Singin’ in the Rain Rehearsals

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Practice makes perfect. The cast is working hard to learn and perfect the dance choregrapghy for Singin’ in the Rain.

Valeria Torres and Anjela Cruz Smith

Get ready for Singin’ in the Rain! The Drama Production team has taken over a whole new production. Singin’ in the Rain is a show about old Hollywood and the change from silent movies to movies with sound.  Interested? Come see the show. It is October 23 ,24, and 25. “I will not tell any spoilers,” claims Mr.Slowik.

“It’s a classic movie-musical,” said Mr. Slowik. This production wasn’t even available for students to perform at a middle school level until about two years ago and once Mr. Slowik got the chance, he jumped at the opportunity. “I have never even seen another school do this before, but a friend of mine from high school was in the national tour of Singin’ in the Rain a few years ago in the Cosmo role,” said Mr. Slowik. Mr. Slowik not only directs the show, but he also puts the cast together. “It was like a big giant puzzle and I had all these different piece

s, and just because you are a great singer or a great dancer doesn’t mean that you’re right for every single role,” said Mr. Slowik.

“The feeling of being on stage with the lights on you, being able to share your talent,” this is one of Mira Levinson’s favorite parts about being in the productions at Falcon Cove. Mira, is an eighth grader playing Kathy Seldon. Mira stated that if she could be any of the Singin’ in the Rain characters in real life she would be Don Lockwood. “He’s famous, kind, funny, and super talented,” said Mira. Another cast member is Gabriel Salazar, an eighth grader playing Cosmo. To memorize his lines Gabe reads over his lines and then after reading through them he tries to repeat them in his head and then eventually he has 

his lines memorized. 

Seventh grader, Bella Castelino is Lina Lamont’s understudy. “My favorite thing about being in the show is performing because I love being on stage, and I also love the people I am working with,” said Bella.

 “They become your second family, and the stage becomes your second home,” said Neena Shaw, an eighth grader playing Zelda Zanders. 

 

Many people forget about the backstage process of the show, which is the people who are behind the curtains. Peyton Barnett, eighth grader, is the backstage manager. Peyton deals with everything behind the stage. She is in charge of everything that involves the backstage. “Basically the show wouldn’t run without backstage; like without lights you wouldn’t have any lights for the show … without costumes they would just be wearing regular clothes, and without props the story wouldn’t make sense.” Fortunately Peyton doesn’t work alone. There is the head of each department: costumes, mics, sound, props, and lights.

 Head of costume Mia Solanet, eighth grader, takes care of everything in charge of costumes. The design and the fitting. The process for making the costumes is quick and easy. They may get their ideas directly from the movie or they get creative!  “Designing them really only takes a few rehearsals. Fixing them up and altering them really depends on how much we have to change the costumes.”

With costumes you have to have mics. In charge of mics is Joey Schweiger, eighth grader. Mics has to take care of who gets what mic, what mic goes with the costume, and mics have to make sure that their mics fits for whatever they’re doing on stage. Schweiger explains then they have “to figure out which mic goes to which person and to fit the mics and to make sure

Lights, camera, action! Backstage manager Peyton Barnett and head mic Joey Schweigher discussing mics.

they don’t fall off while they’re dancing.”

 

 Now mics have to work carefully with sound. The head of sound is Tai Cummings, eighth grader. The sound department takes care of everything the audience hears on the show. From music to the actors’ voices, everything is controlled by sound. “Usually there is a CD plugged into a giant black thing, and that’s how I play the music and sound from there,” said Cummings. Without sound there can’t be a show. The actors would just sing without music in the background.

 “You need the actors to say the lines but you need the tech stuff to portray the story,” claims Peyton Barnett.