By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
After three weeks rehearsing “in a bubble,” a group of Sitka Fine Arts Camp performers are ready to face audiences with their production of “Into the Woods.”
The Musical Theater Camp production goes up at 7 p.m. Friday and again at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday, at the Performing Arts Center.
COVID precautions are in place at the PAC, with masks and proof of vaccination required for audience members.
“Into the Woods” was a hit on Broadway, and the Stephen Sondheim play ranks in many critics’ Top 10 list of best stage musicals of all time. And it’s up there as well on the list of Zeke Blackwell, director of this show, as well as SFAC’s Young Performers Theater.
“I’ve been wanting to do ‘Into the Woods’ for quite some time and now felt like the right moment to do it,” Blackwell said as he prepared for tonight’s dress rehearsal.
“We wanted a show that would provide a really rich experience for our students that would let them be comedic but also really challenge the depth of their acting skills,” he said. “This show has so much nuance and heart, which has also been an amazing experience for our first show after 18 months.”
Cast members of Sitka Fine Arts Camp’s Musical Theater Camp production of “Into the Woods” rehearse Wednesday night in the Performing Arts Center. The musical features a live orchestra. Pictured are, from left, Zoe Springsteen, Miko Hare, Kate Springsteen, Sagan McLaughlin (kneeling), Mina Brooks-Schmidt, Kevin Vina and Maxwell Reynolds. The show plays Friday and Saturday. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
The play combines Brothers Grimm fairy tales with a story around a baker and his wife, as all characters navigate many life decisions. It has high points and low points, with most of the light moments in the first act and heavier in the second.
It’s the first time Blackwell, an experienced director, has directed the SFAC Musical Theater camp show. He was assistant director in previous years, and says it’s been a great experience to be back to in-person rehearsals and shows after the pandemic shutdowns.
“I have been so deeply grateful to get to work with these young people and do this thing they all love that they haven’t gotten to do in so long,” Blackwell said.
“To be in the same room and laugh and cry and share our humanity with each other has been such an honor. I feel humbled to get to witness their determination, their kindness, and their resiliency.”
Also, he said, the show and its themes are perfect for the times.
“Ultimately ‘Into the Woods’ is a story about resiliency,” Blackwell said. “It’s about everyday people who face unexpected challenges and loss and find their way through the darkness by coming together.”
With the pandemic still with us, this camp is unusual in some ways but not in others, said SFAC executive director Roger Schmidt.
“They’ve been in a bubble in their (camp) community,” he said of the cast, crew and pit orchestra. “It’s made for a tight theater family. It’s been the best health we’ve ever had at musical theater camp because people have been taking all the steps.”
Valdez High student Chase Randall, 17, is playing Rapunzel’s prince in his third Musical Theater Camp performance. He said he’s enjoying seeing fellow performers from previous years, and meeting new ones. One of his friends over the years at camp is Spencer LeFebre, who is playing the other prince. The two sing the showstopping duet “Agony,” and he counts “Agony (Reprise)” as one of his favorite numbers.
Paige Antrobus, 16, a student at Steller Secondary School in Anchorage, said she has been in a number of shows in her hometown, but this is her first musical theater camp. She plays Milky White the Cow, which she and roommate Virginia Pearson find funny, “because I’m lactose intolerant.”
Pearson, 15, of Sitka, plays Florinda, one of the evil stepsisters. She has been in several YPT shows and performed in the Musical Theater Camp 2019 production of “Oklahoma!”
“I like ‘Into the Woods,’” she said. “I’ve liked it for a while. It’s fun to do a show I know well. I’m having fun.”
Sagan McLaughlin, 15, is appearing in her first SFAC production, but was in five musicals when she lived in Massachusetts, including “Beauty and the Beast,” “A Chorus Line” and “Newsies.”
She said she enjoys being in the ensemble here, because “we help to tell the story without actually being right there,” she said. When asked about the theme in the show, she goes to the songs “Children Will Listen” and “No One is Alone.”
“I think that’s true - that no one is alone,” she said. “I think everybody’s got somebody out there even if you don’t know them yet.”
The show is supported by other professional staff and volunteers from Sitka and the Lower 48 in the areas of design, tech, music and direction.
Schmidt noted that the pit orchestra includes professional musicians from Sitka and all over the country, including Miami, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York and Juneau.
COVID precautions include a mask and vaccine requirement for the audience. Students, tech crew and the pit orchestra have been in a bubble for the past three weeks of rehearsal, working with health providers on a COVID mitigation plan that has included masks and testing.
Tickets are available online under Shows at fineartscamp.org and at the PAC.
