Chase Kniffen Named Artistic Associate

Posted by Bruce Miller
Beginning today (Monday, July 27), Chase Kniffen rejoins the staff at Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV. His new position will be that of Artistic Associate. As such, he will provide leadership to various projects. Among other things, he will supervise our participation in the Grand Opening performance at CenterStage, and direct our Spring 2010 production of The Sound of Music.

Chase first worked at Theatre IV when he was 9 years old, appearing as a Munchkin in our second production of The Wizard of Oz. Since then, he has performed in numerous shows here, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tuck Everlasting, The Secret Garden, Sing Down the Moon, and The Big Adventures of Stuart Little (all at Theatre IV), plus Olympus on My Mind, Annie Get Your Gun, Anything Goes, James Joyce's The Dead, and Mame (all at Barksdale).

Chase starred as John Darling in the Broadway production of Peter Pan, with Cathy Rigby. He later attended the professional musical theatre conservatory program at Broadway’s Circle in the Square. After leaving New York, Chase worked on our staff for several years, first as an intern and then as Special Projects Manager.

During that time, Chase began his professional directing career here with a workshop production of Godspell in the Little Theatre. He next directed our revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, followed by our two Greater Richmond High School All Star Musicals--summer productions of Grease and Disney's High School Musical, both coproduced by and performed at Steward School. He tried his hand at several tours, plus the Empire run of The True Story of Pocahontas. In 2007, he directed his last mainstage show with us, A Christmas Story, Theatre IV's holiday offering at the historic Empire Theatre.

Chase left Barksdale and Theatre IV in April 2008 to found Stage 1, the highly acclaimed theatre company that recently completed a successful season producing new American musicals. At Stage 1, he produced and directed tick, tick, ...BOOM, Children's Letters to God, Normal, and The Summer of '42. Throughout his year at Stage 1, Chase’s ties to Barksdale and Theatre IV have remained strong.

We are pleased to welcome Chase back to the team. As Richmond’s leading professional theatre, we believe it is our responsibility to provide professional opportunities to Greater Richmond’s best and brightest theatrical talents. We are glad that Chase’s artistic vision, energy and leadership abilities will help to shape the future of our nonprofit company.

--Bruce Miller

Delightful, Delectable, D'Beck

Posted by Bruce Miller
I’m going to be writing a lot about Guys and Dolls this summer, so where to begin? Last night’s Opening was fantastic. The critics will weigh in with their opinions on Monday and thereafter, and if we don’t win some significant raves, I’ll be really surprised. Suffice it say Phil and I are very pleased.

No one deserves credit for the wonderful production more than our brilliant leader Patti D’Beck. A veteran of numerous Broadway musicals, Patti knows what makes a show tick. Her staging and choreography are fun, inventive and rousing. She knows how to make her performers look good, choreographing to their strengths. She knows the traditions and styles that make an American classic like Guys blow the roof off the house. And she delivers the goods with her personal flair, leaving the audience begging for more.

So just how major of a Broadway bigwig is Patti? Consider this. Her credits as associate choreographer, supervisor, dance captain and actor include the original Broadway productions of Applause with Lauren Bacall, A Chorus Line, Seesaw, Pippin with Ben Vereen, Evita, The Will Rogers Follies, My One and Only with Twiggy and Tommy Tune, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, as well as acclaimed recent revivals of Annie Get Your Gun with Bernadette Peters, Bells Are Ringing with Faith Prince, and Grease. I missed the last two; otherwise I saw and loved them all.

Best of all—and I do mean “best of all” even though this admirable trait will never be seen by the audience, at least not directly—Patti is nice. Make that NICE!! Patti has a resume that would give most people a head the size of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon. And yet she has no ego—at least none that she puts on display.

She is friendly, always smiling and well spoken, consistently positive, and an incredible team player who seeks and welcomes input from her colleagues. She’s a tireless model of professionalism. She aims to please, but she’s not needy. She’s respectful—respectful of each of her performers (knowing and appreciating where they are in their careers), respectful of our staff (understanding and even welcoming the reality that a company like Barksdale has limitations), and respectful of her producers.

On a show like Guys and Dolls, Phil and I work our hindquarters off, but it’s almost all behind the scenes. Patti gets it. I can’t remember the last time a Broadway veteran made a point to tell me, as Patti graciously did last night, how much she respected what it takes to run a major professional theatre in Richmond.

Guys is a HUGE show for us. Shoot, Guys is a huge show for any theatre. I think you’ll agree when you see it. Patti is able to make all the puzzle pieces fit. Because of her exemplary skill set and her winning personality, we made it to Opening Night with everyone feeling like part of a loving, supportive family. That’s a talent you won’t read about in reviews, but take my word for it, it’s exceptional.

I can’t wait to work with Patti again, should I be so lucky.

And if YOU have any sense, call and make your reservations for Guys and Dolls today. We think it’s going to be a blockbuster. It’s like Broadway on Broad Street—a wonderful evening in the theatre! I hope to see you there.

--Bruce Miller

What is the BTW? (Barksdale Theatre Workshop)

Posted by Bruce Miller
A respondent to the previous post about TenSpot tickets made a good comment. "Hi. I'm confused. I understand the high school ticket rate; that's great. But what is the Barksdale Theatre Workshop? Is it really some type of free workshop for high school students?? Thank you."

Great question. I'm posting the answer here rather than in the comment section so that it can be seen by more people.

The BTW (Barksdale Theatre Workshop) is our outreach program designed to improve our service to high school students who love theatre. Through the BTW, we create opportunities for young actors, directors and designers to become more interested in and more connected with Barksdale Theatre.

The word “workshop” has two definitions. Quoting Merriam-Webster, a workshop is:
· “a small establishment where manufacturing or handicrafts are carried on, and
· a usually brief intensive educational program for a relatively small group of people that focuses especially on techniques and skills in a particular field.”
To help us create the BTW, we turned to our best resource, the talented and committed high school teachers who direct the drama programs in schools throughout our community. In the fall of 2005, we invited these drama teachers to Barksdale Theatre at Willow Lawn to discuss what Barksdale should be doing to serve their programs and their students. They identified five areas where we could have a positive and much needed impact. These five areas are the five components of the BTW.

In priority order, the recommendations of the teachers were:

1. Stage a summer production in which our community’s best high school theatre students could perform with Richmond’s major professional theatre. The program should be open to high school actors from all programs and backgrounds. Students should be able to audition for and participate in the program without charge. Rehearsals should be at night so that those students who needed to hold down summer jobs could participate. No other program, at that time, was filling that need. In partnership with The Steward School, we filled it, with Grease in 2006 and Disney’s High School Musical in 2007 (pictured throughout this article).

2. Create a discount program that allows high school students to come to plays at Barksdale Theatre for $10 each. The BTW TenSpot program now fills this need.

3. Create an externship that allows students interested in the performing arts to meet in a small group with our community’s top theatre, music and dance professionals in an after-school program for academic credit, learning firsthand about careers in the performing arts. In partnership with the CenterStage Foundation we have created and now operate the SOAR program (Student Opportunities in the ARts) to fill this need.

4. Expand our website to create a place where high school students can post information about the productions they’re working on and share their theatre interest with other high school drama enthusiasts—a community-wide high school theatre bulletin board. If you go to the Students section on the Barksdale website, you’ll find the pages where we’re filling that need. We’ve also created an interactive FaceBook page that hundreds of high school drama students access and contribute to each week.

5. Create Master Classes led by Greater Richmond’s best actors, directors, designers etc. and make those classes available on tour to individual drama classrooms in Greater Richmond's high schools. Also, conduct Master Classes in our theatre facilities so that students can access them on their own. We’re planning for our Master Class program to be in place by the beginning of the 2008-09 school year. The Master Classes will be unique, not duplicative of other programs currently existing in the community, such as (in alpha order) Christian Youth Theatre, HATTheatre and/or SPARC—all of which we support.

If you or someone you know is a high school theatre lover, we hope you’ll make sure they know about the BTW (Barksdale Theatre Workshop). For more information, they can email or call Chase Kniffen, 783-1688 ext. 14.

--Bruce Miller

Bidding Bye Bye to "Birdie"

Posted by Bruce Miller

I was sad to be out of town (or otherwise engaged) during the recent run of Bye Bye Birdie at Dogwood Dell. The original "rock ‘n’ roll musical" was performed six times from August 3 until 11 as the grand finale in the Dell’s 51st annual Festival of the Arts, produced by Richmond’s Dept. of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities. From all reports, it was a huge success, attracting, I’ve been told, the largest Dell crowds in a decade.

Bye Bye Birdie won the Best Musical Tony in 1961, and put Charles Strouse on the road to earn the Broadway legend status he enjoys today. Charles has quite a few Richmond connections, and that’s one reason I really wanted to see Birdie. But more about that in a future blog entry.

The main reason I wanted to see Birdie was to enjoy the work of all of my friends who were involved in the production.

The show was directed by Tony Sharpenstein, a fine fellow who co-starred in a production of The Prince and the Pauper that I directed years ago at Theatre IV—a production I remember fondly. It would have been my first time seeing Tony’s work as a director, so I’m really sorry that my schedule didn't allow me to attend.

I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know who choreographed, music directed and/or designed Bye Bye Birdie. The press releases that I can find on line simply don't list that information. If someone wants to leave me that info in a comment, I’d appreciate it.

Among Birdie's adult cast, Robert Fuhrman is an alum of Barksdale’s Where’s Charley?, David Janosik appeared as a child in Theatre IV’s Charley and the Chocolate Factory, Dee Lynch co-starred in Theatre IV’s production of Cowgirls and music directed Barksdale’s productions of The Full Monty and Anything Goes, and Terri Moore was wonderful in that same production of The Prince and the Pauper that I mentioned earlier.

Among the young people in the Birdie cast, Charlie Dacus recently dazzled me with his backbends in Theatre IV’s The Wizard of Oz; Ryan Lynch, Hannah Martin and Liz Van’t Reit were a joy to direct in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (also at Theatre IV); and Sarah Pruden, Robert Watkins and Chris Withers simply knocked my socks off in last summer’s Greater Richmond High School All Star Musical, Grease, co-produced by Barksdale Theatre and The Steward School.

I'm told that Robbie Fuhrman and Sarah Pruden were terrific as the leads in Birdie, playing Albert Peterson and Kim McAfee, respectively, so I’m especially sorry to have missed their performances.

Anyway, I’m proud of all our Theatre IV and Barksdale veterans, and look forward to the next time when I’ll be able to catch them on stage. If Birdie was half as good as friends told me it was, you all did a GREAT job.

--Bruce Miller

The Greater Richmond H S All Star Robe

Posted by Bruce Miller
What do the first two Greater Richmond High School All Star Musicals (Grease and Disney’s High School Musical) have in common? Well, lots of things. But even after noting the similarities in plot, characters and tone, one is struck by the central theme running through the final number of both shows.

“We go together,” the entire cast of Grease sings at show’s end, “Like rama lama lama ke ding a de ding a dong. Remembered forever, like shoo bop shoo wadda wadda yipitty boom de boom. Chang chang chang-it-ty chang shoo bop, That’s the way it should be!”

And from Disney’s High School Musical …

“Together, together, together everyone

Together, together, come on let’s have some fun

Together, we’re there for each other every time

Together, together, come on let’s do this right

Here and now its time for celebration

I finally figured it out

That all our dreams have no limitations

That's what it’s all about

Everyone is special in their own way

We make each other strong

We’re not the same

We’re different in a good way

Together's where we belong

We're all in this together

Once we know that we are
We're all stars and we see that

We're all in this together

And it shows when we stand hand in hand

Make our dreams come true”

Last summer, the company of Grease began a tradition at their closing night party to recognize the togetherness that existed among them, and to pass that spirit of unity on to the cast of the Greater Richmond High School All Star Musical 2007. They each wrote a signed message of best wishes onto a cardboard tag, and pinned them all onto the turquoise silk robe worn by Sarah Pruden in the show.

Each member of the company who had graduated and was leaving high school behind (Tyler Adams, Deejay Gray, Claire Harvey, Andy Nestor, Emily Perkins, Sarah Pruden, Steven Ralph, Robert Watkins and Chris Withers) put on the robe and circled the cast. Finally, a pink poodle representing Grease was sewn onto the robe before it was returned to costume storage for the long cold winter.

This year, on Opening Night of Disney’s High School Musical, the Robe, now aged in a year’s worth of love and good will (thereby earning the right to spell its name with a capital R), was presented to Suzanne Spicer, the actor in the ensemble who had reached the highest grade level and enjoyed the most experience in previous editions of the Greater Richmond High School All Star Musical. Suzanne put on the Robe, and, before the show, visited each company member throughout the theatre, inviting them to connect with the Robe (and the spirit it represents) for good luck. They all did. Dave Amadee buried his face in the darn thing.

OPENING NIGHT WAS A HUGE SUCCESS! Following the final performance of Disney’s High School Musical next Sunday, the entire company will be invited again to create personal expressions of best wishes and pin them onto the Robe as a gesture of support for next summer’s cast. A three-dimensional symbol of High School Musical will be sewn onto the Robe also, so that the Grease poodle won’t have to spend another winter alone.

Then, next July, another cast of talented High School All Stars will take their turn on the stage and in the Robe.

As Stephanie Carr, last summer’s Rizzo, wrote on her tag: “Appreciate this opportunity with all of your heart. You make one-of-a-kind friends and walk away with unforgettable memories. HAVE FUN. Break a leg.”

“We’re all in this together.” “That’s the way it should be.”

--Bruce Miller

In Memoriam: Paul R. Cramer Sr.

We are saddened to note the passing this week of Paul R. Cramer, namesake of the Paul R. Cramer Center for the Arts at Steward School, home of our current production of Disney’s High School Musical. The crew dimmed the lights on Friday evening in Mr. Cramer’s honor, and we will be dedicating The Member of the Wedding, our fall production at Barksdale Willow Lawn, to his memory.

We didn’t know Mr. Cramer well; we met him only once. When Barksdale Theatre and Steward School first revived the Greater Richmond High School All Star Musical last summer, Mr. Cramer attended our co-production of Grease. He told us how proud he was to see talented students from all over metro Richmond coming together to create a citywide musical in the theatre that bore his name.

Mr. Cramer came to Richmond and Steward School in 1975, leaving his Massachusetts home to dedicate the rest of his life to building and enriching the Steward School family and campus. When he arrived, Steward had one building and 203 students K – 10. After 19 years of Mr. Cramer’s exemplary leadership, Steward School is today a cornerstone of metro Richmond’s educational community, boasting an enrollment of 615 in grades K – 12, five academic buildings, a thriving athletic campus, and one of Virginia’s most impressive theatre facilities.

The first thing Mr. Cramer did when he came to Steward was to invigorate the curriculum by placing a new emphasis on the arts, music and theatre. It was in recognition of this visionary commitment that the magnificent theatre at the Cramer Center was built and named in Mr. Cramer’s honor.

Mr. Cramer’s legacy will live on at Steward for decades to come. Each summer, 30 to 50 high school theatre students from throughout Central Virginia will come together and benefit greatly from the arts programs that he fostered and sustained.

The student participants in the 2007 production of the Greater Richmond High School All Star Musical come from 20 different high schools and home school programs, and live in 18 different zip codes. Virtually all of them come from schools without theatre facilities that approach the Cramer Center’s level of professionalism. Mr. Cramer’s legacy will continue to benefit not only students like these, but also tens of thousands of cheering theatre fans, young and old, who come to see them perform.

With his family and friends, we at Barksdale Theatre mourn Mr. Cramer’s passing. We also celebrate with them the many great things that have been brought into being by Mr. Cramer’s dedication and hard work. His life has made, and will continue making, an undying contribution to the entire student body of all of Greater Richmond.

--Bruce Miller

Barksdale and Friends

Barksdale recently joined Facebook to promote free programs on offer for students and to get their feedback. Maintaining the page is giving me an education in the ease of the latest social networking applications.

I’m a Generation Xer, born in 1970. I remember downloading short movie clips at 24kb and getting excited the next morning when one was finally on my Apple2e, and I could watch a minute of grainy mush. But these days, if there’s something the younger Gen Y can’t Google in a sec, Wikipedia will at least tell them what it is. Social networking sites like Facebook allow them (and anyone else who’s game) to create a page where friends can write and add photos, video, music and more, and where their content updates so fast that a blog with one post a day looks achingly slow by comparison.

150,000 members a day are joining Facebook, and hours after Barksdale joined, we were loaded with friends who've been associated with us through the Greater Richmond High School All-Star Musicals. I added a large album of Disney’s High School Musical photos for the cast, crew, parents and fans. I started to add an event listing for HSM at The Steward School, but the cast had already done it, and they had hundreds of confirmed RSVPs responding to an exponentially increasing number of invites; word of mouth spreads quickly.

But it’s not just High School Musical information on offer at our new Facebook home. Our blog posts are imported automatically, and more importantly I get a chance to promote Barksdale Theatre Workshop events. BTW is a community-wide initiative designed to establish new connections between Barksdale and high school theatre lovers. It began in 2005 when Bruce Miller and Chase Kniffen met with a group of area high school drama teachers to find out what they thought would be of use to them and to their students.

Current high school students can join BTW for free (by emailing Chase at c.kniffen@barksdalerichmond.org) and as members, they can purchase $10 tickets to special Saturday matinee performances. Members are also invited to attend Play On!, a discussion series featuring our leading professional theatre artists - and pizza - free of charge. Both the discounted matinees and Play On! Discussions were recommendations from area educators.

Facebook gives us an extra chance to introduce this program to students, and it’s also a great place to promote local high school productions (another teacher suggestion) like Chicago, opening at Godwin tonight! The students already created the event; all I had to do was click, and it posted itself on the Barksdale Facebook page… Things are so easy these days.

Barksdale’s Facebook page (a shortened page will be visible to those who are not yet friends)

Jessica Daugherty
Internet Services

Chicago Goes to Edinburgh via Short Pump

Posted by Bruce Miller

The Mills E. Godwin High School Drama Department, under the direction of Mac Damron, is taking their new production of the Broadway musical Chicago to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh Scotland this August. But before they go—and to raise funds that will help them to get there—the school is presenting two performances here in Richmond for the general public.

Now here’s the sad part. I knew the shows were this week, but I thought they were Thursday and Friday or Friday and Saturday. In preparation for writing this blog post, I actually read the fine print on their flyer. The two Richmond performances are Tuesday (tonight) and Friday.

So, it’s too late to catch tonight’s show, unless you want to hot foot it over to Godwin and enjoy the curtain call. But there’s still time to get your tickets for Friday evening’s performance!

Of special note, this Godwin production stars Caron Sinnenberg as Roxie. Caron played Fern with Theatre IV in Charlotte’s Web, and last summer appeared in the ensemble of Grease, co-produced by Barksdale Theatre and Steward School. Also featured in the Godwin production are three other Barksdale and Theatre IV alum: Grace Adams and P J Llewellyn from Grease, and Marissa Vermillera from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

The Friday performance costs $16 at the door, or tickets can be purchased in advance in the Godwin H S Commons, noon to 2 pm, everyday now through Friday. The show takes place at Godwin H S, 2101 Pump Road. Curtain time is 7:30.

It should be a great show, and a great chance to support more of Metro Richmond’s student actors. All of us at Disney’s High School Musical send a big "Break a Leg" to our friends in Chicago!

--Bruce Miller

"High School Musical" Megamix

I know I’m beginning to wear out my welcome, if there ever was a welcome, with these endless blog entries about Disney’s High School Musical. It’s a big show, and it’s important to me to give every kid his or her due. So, with respect and appreciation, I’m going to zip through the final ten actors who make our “megamix” of a cast so mix-worthy.

T J Otey is a rising junior at New Kent H S—quite a few of these kids have been dealing with a loooooong commute to be a part of this show. T J is the one who gives a quiet and slightly tone deaf audition in the audition scene, prompting Ms. Darvus to admire his tennis shoes and suggest that he help out with costumes.

Amanda O’Toole is a rising junior at Atlee H S, and she studies dance at Shuffles Dance Studio. She appeared in Pippin with SPARC, and is rallying pep as one of our cheerleaders.

Johanna Reckenbeil is in the a cappella and show choir at Godwin, and she studies dance at Richmond Dance Center, but this is her first theatrical production. She plays one of our “brainiacs,” and adds persuasive hand motions to that section of Counting on You when they sing about Rosa Parks.

Kristin Ricca is back for a second summer, having played Cha Cha last summer in Grease. There’s a really great photo of Kristin dancing with Robert Watkins, last summer’s charming Danny Zuko, about six blog posts back. Kristin is a rising junior at Deep Run H S, and a proud alum of Christian Youth Theatre and the Latin Ballet of Virginia.

Zack Rogers is also a returnee from Grease, and a rising junior at Thomas Dale H S. He has two stand-out moments in the show. He gives an ear wrenching vocal performance in the audition scene, and he finds surprising depth in the movements of a worm.

Andrea Ross is our third Grease alum in a row. She is a rising sophomore at Henrico H S’s Center for the Arts. In the audition scene, she belts out the song like a soulful American Idol contestant.
Hali E. Russell just graduated from Varina H S, and is pleased to be in her first musical. She appears as the “brainiac” who loves hip-hop.

Ariel Spagnolo is a rising junior at Deep Run H S, where she recently played Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. She’s one of our beautiful cheerleaders, and lends her acrobatic skills to several musical numbers.

Suzanne Spicer was the one that we wanted last summer, playing Sandy in Grease. She just graduated from Godwin H S, and credits much of her theatrical success to her twelve years as a student at HATTheatre.

Molly Underwood will soon be a senior in the Math and Science High School at Clover Hill. So of course she’s playing a skater babe in DHSM.

As Porky Pig would say at the end of a Looney Toons cartoon, “Th – th – th - that’s all folks!” Since I’m feeling pretty loony myself right about now, I’ll leave it at that. All of us at Barksdale and Steward are proud of everyone associated with Disney’s High School Musical. I hope you’ll make it a point to stop by in the next two weeks and take in their show.

--Bruce Miller

Another Ten Bop to the Top in "DHSM"

My daughter and I just returned from seeing SPARC’s summer production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Firehouse Theatre. A large group from Disney’s High School Musical went to today’s matinee and had a terrific time. SPARC has pulled together a GREAT cast—9 impressive actors with exceptional talent! Five are VCU students, two are current or recent students at Meadowbrook H S, and two are adults. These great actors deserve their own blog post, and I’ll try to write one in the next few days.

In this entry, let me continue recognizing the exceptional high school students who sing and dance their hearts out in Disney’s High School Musical.

Alex Godschalk just graduated from Steward, so in DHSM he has the home court advantage. He makes the most of it. Alex plays one of the "brainiacs," and he has a great moment when the character of Chad congratulates him with a high five, compelling Alex's character to transform from an up-tight academician to a hip-hop savvy homeboy. It’s one of the biggest laughs of the evening. Next fall Alex will be beginning his tenure as a theatre major at Elon.

Julia Greer is one of our wonderful cheerleaders. Chase, K and Sherri have done a great job creating a cheerleading unit that functions as a team, not as a group of individuals. So it’s hard for me to help you pick out Julia from the rest of her clique, all of whom pretty much dress, move and smile alike, just like they're supposed to. Julia is a rising freshman at Collegiate, and appeared with SPARC last summer in Dear Edwina.

B J Gruber is our heartthrob skater dude who secretly longs to play the cello. He participates in the drama program at Godwin H S, and is the only cast member to start the show off on wheels.

Christie Jackson just graduated from high school and is looking forward to beginning her theatre studies next fall at Madison. If you take note of the skilled acrobat with red hair, you’re noting Christie.

Charles Johnson is a rising senior at Highland Springs H S and received his vocal training with The Greater Richmond Children’s Choir. He’s on our basketball team in DHSM, and enjoying all that dribbling in Getcha Head in the Game.

Kouryn Lupino is a rising senior at Godwin H S, and attended the Center for the Arts at Henrico H S for two years in the musical theatre program. She’s pretty irresistible on stage, and you’ll recognize her as the one who wears a knit cap over her long dark hair.

Hannah Miller is a rising junior at Trinity H S and a returnee from our cast of Grease last summer. She recently appeared in The Wizard of Oz at Theatre IV, and takes dance at the Richmond Dance Center. You’ll spot her in DHSM as the one who is directed to “be the bear” in drama class, and has a beaming smile throughout the ensemble numbers.

Dylan Moon is a proud member of our second pair of siblings, a distinction he shares with his big brother Zac. Last summer, Dylan played the son, Nathan, in The Full Monty at Barksdale Willow Lawn. Last winter he was a floating head in Flowers for Algernon at Swift Creek Mill.

Na’imah Nelson spent her freshman year at the Center for the Arts at Henrico H S, and will soon be a sophomore at Hermitage H S. She received additional training from the Richmond City Dance Theatre, and is pleased to have joined the cheer squad in DHSM.

Paul Newell is a rising junior at Deep Run H S and is a proud alum of Christian Youth Theatre. You can identify Paul as the referee in the climactic basketball game at the end of our show.

And that brings me to the end of this entry. There’s more to come soon regarding the final ten talented teens in our High School Musical entourage. Each one is worth applauding, and we're blessed that all of them have agreed to be in the show.

--Bruce Miller

Meet More "High School Musical" All Stars

One of the interesting things about blogs is that when you write them, the most recent posting appears on top. So if you’re writing a series of six, and you post each part as soon as it’s finished, Part II will appear above Part I, and Part III will appear above Part II, etc. Readers who come along two days later will, most likely, start reading from the top and scroll their way down. So the reading experience can often feel like you’re starting at the back of the book and working your way forward.

Anyway, this is my fourth entry about last night’s triumphant opening of Disney’s High School Musical, and it makes a crazy sort of sense to read my ruminations in reverse order. After all, this is the post where I start boasting about the uber talented ensemble—the 29 gifted kids who aren’t playing the leads. In many ways, the ensemble is the star of the show.

One of our goals with the Greater Richmond High School All Star Musical is to give kids from throughout the Metro Richmond area a chance to work with and get to know each other. The 39 kids who started out in Disney’s High School Musical (we’re now down to 38 due to the departure of one actor who couldn’t make it to rehearsals on time) live in 19 different zip codes!

Our diverse talent pool includes (in alpha order):

Kristen Barney, a rising junior at Deep Run H S, is an accomplished veteran of Christian Youth Theatre and appeared with us last summer as Patty Simcox in Grease. When you see Disney’s High School Musical, Kristen is the beautiful blond who shows off her legit soprano, with exaggeration, in the audition number.

Emlyn Crenshaw, a rising freshman at Maggie Walker Governor’s School (keep your eyes open for this one, Grant), brilliantly played the role of Scout in Barksdale’s To Kill a Mockingbird. At Theatre IV, Emlyn appeared in A Christmas Carol, Honk!, Snow White and the …, and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Emlyn is the tiny one who’s accomplished dancing will catch your eye front-and-center with the cheerleaders.

Gray Crenshaw—the other half of one of our two sibling pairs—is a rising senior at Freeman H S, where she played Zaneeta in The Music Man and Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods. Last summer, Gray brought down the house with us as Frenchie in Grease. In DHSM, she’s the one girl who appears incognito as a boy in Getcha Head in the Game.

D J Cummings, a rising senior at Deep Run H S, is a vet of CYT and his high school drama department. Last summer he worked as a production assistant with a professional children’s theatre company in NYC. In the audition scene, he’s the third of the three bohemians, clad all in black. He gets his big laugh by spouting a garble of dolphin noises (or is it a nervous giggle?) for his vocal audition.

Dwayne A. Daniels II, a rising senior at Varina H S, is an active member of his school’s show choir. Dwayne has a stand-out moment during Getcha Head in the Game, sharing a duet with Andrew Schappacher, rapping “And Troy boy Troy be cuttin’ de net.” And on the title page of the script, Disney credits 13 people as lyricists.

Peter Davis is a rising sophomore at Godwin H S, where he knocked us dead as Wally in The 1940s Radio Hour and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. If you want to identify Peter, he’s the skater dude who asks if you have to wear a costume to play the cello, and when he hears about the coat and tie, replies, “That’s uncalled for!” From off-stage, he also shouts “Come on, Wildcats,” the first line in the show.

Kelsey Donner is a rising sophomore at Westminster Academy. She just appeared at the Firehouse in RED, and is an alum of the training programs at Richmond Ballet and Bon Air Dance, and the summer theatre program at Luther Memorial. A petite blond dancer, Kelsey is one of our outstanding cheerleaders and a particularly limber gymnast in Stick to the Status Quo.

Rachel Dozier is about to begin her senior year at Godwin. She’s the second black-clad bohemian in the audition scene. Dylan Moon speak-sings “It’s hard to believe…” and Rachel continues that thought, speak-singing “…that I couldn’t see,” immediately followed by D J Cummings and his dolphin noises (or are they the blips that R2D2 would make when his hard drive is getting fried?)

Patrick Dunnevant just graduated from Godwin, and will be majoring in music composition next year at Belmont University in Nashville. In the show, he’s one of our basketball playing jocks, and during the Counting on You locker room scene, he shouts out the name of basketball legend “Thunderclap Hap Haddon.”

It’s a good thing that the magnificent Cramer Center at Steward School has such a large stage. We need it to accommodate our overwhelming overflow of talent. To learn more about the remaining twenty All Stars, scroll up!

--Bruce Miller

Greater Richmond H S Musical Returns

During the first year of Theatre IV, 1975-76, our nonprofit company took in either $14,000 or $17,000 during the entire 12-month fiscal year. For some reason I can’t remember which of those two figures is correct. What I do remember is that every penny of that gross revenue went to pay bills, including very meager salaries for everyone except Phil and me. Phil and I didn’t earn any salary from Theatre IV for the first three years.

We earned our living during those salad days waiting tables and acting (I mention waiting tables first cause that’s where the money was) at the Haymarket Dinner Theatre and Swift Creek Mill Playhouse. We talked about waiting some at Barksdale, but, if memory serves, we never actually did. We acted there, but I don’t think we waited there.

We also worked the midnight cash control shift at King’s Dominion during the summers, collecting and counting money, mostly late at night. And I worked as the Drama Director at Collegiate Schools. I didn’t teach any classes, but I directed Barefoot in the Park, Carousel, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, As You Like It, No No Nanette, and Seven Keys to Baldpate. Phil and Lynn Keeton helped with choreography on the two musicals.

There were several wonderfully talented students who played major roles in more than one of those plays, including Page Bauder, Beth Freeman, Meg Hardt, Bill Hickock, Tommy Kastenbaum, Steve Kelly and Mary Lloyd Sinnott.

I remember all of them loving theatre and wishing there were some summer opportunities. In 1977, the Richmond Department of Recreation and Parks provided just such an opportunity. They produced the Greater Richmond High School All Star Musical at Dogwood Dell. In ’77, it was Kismet. It starred Steve Kelly. I remember that Phil and I went to see it, and we were so proud of Steve we could hardly stand it.

Immediately after that summer, I stopped working at Collegiate (my Theatre IV responsibilities were getting to be too much), and the Dell stopped producing the Greater Richmond High School All Star Musical. The two stoppages were not related.

Throughout the nearly 30 years that followed, Phil and I wanted to start once again a summer program that allowed high school drama kids from throughout the entire community to have the chance to audition for and work together on a summer musical that would showcase all their talents. We wanted to revive the Greater Richmond High School All Star Musical, that terrific community-wide program from the past.

Until last summer, the only similar opportunities that existed were available only to those kids who could afford to pass on a summer day job to attend daytime rehearsals, and, in most cases, pay several hundred dollars in tuition to be in the show. And many of the leads in the shows that existed were actually played not by high school kids, but by adult professionals and/or college theatre majors.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the programs that existed, and everything right with them. They were terrific programs. But they weren’t free, community-wide programs like that fondly remembered production of Kismet at Dogwood Dell.

In the fall of '05, Chase Kniffen and I met with a group of high school drama teachers from throughout Greater Richmond and asked what Barksdale Theatre could do to support their students. No surprise, the number one unfilled need mentioned by these teachers was this: as Metro Richmond’s major professional theatre, wouldn’t it be great if Barksdale could produce a musical every summer in which high school kids could all act together free-of-charge, with evening rehearsals so that kids who needed to could hold down day jobs.

Two days after this meeting, Craig Smith and Andy Mudd, who head the great theatre program at Steward School, called Chase to ask if Barksdale would be interested in filling this unmet need by starting exactly such a program in partnership with Steward School. Barksdale would fill the production responsibilities, and Steward would provide the facility.

That’s how Greater Richmond’s High School All Star Musical came back into being. Last summer we produced Grease at Steward’s fantastic Cramer Center--show photos are included above. This year we will be producing Disney’s High School Musical, opening day after tomorrow, with a cast of 38 wonderfully talented high school students from 20 different schools. Two supporting roles will be played by adults—Kathy Halenda and Michael Hawke.

We hope you’ll support this vital, community-wide program. In many ways, it’s a dream come true. We’re proud to be partnering with Steward School, and we hope you’ll join us at the theatre to see many of Richmond’s finest kids in action.

--Bruce Miller