Above: Longtime Theatre and Drama Director Alison Stafford works with a student cast member of “The Spitfire Grill.”
With the fall 2022 reorganization of the Fine and Performing Arts Department, 葫芦影业 will produce a musical at Brooks Theatre for the first time in 12 years. The musical is 鈥淭he Spitfire Grill.鈥
The Lendon Players drama department typically performs two shows a year, one in the fall semester and another in the spring, a drama and a comedy.
鈥淭his isn鈥檛 just the Lendon Players,鈥 said Theatre and Drama Director Alison Stafford, co-director of the production along with Marc Rivet. 鈥淓very aspect of the department is contributing in some way, shape or form.鈥
Also heavily involved in the production are Choir Director Andrew Head and Voice Instructor Dr. Mandy Spivak.
Rivet, who serves as musical director, came on board at 葫芦影业 in fall 2022 as the Music Industry and Piano Instructor. His background is in musical theatre and opera.
鈥淚鈥檓 in charge of all of the instrumentation, the sound and making decisions on how they should be singing, certain phrases,鈥 Rivet said. 鈥淭he way that the music is sung needs to be directly influenced by how the actors are feeling. Even though I鈥檓 mainly the music director, there鈥檚 still things that the acting plays a part in.鈥
Stafford said Rivet鈥檚 involvement is crucial to being able to produce a musical. 鈥淚 myself don鈥檛 possess enough knowledge to be able to pull this off by myself,鈥 she said. 鈥淲e decided that we wanted to start doing musicals again because we had people like Marc.鈥
Musicals are 鈥渕ore expensive to mount than a regular straight play. And with the singing is a lot more complicated,鈥 she said. 鈥淵ou have to know in advance that you鈥檝e got the right people with the right vocal quality, the right vocal ranges to be able to pull off those parts.鈥
But, Rivet said, students get much more from the musical production experience. 鈥淭here are a lot of more moving parts when it comes to a musical. So that gives the kids a lot more experience with different things that they might not have thought about or be a part of,鈥 he said.