Fame

Ashley Roberts, Holly Reid and Cynthianne Zammit rehearse their dance routine with the rest of the cast of Fame at the River Run Centre Wednesday. The show begins at the centre tomorrow.

GUELPH -- It's just minutes before lunch break and Lisa Hagen pulls no punches when addressing a group of more than 50 teenage thespians.

As opening night draws near for The River Run Centre's Summer Musical Theatre School's production of Fame, Hagen is trying to convince the group of fidgety teens that their performance of the rousing show-stopping finale Bring on Tomorrow is lacking a certain gusto.

"I want you to think of it as the national anthem," Hagen says through a microphone. "I want to see your chins up. If I don't see them up, I'm going to push them up."

Hagen, a veteran director of musicals from New Hamburg, is in charge of shepherding the nearly 70 cast members and 10-person technical team through the broadway musical, arguably the most ambitious show the school has attempted in its four year existence.

Loosely based on Alan Parker's Academy award-winning movie, the musical follows the highs and lows of a group of pupils at a New York City arts school.

While the underlying issues of suicide, sexual preference and drug use found in the movie have been "cleaned up a little" in an attempt to cater to a more family-oriented audience, the production remains considerably edgier than the school's previous efforts Oklahoma, Godspell and Joseph and the Amazing Technocolour Dreamcoat, Hagen said.

That's a reflection of the students growing maturity and talents, she said.

"We are at the peak of a four year cycle," Hagen said. "Some of these kids started in Grade 9 and 10 and have been doing this for four years. I picked it because the kids wanted to do it. That was one of the suggestions last year."

The school began on July 29 this year and wrapped up last Friday, giving the cast and crew and mere three weeks to prepare the mammoth musical.

Students, who come from Guelph, Cambridge, Kitchener-Waterloo and surrounding areas, range in age from 13 to 21. While the school does offer a number of workshops throughout the programme, for the most part all involved were required to get down to business from the first day.

Preparing a full-blown musical in three weeks requires an accelerated pace, Hagen said.

"We hit the ground running, every minute of the day is allotted," she said. "I draw up a schedule three months prior. We have at least three rehearsals going on at once plus the tech school. It's full blast."

Things have been made a little easier because of the number of students who have at least four years experience under their belts.

Dozens of the students who enrolled this year have been with the school since it began and many of them are willing to offer constructive, if usually unsolicited, advice to the young performers testing the theatrical waters for the first time.

"We have these veterans now who glare down the newcomers," Hagen said with a laugh. "If they are having trouble doing something, I say copy somebody else and the problem solves itself."

Eric Soehner, who plays crusty music teacher Mr. Sheinkopf in the play, laughs at the notion that he has ascended to the ranks of elder statesmen at the ripe old age of 18. But he admits that he does feel a little long in the tooth at certain rehearsals.

"Especially since they cast us all as teachers," Soehner said. "We are kind of separate from the students. It's like we are standing in the corner saying 'I remember back in the day when we did Godspell . . .'"

Soehner, who attended the school the first year it was offered and every year since, said Fame is a much more challenging musical than last year's giddy Oklahoma. With each year, his own abilities to take on a character has deepened, he said.

"This is the first time we really needed to find our characters," he explained.

Oriana Abrahamse, who plays English teacher Miss Sherman, credits the four years she spent at the school for putting her at ease during live performances -- confidence that helped her earn a $20,000 music therapy scholarship to attend the University of Windsor starting next month. "I can perform in front of people, it just doesn't faze me at all," she said. "You just learn so much here."

Hagen said she's not surprised that students from the school will go on to take drama in high school or beyond. She helped found the school four years ago because she felt students were getting the short shrift when it came to arts education in schools.

And now, "the talent bar has been going up year after year," she said about the students.

"This year they have really blown me away. And not only in their singing. Every one of those kids can pick up an instrument and they just go."

Fame takes to the River Run stage tomorrow and Friday at 7:30 p.m. There will be a matinee performance Saturday, Aug. 24 at 2 p.m. Call 763-3000.