"Footloose" - Ron Cisneros' Summer Youth Workshop

Two (not very good) photos:


(Left) Friday night, Beaumont Cast. Opening number. In white skirt, Rusty (Emily Jo Seminoff). On right, Wendy Jo (Anna Miles).

Saturday night, Chicago Cast. Just prior to intermission, in 'Heaven Help Me,' with Sean Nill as Shaw at the front. Julie Soto is in the darkened aisle in the near foreground, but it's hard to make her out in this photo.

Excellent workshop. Better than last year's workshop. I saw the Friday show, but because A. wasn't quite finished with Saturday's backyard work, and I had time to kill, I ambled over to the 24th Street Theater and caught the last half of Act I.

Last Tuesday, I happened to pass by the theater on one of the last dress rehearsal nights, and I gazed in the side stage door of the 24th Street Theater. I did not know who was performing and I did not recognize the music. Later, I discovered it was the penultimate scene, at the Town Meeting, where the students in the audience start singing a kind of 80's-style rap song called 'Dancing Is Not A Crime', making the Town Meeting sound more like a revival. From the music, I gauged that the group must have been a church youth group of some sort, but I was perturbed by the memerizing nature of the music, and I felt the hairs on my neck stand up. I decided it must have been more of a cult than a regular church group. I wondered who the pastor was - Tom Cruise, perhaps?

Later, I discover from Erik Daniell's comments that the group was actually Ron Cisneros' Summer Youth Workshop. Aha! A cult indeed! The Cult of Musical Theater is the most dangerous of all. Ron Cisneros is a veritable Brigham Young of Razzmatazz!

The Friday cast (Beaumont) had some excellent performers. Will Finan as Shaw was just excellent. It was easy to forget that he wasn't a preacher. Julie Soto had a lot of depth as Ariel, particularly in regard to her R&B style of singing.

There is a kind of alertness that stage actors develop, out of sheer necessity. They have to be wide, wide awake. The most awake of all was Emily Jo Seminoff: her stage presence is magnificent. But because this was a workshop, where there were many neophytes on stage as well, there was a laxness among other cast members that was the biggest drawback of the show, for both casts. Well, at least there were some good models to emulate on stage!

The biggest differences in the casts regarded the protagonist, Ren. Casey Bowman (Beaumont) played Ren cool, whereas Elliot Mende (Chicago) played Ren as a cut-up. It seemed as if cool was the best approach, in order to distinguish transplant Ren from the locals, but oddly enough, cutup seemed to be the big audience pleaser.

In the Friday Beaumont cast, Anthony Smith made a fine redneck-type (Willard), and Sean Nill's comic, laconic cowboy mannerisms went over very well during the out-of-town saloon sequence.

As is often common in 24th Street Theater shows, many dance sequences were done in the aisles. On Friday, near me danced one girl, whom I nicknamed 'Prepared Girl,' because she seemed to be an ultra-alert stage sort of person, who sang loud and danced well. Turned out, it was Monika Neal, who played Ariel on Saturday night (Chicago cast). I didn't recognize Monika at first, because she had dyed her hair black, and she's changed appearance a lot during the last couple of years. Monika also did well as Ariel, although she came off as a little more vapid than Julie had been in the same role, which was fine - just a different interpretation. On Saturday, of course, Julie danced in the 'Prepared Girl' slot.

After the Saturday show, I returned to my back yard, and eventually A. and I ended up at Lyons Restaurant, where many of the cast eventually ended up as well. As the evening's festivities came to a close, they started an infectious series of hugs. Soon, it seemed everyone in the restaurant was hugging each other. Clearly, one close-knit theater workshop!