LITTLE ROCK — Chasing a dream has often been what gets people out of bed each day, especially the younger ones.
Those with theatrical dreams have been working for many an hour at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre of late, in this, the eighth season for the Rep’s Young Artists.
Singin’ on a Star, this year’s production, opens this weekend and the show is again directed by Nicole Capri, the Rep’s resident director and director of education. She has a cast of 62 this year, and the show traces its beginnings to the Summer Musical Theatre Intensive, a two-week program in which would-be thespians ages 10-23 auditioned for the musical theater experience.
“The show is very loosely based on a very tourist-y diner in New York,” Capri, also the show’s choreographer, says. “All the waiters and waitresses are all struggling actors, they’re all singing at your tables, and they’ve all been on Broadway or auditioned for Broadway. I went up there for an audition trip and decided I wanted to base the show on that. Most of this show comes out of my diary for the last 25 years.
“I feel like I’m listening to my life story up there. It’s what I went through when I lived in New York, auditioning. It’s what it’s like. It’s from personal experience and stories I’ve heard my friends tell me and a monologue [the Rep’s Producing Artistic Director] Bob Hupp told me.”
Four cast members recently gathered to describe the experience of working on the show: Calvin Chester, Zach Graham, Malik Marshall and Angela Morgan.
Chester, who is doing his fourth SMTI show, is a recent graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and has a degree in dance performance.
Graham, a senior at Little Rock Christian Academy who is doing his fourth SMTI show, sings an old standard, “Mack the Knife,” which Capri calls one of her favorite parts of the show.
“I get to sing a few songs,” says Graham, who recently returned from a year’s study in France. “I also sing a Four Seasons number from Jersey Boys, and ‘We Are Young’ at the very end.”
Marshall, a sophomore at Little Rock Central High School, also doing his fourth SMTI show, sings a song made famous by Jay-Z.
“The song is about why New York is awesome, and why people want to be there,” Marshall says.
Morgan, a college student who is making her SMTI debut, is excited about her featured musical selection.
“I get to sing ‘Girl in 14G,’ which is like the quintessential musical theater song,” she says. “It was made famous by Kristin Chenoweth. It’s about a girl who has moved into her first apartment in New York. There’s an aspiring opera singer living underneath her and an aspiring jazz singer who lives above her.”
Other songs in the show are “Empire State of Mind” and an Adele song, “Chasing Pavement,” which Capri says is interesting because actors say they are “pounding pavement” when they are looking for work. Capri thinks the model set up by the Rep for the young actors’ shows is ideal.
“The kids get to workshop the shows in the summer, not once but twice,” she says. “From audience reaction and feedback, we really fine-tune what people see in the fall. One of the reasons I wrote the show is for the parents of kids who are doing what they want to do and things may not go their way, good or bad, but it’s where they feel like they belong.”
Capri also mentions other, noncast members of the production: Mark Binns, assistant musical director and keyboardist; Allan Branson, resident sound designer and engineer; Karen Q. Clark, musical director; Shelly Hall, costume designer; Dan Kimble, lighting designer; Lynda J. Kwallek, properties designer; Mike Nichols, resident set designer and technical director; and Stacy Hawking, Marisa Kirby and Stephen K. Stone, who choreographed segments.
Capri sums up her thoughts on working with young people: “I would rather direct these kids than most of our adult shows, since they actually do what they are told!”
Singin’ on a Star
7 p.m. Friday, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Nov. 1-2 and 2 and 7 p.m. Nov. 3, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Sixth and Main streets, Little Rock
Tickets: $25; student tickets half price
(501) 378-0405
therep.org
Weekend, Pages 35 on 10/25/2012