With more and more schools cutting back on their music and arts departments, Alden High School continues to expand the arts, with massive renovations in its Theater Department in the past few years.  The cast and crew continue to grow and be challenged by the scale of Alden’s productions.  With the new technology, comes opportunities for brand new special effects, and by choosing to do more recently published productions with new music, the pit band can challenge itself as well.  In it’s most recent endeavor, the high school is producing Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

In the show, a prince is transformed into a beast (Everett Gilbert) until he can learn to love.  In his castle, his servants, including Mrs. Potts (Brooke Strausbaugh) and her child Chip (Lily Hart), Lumiere (Carl Farrell), Cogsworth (Carl Aldinger), Babette (Brooke Meyer), and Madame de la Grand Bouche (Jocelyn Borynski).  Belle (Paige Rzepka), an outsider in her town, makes a deal with the isolated Beast to hold her captive instead of her father Maurice (Sam Hopcia).  Meanwhile, the town hunk, Gaston (Dylan Kiener), is infatuated with Belle.  He and his sidekick Lefou (Ian Johnson) along with Monsieur D’Arque (Tim Hinsken) plot a way to force Belle into marriage with Gaston.  The production features large singing numbers, impressive dance breaks, and hilarious performances by the characters.

Mrs. Lori Gramza has directed and choreographed over thirty productions at Alden.  Compared to other shows she’s done, this performance’s choreography is so unique because it involves people dressed as objects such as silverware, sugar bowls, plates, salt and pepper shakers, carpets and others.  But this is an advantage for Mrs. Gramza because she prefers large scale productions like Beauty and the Beast, so she has incorporated the ensemble into as many songs as possible.  The most creative and enjoyable part of the show for Mrs. Gramza is the battle sequence which includes the entire cast fighting on stage.  Even with the massive sections of pure dancing in the songs and the “dance friendly” music, the cast and crew still need to be extremely flexible, as things will change throughout rehearsals.  The dances and movements of many of the castle characters will be dependent on the structure of the costumes.  Many of the characters’ costumes are large box-shaped outfits that restrict body movement.  Nonetheless, Mrs. Gramza is making each dance unique with tap dancers, acrobatics by Kirsten Lerner, and help with teaching characters good stage fighting techniques from Ian Johnson.

There’s significantly more girls in the cast than boys, but Mrs. Gramza, and Mrs. Jill Farrell, the Vocal Director, are making this work.  Also, overall, the cast is smaller than in other schools.  This means there is more room on stage for choreography, but less room to include all the vocal parts.  In the musical score, there are at least four vocal parts for each song.  However, Mrs. Farrell has to condense this down to three vocal parts. She still, however, includes all of the harmony written in the music by eliminating duplicated notes.

When working with the cast, Mrs. Farrell has taught them many new breathing techniques this year to help them support their singing voice and project their voice more.  This is especially important this year because the music is much faster than other shows, and there are several extended sections of high notes for the sopranos.  On top of the speed, the music includes dramatic key changes, several tempo changes, various harmonies, a lot of words and changes in the meter throughout the dance breaks.  This poses a challenge to the cast, but even more so to the pit band.  The band has only a month to perfect the music with the help of a new software that produces sounds of instruments the school doesn’t have or that won’t fit in the orchestra pit.  However, based on the past several musicals, the pit band will do a tremendous job once again.  Perhaps the largest hurdle for Mrs. Farrell to overcome is incorporating all the musical components of the show including teaching the cast difficult harmonies while still pronouncing the words, adding in dialogue and choreography to the songs, and conducting the pit band and actors simultaneously.

Since Alden last did this musical in 2007, the attendance has continued to grow despite the fact there are less people in the cast.  The community has recognized the growth in Alden High School’s Theatre Department and is supporting its local arts.  Mr. Masci, the Co-director alongside Mrs. Gramza and the Technical Director of the musical, said that attendance is increasing “partially due to the obscurity of the shows because the have never been performed at Alden before and Tarzan (2016) had not been performed in our area until our production.”

In recent years the Wilson R. Conrad Memorial Auditorium has undergone large scale improvements, including brand new lighting and sound system components.  This allows for a higher level of creativity on the technical end as well as much more control, and immensely helps the theatre department monetarily.  The school district’s generosity toward the improvements have kept Alden’s theater up-to-date and signifies the support of the arts in Alden.

The High School is continuing to incorporate more special effects into its productions.  In recent years, productions contained LED intelligent lighting, new fog systems, handheld confetti cannons, flying effects, dry ice, and CO2 cannons.  According to Mr. Masci, these effects help to immerse the audience in the full “Disney experience.”  Another aspect the high school has been noted for in recent years is its amazingly detailed sets, and this year is no exception with a running fountain, giant champagne bottles, and an entire castle complete with jail and library.

Alden High School presents Beauty and the Beast on February 9. 10, and 11 at 7:00pm each night and 2:00pm matinee on Saturday.  Tickets can be purchased online–a new component of Alden’s productions–at aldenschools.org/boxoffice.  The cost is twelve dollars.