Teacher Kicks In $7K So Paulie Can Shine

When the musical Grease comes on TV in Paulie Silva’s house in Fair Haven, everything stops. ​“It’s my mom’s favorite, she knows it almost by heart, and everyone has to gather to watch and sing along. That’s the law.”

Now Silva, a senior at Wilbur Cross High School, has fulfilled a personal challenge: to act and sing in a musical before he graduates. As Roger, one of the leather-clad Burger Palace Boys in Grease, he also is bringing joy home — thanks to a generous assist from a teacher.

The show, by the way, is based on the original musical, not the film. So instead of John Travolta and the T‑Birds, think the Burger Palace Boys, of which Paulie Silva is a high-stepping cool one, Roger.

Paulie/Roger expects his mom to be in the first row to watch him and some 30 colleagues in the company bebop in each full-throttle performance, running Wednesday through Saturday at 7:00 at the Cross auditorium.

It might not have been. Silva and his good friend Martin Ralda-Martinez, who was wearing equally cool Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers and tight blue jeans at the final dress rehearsa Tuesday, credited their teacher and the show’s director, Andrea Sadick-Brown, for making the show happen in tough budgetary times. She not only worked hard with the students to prepare for the performance. She dug into her own pocket to help pay the bills.

“She’s spent thousands of dollars of her own money,” Silva said, ​“building sets, buying costumes for the kids who can’t afford it, and a lot more.”

That ​“lot more” included hiring a choreographer, retaining a six-person band with sweet saxophone player and on the rehearsal night renting four microphones for $400.

Sadick-Brown (who declined to be photographed), a 30-year veteran English teacher who is also an Equity actress, said that funding cuts across the theater production budget districtwide led her to choose between a bare-bones production and ​“doing it right.”

The $2,500 she received in a single grant for the production would not have given the students — like Silva, Ralda-Martinez, and (right to left) Zach Kafoglis and Emilio Mejias, also known as Kenickie and Danny (more Burger Palace Boys) and Amanda Castro as the seducive Cha Cha — the unique experience that being part of a full production brings.

“We’ve been in production for five months,” Sadick-Brown said, ​“nine to 16 hours a week, including during breaks, and I wasn’t about to turn back. I have seen these kids grow in their compassion and their humanity. Many of them would not have walked down the halls together or sat near each other in class. But that’s the genius and joy of theater. It brings people together like nothing else. I am serious about this and I just don’t think it can be done on the cheap.”

Those who could, like Silva and Ralda-Martinez, bought their own costumes ($30 for the Converse sneakers, $15 for tight pants, $5 for a few era-perfect white T‑shirts). Those who couldn’t, Sadick-Brown and her husband funded themselves.

She’s up to about $7,000 of her own money, she said. ​“I know budgets are tight, but I simply don’t think administrators know how important a theater experience can be for the kids.”

Paulie Silva knows. He failed Sadick-Brown’s Honors English class last year. ​“He told me,” she said, ​“that ​‘it was the best class I ever failed.’ And that was one of the best compliments I ever received. Paulie just decided not to work. Then he righted himself.”

That included taking the risk of auditioning. He and Ralda-Martinez, who are cousins, are dancers but had never acted before. But Sadick-Brown chose him, and it’s been an adventure, he said.

They’ve researched the period of Grease on the Internet and in books. They are not allowed to have in their costumes Ralda-Martinez’s big Superman buckle, because that wouldn’t have been around during 1950s escapades at the fictional Rydell High.

“She doesn’t tolerate anachronisms,” said Silva. ​“And she puts on our make-up so it’s just perfect too. She does everything perfect. The least we can do is give the production our all.”

Were Silva and his colleagues, including many Latino and African-American kids, finding the 1950s blue-collar-esque musical somehow corny and not speaking to their today concerns?

“Hey, the script is the script,” said Silva, who plans one day to build on the culinary arts program he’s been in at Cross and open a restaurant. ​“Ms. Sadick-Brown is real careful about being authentic. But we bring some Latin rhythms into the dance routines. You’ll see.”

Ralda-Martinez said he could relate to the peer pressure on Sandy in the play. ​“Hey, people offer you to smoke with them, and you don’t. You make your choices. Sure, it still happens. But in the play, it all works out right in the end. That’s not the same as life.”

“Hey man, it’s entertainment, it’s fun” he said, while rearranging his D.A. in back and his piglet curl in front.

Sadick-Brown plans to retire next year. Before that, she is already planning her next production, Rent. It will be as full-throttled and joyous as this one, she said. ​“I simply will not be defeated by circumstances.”

In addition to Cross students and several others from Hamden, including Hillary Perrone as the very proper Sandy , the show features former Cross Principal Bob Canelli (now system-wide magnet schools supervisor) as Vince Fontaine, the flamboyant DJ who wows the Rydell High kids. He said Sadick-Brown invited him to be in his first show. Since then he has developed an aspiring second career as an actor.

Who can tell the influence this Grease will have in the lives of Paulie Silva and Martin Ralda-Martinez. Admission is $7 at the door. Each of the boys said they’ve sold over $80 worth of tickets.

“Look at everything Ms. Sadick-Brown is doing for us,” Silva said.