{"id":5587,"date":"2020-03-05T14:55:34","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T19:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=5587"},"modified":"2020-03-06T10:34:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T15:34:04","slug":"say-hello-to-bye-bye-birdie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=5587","title":{"rendered":"Say \u201cHello\u201d to Bye, Bye Birdie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neya Kidambi \u201822
\nEE<\/em> Features Editor<\/p>\n

After nineteen years, Bye, Bye Birdie will be coming back to the Robert E. McCarthy Theatre this spring, as the THeSpians prepare for their twenty-second production with Mrs. Jessica Spillane as director. Alongside Mrs. Spillane, producer Mrs. Shannon Bolan and technical director Mr. Matthew Bracksieck help guide around seventy-five cast and crew members to a successful production.<\/p>\n

Inspired by rockstar Elvis Presley\u2019s selection in the 1953 U.S. Army draft, Bye, Bye Birdie is a high energy, light-hearted show from the 1960s that tells the story of Conrad Birdie (Rob Goldstein \u201820), an adored rock-and-roll idol who gets drafted into the U.S. Army. Birdie\u2019s agent, Albert Peterson (Nathan Ayotte \u201822), and Birdie\u2019s on-again-off-again girlfriend, Rosie Alverez (Caroline Marchetti \u201821), plan a farewell performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, where they hope to sell Birdie\u2019s new song \u201cOne Last Kiss\u201d and ultimately save Albert\u2019s record studio from going under. At the end of his performance, Birdie will actually give \u201cone last kiss\u201d to Kim MacAfee (Ella Miller \u201821), an avid fan.<\/p>\n

However, as Albert and Rosie prepare for Birdie\u2019s big final performance, things do not go as smoothly as planned; Kim\u2019s father becomes starstruck at the thought of being on television, and Kim\u2019s new boyfriend becomes jealous of Kim kissing Birdie on television.<\/p>\n

As the story continues with these preparations for Birdie\u2019s departure, the audience is serenaded with many other hit songs besides \u201cOne Last Kiss,\u201d including \u201cPut on a Happy Face,\u201d \u201cOne Boy,\u201d \u201cA Lot of Livin\u2019 to Do,\u201d \u201cKids!\u201d and \u201cRosie,\u201d all accompanied with a live orchestra.
\nThe following is an interview between sophomore Neya Kidambi and Director Mrs. Spillane on the trials and travails of the play:<\/p>\n

Neya: How many students are contributing to this year\u2019s production?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Spillane: Probably about 75, between the cast which is almost 50 in addition to the creative crew and the production team.<\/p>\n

Neya: That\u2019s impressive! So, from the director\u2019s perspective, how is the show coming along?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Spillane: It\u2019s coming along\u2026 {laughs} very well. No snow days during our production time really helps us and everyone is working very hard. We set up our schedule so that there are certain days where we work with the whole cast and then other days where we work with small groups of people. This week is our first rehearsal where the actors have to have their lines memorized.<\/p>\n

Neya: What do you think is the most difficult part about directing a THS musical and\/or this show in particular?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Spillane: Coordinating the whole thing is challenging, just because everybody that we work with is involved with other things as well. We are really trying to maintain our schedule, but still allow people time in their lives to do other things they want to do\u2014because, you know, a lot of them dance in other things, or act in other shows, or take lessons\u2014so they are getting all the skills they are using here from other places. In the last 4 weeks or so, that\u2019s when we really say, OK now is our time, we all really have to get together and be here all the time.The other thing for this particular cast is that we have a lot of new young people, and getting all the cast integrated so they get to know each other really well can be challenging. It\u2019s really important, though, and a major reason we do a musical every year.<\/p>\n

Neya: So, what\u2019s the most rewarding part?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Spillane: Probably the second thing I talked about is what\u2019s most rewarding. I love to see a show come together, but I also really love seeing the friendships that people have made\u2014 the way the cast and crew come together and get to know each other and make friends that they have for years. The other part [that I enjoy] is that we have a lot of students in leadership positions: whether it\u2019s somebody who is the dance captain, the directing assistant, the stage managers, or the people who are working with our scene and lighting designers. What\u2019s really rewarding is being able to put them in charge of things or give them something to work on and watching it come to fruition.<\/p>\n

Neya: Why did you choose Bye Bye Birdie as this year\u2019s musical?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Spillane: It\u2019s a really great show. It takes place in the 1950s, it\u2019s high energy, it\u2019s light -hearted, and those things are all a big contrast to the show that we did last year which was Chicago, a darker musical which takes place in the 1920s, and revolves around murder. We loved that show but that\u2019s one of the things we try to do when we are choosing shows. We think about the four-year experience of students, so if they were in our program for four years, what\u2019s a different mix of shows that they would get to work on. We approach it that way so that students aren\u2019t doing shows where they always experience the same thing. So that\u2019s definitely one of the things that influences our decision.<\/p>\n

Neya: What do you think is the most special part of this year\u2019s show?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Spillane: A lot of the choices that we\u2019ve made with the scenic design are really exciting. Sometimes we have a set piece that\u2019s huge and we build it on stage and it never moves and we just kind of move the scenes around it. This year the design involves pieces that move all over the stage and sometimes they get moved by crew, sometimes they get moved by actors and sometimes they change in the midst of a scene so that\u2019s something that\u2019s really exciting and creative. It\u2019s also scary because until they are built, and we start working with them, we don\u2019t really know how it\u2019s going to work. You just sort of imagine it and plan, but I think if we pull it off it\u2019s going to be really exciting, interesting and creative for people. The other part is that we have several people for whom this is the first leading role they\u2019ve had in one of our shows. It\u2019s always really exciting to see young actors take on something they haven\u2019t done before and be successful. They are working so hard and I think that will really turn into success for them.<\/p>\n

Neya: How do you think this show will add into the legacy of THS musicals?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Spillane: This is a show we actually did 19 years ago so I think it will be really exciting to hopefully welcome back some people who may have been in that show all those years ago. A couple of them have reached out and said they wanted to come. Mrs. Bolan, who is a math teacher, and our producer, was a student here when we did it last time. She was in it when she was a 10th grader\u2014 she was my student when she was here\u2014and it was only the second show I did here, so for her to be able to produce it is really exciting and fun. So that\u2019s part of it too; we don\u2019t repeat shows all that often but when we do come back around to something it\u2019s kind of like a revival.<\/p>\n

Neya: Lastly, is there something you would like to say to the THS community before opening night comes along, when it is and so on?
\nMrs. Spillane: So, we open on Friday, March 20th. We have 2 weekends of shows after that. I would encourage everybody from the THS community to come. I think it\u2019s a really great, funny show. Not only would you come out and support your friends, you will have a really good time and see what our people can do.<\/p>\n

General admission to the THeSpian\u2019s production of Bye, Bye Birdie is $18.00 and more information can be found at www.THSmusicals.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neya Kidambi \u201822 EE Features Editor After nineteen years, Bye, Bye Birdie will be coming back to the Robert E. McCarthy Theatre this spring, as the THeSpians prepare for their twenty-second production…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":5611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5587"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5613,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5587\/revisions\/5613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}