Sacred Heart Catholic School’s CenterStage students taking part in this weekend’s School of Rock have had quite the learning experience. In addition to memorizing their lines, the songs that go along with them and finding their place on stage, they’ve also had to learn to play an instrument.
CenterStage is a product of the school’s drama department and entails everything involved with musical theatre – singing, dancing and a little bit of everything, which Abigail Allen and SHHS music instructor Olivia Drinkwater started and is now in its fourth season.
The group started with elementary school students and last year they brought in junior high students.
“It continues to expand and the students really love it,” Allen said.
This year, first through third-grade students will present “Lion King,” while fourth through sixth graders will stage The Little Mermaid. A showcase in the spring will be a cabaret-style show where students will get to pick their songs.
According to Allen, in order to get the rights to perform the musical, you have to be able to prove or promise that students will play all the parts, even the adult parts, “because they want to promote music education,” said Allen. “They want all of them to have to deal with instruments.”
Set for Thursday, Nov. 14, through Saturday, Nov. 16, the show will be staged in The Thirsty Hippo Music Room at 6:30 nightly. The two-hour production includes one 15-minute intermission. “Introducing the students to the stage at The Thirsty Hippo has been exciting, especially with the lights and the great sound system,” Allen said. “We are really hoping to pack the audience out.”
About 20 students in grades seven through twelve are taking part, whether as a cast member, a member of the band or backstage assistants. The show has one senior and some students who have just entered high school.
The cast has been working together since the beginning of the school year, getting together twice a week for 90 minutes. As the show has gotten closer, they’ve put in more time and moved rehearsals from the black box theatre at the school to the actual stage where they will be performing.
Teaching non-musical students to play an instrument has not been taken lightly and Allen and Drinkwater have recruited the help of some of the best educators – Groove House personnel.
Groove House is a Hattiesburg business that provides private music education to all ages in and around the Hub City. Instructors from there have been teaching the production’s guitarists and bass players, while Andrew Wooten, who teaches percussion at Sacred Heart, has been working with the drummer.
According to Allen, all of the main students who play an instrument, as well as the people who ended up in the band, have learned to do so in the past two months. “No one knew how,” she said. “It’s been a huge undertaking. A lot of these students have never done anything on this scale, especially performing three nights in a row or even done a show before. It’s real exciting. They are doing some great work, but they are also hoodlums and we love them to death and love to watch them. It’s a crazy honor.”
Drinkwater echoed Allen’s sentiments.
“We so appreciate Groove House for helping teach out students,” she said. “Also Andrew Wooton for working with his student, Kayden Hinton. And we couldn’t have done this without the folks at The Thirsty Hippo, Brad and Sarah Newton, for all of their help with this project. As always, this wouldn’t have been possible without the faculty and administration of Sacred Heart High School.”
Hank Rigsby, who plays Hank, the lede role, is only an eighth grader with a lot of energy.
Rigsby has been participating in such productions for a couple of years and finds it a lot of fun.
“I have enjoyed watching everyone else participate in this,” he said. “It’s been a fun experience getting to be with all of my friends and have a really great musical experience.”
Rigsby is far from a novice having performed with both Hattiesburg Civic Light Opera and the Hub City Players.
He describes his character, Dewey Finn, as a five year old in a 30-year-old body and loves rock. “He’s very energetic all the time. He finds these kids and it really changes him.”
Rigsby is one of those students who had never played an instrument but he said working with someone to learn to play the electric guitar has been awesome. He would encourage other students to take part in such activities, describing it as a very good experience.
He’d like to carry this further and maybe even participate on Broadway, really big shows like that.
Stella Bondurant, also an eighth-grade student, plays the psychopath girlfriend of Dewey’s best friend, an ex band member.
“I hate Dewey,” said Stella about her character, Patti. “I love screaming at him.”
“And she’s quite the good Patti,” Rigsby said.
The two have known each other since they were about five years old. “We’ve been friends for a very long time,” said Bondurant, who has been taking part with CenterStage since its inception. “Our parents are friends, so it’s always fun to beat him up and yell at him. This is the most favorite show I’ve ever done. I like big mean roles and don’t like being nice.”
Bondurant has also performed with HCLO and the University of Southern Mississippi on projects which she describes as “really fun for me.”
She admits she’s not the best singer, so she does more acting, “but it’s all really a lot of fun mixing everything together in one big mosh of creativity and fun.”
The two also enjoy working on the set, costumes and with ticket sales, as well as helping the younger actors.
“The show is going to be awesome, so we hope people will come see the show,” Bondurant said.
Mely Berdion, a 10th grader, is serving as stage manager. This is her first time in such a role.
“It’s very different than just being in a show,” she said. “There is so much more behind the scenes. As an actor you come out and stand on stage and are done, but as stage manager, you’re like, ‘is this where we’re going to put this,’ ‘oh, I have to make a set change,’ ‘oh, we have to light the kids’ and one thousand things to do at once.”
While she would have loved performing alongside other students, she said when this opportunity came available to be stage manager, she jumped at the opportunity.
“I’d rather learn how to do something new and help the kids out, Berdion said. “It’s a fun show.”
Berdion wants to go to college for musical theatre.
“I don’t know if I would keep doing stage management, it’s so stressful, but performing is my life. I love it.”
She recently performed in HCLO’s Cabaret and has some other things coming up later.
Having been on stage, before, Berdion said she didn’t think the other students, who have never been under the lights, realized how big of a deal it was and how important it was until we went to The Thirsty Hippo the other day and got on stage. They went crazy having a real stage and lighting. It’s a new experience for them and I think they love it, even though it’s a lot of work.”
Tickets, which are $10, are available at eventbrite.com or at the door.
