Brian Slattery Photo
At rehearsal for Edgewood School’s upcomimg production of the play Madagascar, the students knew their lines, knew the songs, knew where they were supposed to be on stage. They had the dance routines together, the choreographed moments, even an effect that gave the impression of large shipping crates sliding from side to side in the hold of a boat tilting in the ocean — because an animal was now at the wheel.
Now they were just working out the kinks. Where exactly should a certain spotlight go? And there were some microphone issues to sort out. But students and director Jaime Kane were unfazed.
“We’re going to keep going with the scene like we do,” Kane said. “That’s what happens.”
The students gamely went on, pinwheeling around the stage as the main characters — Alex the lion (Jack Marchand) and Marty the zebra (Rose Bromage) — emerged from the throng.
“It’s showtime,” the chorus sang, “at the Central Park Zoo.” But not for long.
Madagascar, Jr.: A Musical Adventure — a production of Edgewood School’s drama club, running at Career High School on Legion Avenue Friday, April 5 at 7 p.m., and Saturday, April 6 at 2 p.m. — tells the story of a group of animals who escape the zoo, and Central Park, and in time, the city altogether, to try to get back to the distant lands they came from. The penguins may yearn for Antarctica, but it’s the titular island nation that calls to Alex and Marty.
It’s a call for each of them to stop being complacent, to explore the world, and to rediscover exactly who they are.
“It’s like putting the finishing touches on a puzzle,” Kane said of final rehearsals. She directs the plays and runs Edgewood’s drama club. “We go from learning the music to learning choreography. Then we do blocking. But there’s all these layers.”
Kane has been running Edgewood’s drama club for 14 years. “It all started when my kids were at Edgewood,” she said. She was a resident artist there when the school discovered there was “money out there” to do school plays. Her first production was The Wizard of Oz, “and of course I went over the top,” she said, with a cast and crew of 125 kids.
“It was supposed to end when my kids graduated,” Kane said. Now her kids are in their 20s. “I couldn’t quite imagine myself not doing it,” she said. As as then-Principal Bonnie Pachesa said, “nobody wants you to leave.”
Kane picked Madagascar this year because “I liked the idea that it was about animals. And I loved the music,” she said. “I have to buy into it, I have to feel it. I have to visualize it.” Also, “I got a lot of kids” in the drama club, she said — this production involves 61 students from third to eighth grade — “so there has to be enough for people to do…. I have to see that I can turn groups into ensembles.” Finally, she remembered laughing, a lot, at the original movie, and the script for the stage version didn’t disappoint.
The first workshops for the drama club began in October. Kane introduced the show and the music, and talked with the students about how they might want to participate. For the younger students in the club, this involved some cultivation of skills, from speaking and singing in front a crowd to memorizing lines to figuring out how to move in unison.
“They learn about themselves,” Kane said. And they also get to know one another. “In the end, they just like hanging out with each other,” Kane said, citing the camaraderie as the club’s biggest draw. “And it’s all the layers of learning the music, learning the dances, leaning the lines.”
Marchand and Bromage had been in several previous productions. “They have both been doing it since they were in third grade,” Kane said. Last year they played Peter Pan and Wendy in Peter Pan. “They’ve been really dedicated,” Kane continued. “You have to be able to sing, and they both can do that.”
Rehearsals began in earnest in February and not soon after that, reached a small breaking point, as the students were working out group choreography. Finally a third-grader couldn’t take it anymore. “This is booorrrr-iiinnng,” he yelled.
“We definitely got a few chuckles out of that,” Kane said.
But in the past few weeks, as the play clicked into place, the students got to explore more layers to putting a production together. They discussed character motivations — “what do you think this character is feeling?” Kane said by way of example — and sometimes did improv work to explore their characters further.
As the actors nailed down their parts, the set began to spring up around them. “We just have this wealth of artists and builders and people willing to help out,” Kane said. “All of a sudden everything starts coming to life.”
The students’ hard work was on full display Monday, as cast and crew worked out a transition in a pivotal scene, when the animals are discovered roaming Central Park and must evade capture. The scene began with a command: “Freeze, you animals!” The transitions from speech to action to musical number worked, but could work better. Students and musicians talked about how certain lines were cues for the music to begin, and in turn, how certain musical phrases were the cue for singing and action. The scene came into sharper focus.
“We’ve got to run that again,” said Aron Smith, playing keyboards in the pit; he’s Edgewood’s chorus director.
“From the top? I think it’s easier,” Kane said. Everyone agreed. They ran it again and the scene clicked, then progressed to the next scene, and the next, until the animals had mutinied aboard a a cargo ship and commandeered it, setting a course for home. But would they get there?
It would have to wait until the second act. “Take five,” said music teacher Joel Pietrolazio, on bass. It was a call for everyone to take a break before running through the second act, but also, for the pit orchestra, a time to relax by launching into the classic Dave Brubeck tune, then into some Miles Davis. With talent like that on stage and below it, everything was going to to be fine.
As Kane said, “it always works out.”
