BY STACEY PASTERNAK
Cooper City High’s drama department, headed up by CCHS drama teacher and director Angela Thomas, is working hard to put together their first musical of the 2012-2013 school year, The Wedding Singer. It will premiere on October 10th at 7:00 PM in the auditorium, and will be shown on October 11th and 12th as well.
If this musical’s title rings a bell for you, it’s because you’ve probably seen the movie. The Wedding Singer, which starred Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore and came out in theaters in 1998. It’s a classic tale set in the 1980s about a wedding singer named Robbie falling in love with a waitress named Julia. The only catch… Julia’s engaged to be married.
Starting in 2006, the movie’s revival as a musical hit Broadway, with song lyrics by Chad Beguelin, who was nominated for two Tony awards for his work on The Wedding Singer the musical. It’s a 2-act play with plenty of new songs as written by Beguelin, but the original plot is carried throughout the play, aside from minor differences.
Thomas, who has headed CCHS’s drama department for five years, is excited that this musical is making its way to CCHS’s stage. She is in charge of picking which musicals we do each year, and The Wedding Singer is no exception.
“I have a lot of strong male talent right now and I wanted to utilize that. It also seemed like a good musical for the group that I have right now and I try to think about all the kids and what would best showcase them. Also, it was the best for our community. They love the big, happy musical comedies, so I tried to pick that for them,” Thomas said.
But it’s not all business for Thomas. There’s a lot of fun involved, too.
“I love that The Wedding Singer is our first musical of the school year. I’m having a blast, because I went to high school in the 80s, and a lot of the music is 80s, and the dances are 80s, and the language is 80s, so it’s kind of like taking me back to high school, so it’s fun and nostalgic for me,” Thomas said.
Choosing the play is only a small part of Thomas’s job. The audition process is always the next step. Students interested in playing a leading role had to do sixteen bars of an ’80s song with karaoke accompaniment. They also had to go to the dance audition and they also had to do an audition reading from the script.
Once the show was cast, rehearsals started. Walking into the auditorium right after school, you’ll see Thomas working hard with the rest of the crew and actors to ensure the Broadway musical is done justice.
“We rehearse from right after school until about 7,” Thomas said. “From 2:30 to 3 they do a rigorous dance warm-up, then at 3 we move to choreography, and/or scene work and/or music, depending on what scene they’re in. We use the chorus room, we use the class portable, and we use the auditorium. We also started working on scenery and stagecraft, so everybody’s working on different things until 7. The week of premiere night, we will be here until 9. We also sometimes work on weekends.”
Jerel Brown, the play’s choreographer, knows Thomas well. When she taught at Piper High before coming to Cooper City High, he was one of her students. Brown may be the choreographer, but he does more than just choreograph.
“I help out with casting, I talk to the set designer so I can work around their pieces so we don’t have dancers in different areas where they can’t be seen. I also talk to the musical director to find out if a song is going to be shorter or longer than the original, and I work with the actors and the crew,” Brown said.
Although stressful at times, Brown finds the job more of an enjoyment than anything else.
“I love my job. I enjoy doing this, I’ve been doing this for 5 or 6 years now, but this isn’t the only school I’ve worked with. I’ve worked with other schools in Broward County and also in the Palm Beach area,” Brown said.
While Thomas and Brown will be backstage at showtime, sophomore Halle Kilman will be on it.
Kilman has been in two other plays here at Cooper City High (West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet), but makes her premiere as a leading lady in The Wedding Singer.
“I feel very excited and very fortunate that I did get the lead,” Kilman said. “It didn’t really matter which role I got, but I was very happy when I found out I got the part of Julia.”
Kilman is also very excited to work with senior Nate Promkul as her co-lead Robbie.
“We’re really good friends, so I’m psyched we get to work together on this play,” Kilman said.
The drama department has been working hard to ensure that The Wedding Singer will both impress the audience and do the play justice, and Thomas, Brown, Kilman and the rest of the cast and crew are looking forward to it all to start on October 10th.
