The Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School’s first-ever musical was celebrated as a big success. Photo courtesy Elyse Rosenberg
A man-eating plant never meant so much to these Forest Hills students.
A cast of 58 8th, 9th and 10th graders capped off a successful weekend with the Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School’s first-ever musical production, “Little Shop of Horrors,” its producer said.
“This has been one of the highest levels of prolonged commitment we have seen from students in the after-school hours,” said Sarah Bever, a theater arts teacher at the school who helped produce the show. “Students learned a great life lesson that if you are committed to something with a group of people, you will achieve great results.”
Bever said the students worked almost every day for nearly three months after a rigorous casting campaign and gave it their all to deliver the school’s first musical – a comedy that tells the story of a floral shop worker who learns he is raising a plant that survives by eating human flesh. Some members of the cast were returning champions from the school’s past performances, but none of them had ever done a musical of this magnitude, Bever said.
Along with that endeavor came a slew of new costs, which Bever and the rest of the musical community came together to address by collecting more than $2,500 in donations through crowd-sourcing sites like Kickstarter. The money went towards new equipment, standard rights, script and music rentals, set construction materials, and additional staffing.
“Musicals are very expensive because you have to pay for the rights of the show among other things,” the teacher said. “They are much more expensive than a play, so we had to use different ways to raise money.”
The musical’s Kickstarter profile garnered a total 35 backers who donated anywhere from $10 to $250 or more in order to make the musical a reality. The school even rented out ad space in the show’s programs and allowed parents to print shout-outs to their kids on the inside.
Auditions began in the early weeks of January and made way for daily practices, including some Fridays. The students participated in ways that Bever said were motivating as both a teacher and member of the community.
“One of the most exciting things for me was just a wonderful high quality of work we were able to pull off,” she said. “The musical really surpassed everyone’s expectations because the students worked so hard. You could see the excitement on their faces, which they earned.”
It took efforts from all facets of the MELS arts department, with music teachers serving as vocal directors and pit orchestra members, and art teachers helping to build the set. By the curtain call of the weekend performances, Bever said there was much for the students and faculty to be proud of.
“We worked together as an arts department, which was really exciting,” she said. “It was such an extraordinary community event and I think it was one of the most exciting things we’ve been a part of.”
Looking ahead, Bever said there were no upcoming productions in the works. But judging from the students’ participation and commitment to the project, she said it was more than likely to see perhaps another production of this scale or bigger in the coming years.
By Phil Corso
