Students take over musical production
By Casey Gillis on Jul. 26, 2007
For Christina Ciafardoni and her fellow theater nuts at Mountain View United Methodist Church, life is one big musical.
“We don’t just do theater,” says the James Madison University theater major, 21. “We go somewhere after (rehearsal) and talk about theater. … Some people to go the mall. We put on shows.”
Mountain View has had a theater and performance ministry since it opened in the early 1990s.
“(The shows) just sort of get bigger and bigger,” says Dana Ballard, musical director at the church. “We used to do little kids in bathrobes as Mary and Joseph.”
Members usually put on a couple of shows a year, including a summer showcase that Ciafardoni and the church’s younger set have participated in for the past few years.
This year, they wanted to do a full-scale musical, eventually settling on “Once Upon a Mattress,” the comic retelling of the well-known fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea.”
“I study theater,” Ciafardoni says. “That is what I want to do. … I wanted a chance to really put that into use. With this, you actually have (the chance) with the whole show to build your character, to build and change and grow your character.”
The production is scheduled for 7 p.m. July 27 and 28, Aug. 3 and 4, as well as 3 p.m. July 29, and is entirely student run.
Ciafardoni is co-directing with Ballard’s son, James, 20, a JMU music and composition major. There are also student producers, set designers and set builders.
“It’s always been sort of a dream that we could bring in kids and teach them, and they could (eventually) sort of do it on their own,” says Dana Ballard.
Ciafardoni and James Ballard say they chose “Once Upon a Mattress” — which debuted off-Broadway in 1959 and marked the stage debut of comedian Carol Burnett — because it had a lot of named parts.
“With most musicals, two characters have all the songs, and everybody else dances around them,” James Ballard says. “One of the problems we actually had casting it … (was that) there were too many good people. We wished we could write in three or four more main characters.”
So far, he says, the biggest challenge has been “covering all your bases. (Normally) you’re just thinking about your part. (Now) there are so many more things you have to worry about.”
Both he and Ciafardoni say everyone has been great about listening to their directions.
“It’s not as difficult as you would think,” Ciafardoni says. “We spoke about it at the beginning, and I said, “You know, you’re going to have to listen to me.’ They said, ‘Of course, of course,’ and everyone has really done that. It’s more a testament to them than it is to me.”
Kip McCharen, another JMU student, is producing the show and says the added responsibility makes things a little more stressful.
“I think the most difficult thing is managing ourselves,” says McCharen, 20. “We’re used to just being friends, palling around. Pulling it together and trying to get things done can be daunting.”
Daunting, yes.
But “it’s also fun,” he adds, “to show off what we can do.”
If You’re Going
WHAT: ‘Once Upon a Mattress’
WHEN: 7 p.m. July 27 and 28, Aug. 3 and 4, and 3 p.m. July 29
WHERE: Mountain View United Methodist Church, U.S. 221 in Forest
TICKETS: $5 for adults, $3 for children and $15 for families. Tickets available at the door.
INFO: (434) 525-6612
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