The vote was unanimous: The best part was being onstage in front of an audience.
"Can we do it again this weekend?" joked Aimee Marder, 21, who played a
witchy Queen Fastrada in the production.
David Weitz, 17, one of the show's players, said, "We rehearsed it two weeks straight without an audience. I wish we could have done it longer" with the audience.
It was the rowdy but appreciative crowds, everyone agreed, that really made the performing fun. Said Weitz: "Saturday night it was like wrestling at the Spectrum."
The Studio Y theater stages five plays each year, but the summer is reserved for young people, ages 14-24. The program is in its ninth season and this was the first year that formal theater classes in acting, singing, dancing, and makeup were added to the eight weeks of rehearsals for the production.
The classes were the idea of Studio Y managing director Pat Appino, who decided that her young charges could benefit from learning some theater fundamentals.
"At their level, they should come away from a show understanding the motivation of what they are doing. Every show has its own style. They have to understand that style."
Then there are the physical skills involved. For example, fledgling singers need to learn how to reach a high note "without screaming and yelling and without hurting their voice," Appino said.
But at first, the added three weeks of classes didn't meet with universal enthusiasm from the cast. Weitz said he skipped a couple of sessions in the beginning. "I was so tired. I just got finished going to classes," said Weitz, a student at the Philadelphia School for the Performing Arts.
"I thought: 'I'm an actor. I go to perfoming arts school. Why do I have to go to more classes?' Then I realized I was just jeopardizing myself."
The play's director, Michael Moeller, said he'd like to see even more class sessions scheduled next year.
