear It for the Boy”, “I’m Holding Out For A Hero”, “Almost Paradise” and of course the finale “Footloose!”. The cast had amazing energy for the morning and everyone, including Eric McDace (who plays Principal Harry Clark), were impressed with the first run through! After the run through you could really see all of the effort that has been put into this show!

I found out that Wardrobe now has to make 3 more choir gowns, so that’s 17 all together! They are also getting ready to make 20-30 gym uniforms using the school logo that they created themselves.

The Prop Shop has some hard work ahead of them, they are putting glitter on all of the 70 balloons. In total they will need 12 pounds of glitter to create the Prom scene at the end of Footloose! Apparently everything is going to be covered in glitter, and the microphones that I saw were no exception! They were covered in glitter and bejeweled. They are also working on painting books to look like bibles, and sanding down and painting the gas pumps.

Thursday, August 18

Today was the third rehearsal of the Finale and it really came together today. Amy Wright (choreographer), Floydd Ricketts (musical director) and Heather Davies (director) worked together and discussed everything to make sure that every beat, step, action, dynamic, and note, were perfect. The cast had amazing attention and focus. DSC_0363.JPGToday Heather asked them, do you really believe what you are saying when you are singing Footloose? She even asked if anyone knew the meaning of the word.

Footloose: the ability to travel freely, to be able to dance freely and to be able to move freely in your life without restrictions. Heather knew how to get the cast really thinking about the words they were singing and their expressions were suddenly 10 times better! At the end of the rehearsal they ran the entire Finale and I was very impressed with the energy, harmony, expressions and dance movements! The cast did a very good job with the high energy dance movements Amy threw at them over the last few days.

Today I found out that Wardrobe was not only working on the choir gowns, but they also started doing character fittings at the same time! Each student in Wardrobe is assigned actors/actresses and they are responsible for their costumes while Kathryn Sherwin, head cutter in the department, oversees what they are doing. I observed Brady Johnson being fitted by Rebecca Saunders for his four costume changes during the musical and it was really interesting to see how many people it really takes to put the costumes together for the actors/actresses, and all the steps that must be taken to put on a spectacular show with fabulous costumes!

Photo by Emily Clark. Students in rehearsal for Footloose

 

Wednesday, August 17

Hi everyone! So it is that time of the year again! It is time for the Grand Theatre’s Fall High School Project! This High School Project is staged in the MainStage Theatre (which is able to seat 839 people!) Hundreds of students audition and are interviewed for the chance to be in the High School Project to hone their skills in the various areas of the production of a musical.

Whether it be singing, dancing, acting, sewing costumes or building props, stage managing or lighting and sound, select students get the chance to participate and learn from this amazing experience. Throughout the High School Project, the students receive instruction and training from different mentors at The Grand Theatre and a rigorous rehearsal schedule gives the students the feel of being in a fun, professional working atmosphere. The hard work all pays off on opening night when the students perform and receive the well deserved recognition from the audience!

This year’s High School Project is the legendary Footloose! This musical is about a boy wanting to make a difference in a town where making a change is quite difficult. Using clever and catchy songs and amazing high energy dances, this musical inspires everyone that when you set your mind to something you can achieve anything! So everyone get ready to dance and sing-a-long to the popular songs and be prepared to cut Footloose!


The students have been hard at work these past three weeks, and I saw the proof of that today! I heard some pretty amazing harmony, energy and sound coming from the cast mixed in with choreographer Amy Wright’s and Director Heather Davies' fantastic choreography and blocking in the finale “Footloose” and “Let’s Hear it For The Boy”.

I saw some fabulous costumes being made in Wardrobe consisting of the process of the making of 14 choir gowns and the Prop shop was no exception, they were hard at work papier-maché-ing 70 balloons for the prom at the end of the musical, and student photographer Emily was busy near the end of the day taking headshots of the cast for the program and the display poster!

I saw a spectacular show being put together today and a fun cast that right after lunch went into an impromptu sing along of "Joy to the World", showing their love for singing. I am looking forward to being back on Thursday to see what incredible things everyone is up to!