CLAREMONT — About a week ago, shortly before showtime on the opening night of “Mary Poppins Jr.” at Stevens High School, a group of actors gathered around senior Miles Sheehan, who gave a dramatic reading from Music Room Quote Book ’23, a collection of esoteric, often dirty jokes students had contributed over the years.
“I always look fly for Jesus,” Sheehan recited.
By then the cast had traded their everyday clothes for frilly Edwardian-era dresses and suit jackets, but evidence of their personal styles still came through in a head of choppy purple hair, a nose piercing, a set of glittery pink nails.
Errant sneakers and tangled pairs of sweatpants scattered the floor of the music room, the group’s makeshift backstage.
Jittery with nerves, students dashed among the piles, singing snippets from the musical numbers and rehearsing choreography.
Producing this year’s spring production has been a weighty lift. While the school’s theater department usually has a budget of several thousand dollars to pay for theatrical licensing and costumes, those funds were slashed to nothing in the midst of the district’s financial crisis, which came to light last August.
School officials attributed the $5 million deficit to negligent federal grant reporting, which caused the district to spend federal funds it didn’t have or couldn’t be reimbursed for, the Valley News reported earlier this year.
The financial instability precipitated the closure of Bluff Elementary School last fall, causing the school’s roughly 150 students and dozens of staff members to migrate to Claremont’s two remaining elementary schools.
Last August, the School Board also voted to cut budgets for all extra-curricular activities, including sports and theater.
The deficit also has created precarity on the day-to-day level, with teachers asking students to be mindful of how much paper or other supplies they’re using, cast member Nevaeh Wilson said.
The $5 million deficit will be whittled down to $1 million by the end of the current fiscal year on June 30, the district’s interim business administrator Matt Angell told the School Board earlier this month.
In lieu of designated funds to finance the show, Stevens theater teacher Cat Gessner and her students had to get proactive, turning to the school’s alumni fund and donations from parents and nearby community theaters to pull off the show.
“With theater kids in particular, they’ve always really been creative problem-solvers,” said Gessner. “They’re very resourceful and make do with what they have.”
‘People who are just there for me’
One way Gessner kept production costs low this semester was with her choice of musical. Normally she would have to pay anywhere between $2,000 and $4,000 for the theatrical rights to a show, but the rights for “Mary Poppins Jr.” came in at about $700.
Gessner covered the cost by pulling from the school’s alumni fund, which comprises donations raised by Stevens graduates.
She also had to find more than $500 to rent microphones from a new company after learning the one she normally uses wasn’t available. These funds she sourced from the ticket sales from the department’s winter production of “Lord of the Flies.”
Parents also chipped in by buying their children’s costumes, something Gessner would not ordinarily have to ask of them, she said.
They were willing to help because the program means a lot to them.
Maddy Chambers’ mom, for instance, bought her costume for her part as Mary Poppins.
Being cast in the role came as a surprise to Chambers, a junior who listed Mary Poppins as a joke on her audition form.
But at the audition last January, Taylor Trudeau, the play’s music director, was blown away.
“She came in and she sang and we were like, ‘Where has this girl been?’ ” Trudeau said.
Chambers had helped out with tech on previous shows, but this was her first acting role, and preparing for it wasn’t easy.
There were days when she would come into rehearsals in tears, overwhelmed at the mountain of work that lay ahead, but her castmates helped her through.
“It was huge for me to have people who are just there for me,” she said in an interview on opening night on May 21.
Stevens theater has also been important for Daniel Hannay-Alvarez, who has found a “home” in the program since he was a freshman, said his mother Meredith Alvarez.
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The theater program has been a welcoming place where Hannay-Alvarez, who is trans, can be himself, his mother said.
Her son felt similarly.
“Everyone knows someone in the (LGBTQ) community, or is part of that community,” he said. His several roles in the play included a banker and an anthropomorphic statue named Neelius.
Alvarez, who had been worried the arts would be cut completely when she first learned about the deficit, aided the effort by thrifting costumes and buying snacks for the cast.
“I jumped in,” she said.
Leaving a mark
To supplement the garments from Stevens’ costume closet and parents’ contributions, Gessner also sourced items from the Springfield (Vt.) Community Players and Lebanon-based North Country Community Theatre.
Other items she paid for out of her own pocket. She tried to choose ones she’d use in future years, such as black trousers, and $150 in lumber for new risers.
Students also did what they could to help.
Miles Sheehan, who played Bert and the pompous businessman Von Hussler, teamed up with fellow cast member Trevor Adams, and another friend last fall to put on a benefit concert that raised $1,800 for the theater, music and visual arts departments.
Now a senior, Sheehan has been participating in Stevens’ theater since he was a freshman.
“I put everything into (the show) because it’s the last one,” he said.
That effort included helping younger students work on their vocals. “He’s probably the most musically intuitive student I’ve ever had,” Trudeau said.
Sheehan hopes to become a teacher himself. After graduation, he plans to study secondary education, history and social studies at Keene State College. He also plans to enlist in the Army National Guard, with aspirations to sing in their 39th Army Band.
He’s going to miss his fellow actors, but he’s confident he’s left his mark on the department.
“I helped it feel more like a family, everyone has,” he said.
Short on time
On top of scrambling to fund the production, cast and crew also had to put the show together with half the normally allotted rehearsal time.
In past years, students would have a year’s worth of classes to work on the show, Gessner said. But this year a scheduling conflict meant that they could only use one semester.
Rehearsals took place during students’ theater classes, and after school, once it came time to work on lighting and other tech elements.
The time crunch was another reason Gessner chose “Mary Poppins Jr.,” which, at just over an hour, is about 90 minutes shorter than the full-length version.
She also cut some of the dancing, so that students could focus on their vocals and character work.
But even with those considerations, it still wasn’t a given that the show would come together.
A dress rehearsal performance a couple days before opening night for students at Disnard Elementary was patchy in parts. Lines were dropped, transitions sometimes choppy.
There’s been “a bit more chaos” surrounding this show, Asher Williams, who played George Banks, said after the dress rehearsal. Most students had gotten off book only about a week earlier, he said.
But as the play unfurled on opening night, the actors found their footing. Transitions flowed smoothly and previously forgotten lines made their way into the stream of dialogue.
Stevens’ performing arts students have had other successes this year, too.
In early May, the Musical Theater and Dance Ensemble took first place in their category for their performance of “Step in Time,” a jaunty number from “Mary Poppins Jr.,” at Music in the Parks, a nationwide festival for school bands, orchestras and choruses. Their performance took place in Holyoke, Mass.
Sheehan also won a soloist award in the competition.
“I’m really proud of everyone,” Sheehan said, reflecting on the cast and crew’s efforts over the past year.
“When there’s a problem, we all band together, and we get it done.”
Already a challenge
Even before the theater department’s budget was cut, Gessner was already trying to find a way to do more with less.
“I’m very grateful for what we are able to have,” she said. But “I definitely just wish the quality of our shows was a little better.”
As an example, she’s not able to switch up the colors in the current lighting system, she said.
The mics she rents also can be finicky and don’t always produce great sound.
“Honestly, if I were to use any money … it would be to buy our own microphones and not have a rental,” she said.
Then there’s the issue of compensating the people who help her make the shows possible, such as a friend who builds the platforms and sets.
“I appreciate the volunteering and doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, but I just really wish that I could better serve them for their time,” Gessner said.
Looking ahead, Gessner isn’t sure what the production budget will be next year. She hopes to make the next spring musical “Little Shop of Horrors,” the horror comedy about a floral assistant who stumbles upon a blood-thirsty plant he names after his crush.
It’s a fun show, and an affordable one to produce, Gessner said, noting that the play’s sets are simple and she wouldn’t have to buy many costumes. The only major challenge, other than paying for the theatrical rights, would be building the towering carnivorous plant.
But Gessner isn’t fazed. “I like to get creative that way,” she said.
To keep the performing arts programs going, there’s no other way.
