Michael's School Musical

BIG-TIME MUSICAL
Central Ohio students among first amateurs to take on 'Phantom'
Saturday, March 12, 2011  02:54 AM
BY AMY SAUNDERS
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH


TESSA BARGAINNIER | DISPATCH PHOTOS
The Phantom (Evan Rings, 17) is reflected in a mirror during a dress rehearsal at Johnstown-Monroe High School.

 Spoiled prima donna Carlotta (Kaitlyn Sapp, 17) strikes a pose.

Phil Schell of Johnstown works on the all-important chandelier onstage at Johnstown-Monroe High School. Schell, who has a child in the play, is in charge of the lighting.

Before a dress rehearsal, Evan Rings, left, has makeup applied by Eric Stephens of Northridge.

In the most famous moment, the chandelier doesn't necessarily plummet to the stage in a terrifying fashion so much as it gradually wobbles down near the performers.

Yet this is The Phantom of the Opera as performed by Johnstown-Monroe High School, with an enrollment of 477. And the chandelier is made from two-by-fours.

Students at the Licking County school are staging the ambitious musical twice today and Sunday, having dedicated six months to the production instead of their typical 10 weeks.

Given the demanding operatic music, the complicated special effects and the dialogue that is more often sung than spoken, musical director Jeff Rings previously thought that no high school could manage it.

"I still sort of feel that way," he said. "It has been a very huge stretch for high schoolers."

Until this spring-musical season, Phantom hadn't been performed by teenagers - or any theatrical groups other than professionals.

Rights to musicals aren't typically released to amateur groups until the show has finished its Broadway run. ButPhantom was made available in the fall, even as it continues to play New York - as it has since 1988 - and Las Vegas.

The production has been seen by 100million people worldwide.

Johnstown-Monroe and Delaware Hayes High School are among the 20 Ohio schools that secured the rights to perform the production, said Bert Fink, spokesman for the licensing agency R&H Theatricals.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is "a great believer in music education, and letting schools do Phantom is a remarkable learning opportunity for them," Fink said.

"It was rather groundbreaking to make the work available while it was running on Broadway, but it came with certain restrictions."

The rights to a musical often come with stipulations: Only schools, not community troupes, can perform Phantom - although the situation is sometimes reversed.

Chicago is available to older actors, but Pickerington North High School was denied the rights two years in a row, with the licensing agency citing the show's adult themes.

"Just because we want to do a show doesn't mean we're going to get the rights," said Margaret Lawson, the school's theater director. " Mamma Mia! would be my No.1 choice, but it's going to be awhile, I think. It's still packing them in in New York."

National tours can also derail plans for school musicals: Dublin Jerome High School couldn't perform Les Miserables this year because, next week, Broadway Across America will present the show in the Ohio Theatre.

Instead, the school last month performed Les Miserables: School Edition, a shortened version that apparently didn't interfere with performances of the touring group, said Jerome theater director Patty Scott.

"They (organizers) fear they could lose their audience," she said, "although, with Les Mizcoming in, ... they probably gained audience because all my kids were so excited to see the professional version."

The cost of a show can also be an inhibiting factor: For Phantom, Johnstown-Monroe paid $2,800 for royalties and for the rental of music and scripts - based on the size of its auditorium and planned ticket prices.

Overall, the production is almost twice as expensive as the school's previous shows. To offset much of the $20,000 cost, boosters hosted a dinner and silent auction in the fall.

At the same time, students and parents began building the set: elevating the stage to insert trapdoors and creating the mechanics of the chandelier and of the boat that sails through the Phantom's underground lair.

Rings began working with the students on the difficult, sometimes-

discordant music, selecting understudies for each lead actor because the roles require so much singing.

"It's extremely challenging to get that operatic sound from these immature voices," said 17-year-old senior Kaitlyn Sapp, who started voice lessons - and watched aria performances on YouTube - to prepare for the role of the opera diva, Carlotta.

"But we have a strange amount of talent. The fact that we can double-cast is pretty extraordinary."

Preparation for Phantom is under way for the April28-30 performances at Delaware Hayes.

Students at first thought the announcement of the show was a joke, musical director Michelle Howes said.

"We wanted the 'wow,'" she said. "The student body is more excited for this show than any show since I've been here."

The Johnstown students, many of whom saw Phantom on Broadway last year, are confident that their production is a good representation of a work that much of the audience will have seen onstage or in the 2004 movie adaptation.

"The music is beyond what you've seen in a high school, and we have to rise to that level," said 17-year-old senior Casey Miller, who plays Raoul, the love interest of the main character, Christine.

"It's not something a high school should ... do or ... be able to do. But we pulled it off because of hundreds, thousands of hours."

asaunders@dispatch.com