The push for perfection

Wednesday afternoon, right in the middle of Southeast Missouri State University's spring break. The university is like a ghost town without the bustling foot and automobile traffic of everyday campus life.

But Rose Theatre is not like the rest of the campus.

Dozens of students sit in the audience chairs, listening to a pep talk from Department of Theatre and Dance chair Dr. Kenn Stilson, director of the show.

The talk doesn't take long, and Stilson says "All right everybody, let's go." The students make their way on stage, getting in position to practice another song-and-tap routine.

Opening night for "42nd Street," the finale of the theater and dance department's 2006-2007 season, is April 20, less than a month away. The approximately 30 cast members are putting in 12-hour days over spring break to get ready for that day.

Students in the Department of Theater and Dance at Southeast Missouri State University rehearsed a tap-dancing number for the musical "42nd Street" at Rose Theatre on Wednesday, while singing "We're In the Money." (Fred Lynch)

For Southeast's "42nd Street" to live up to its self-imposed standards the students -- and the mix of theater, dance and music faculty instructing them -- have no choice but to suffer a working vacation.

The last theater production in Rose Theatre, "42nd Street" may be the biggest one the theater has ever seen -- not only in the size of its cast and its elaborate set, but in the huge sum of money being dropped to bring the "song and dance extravaganza" to the stage. While the final cost isn't known yet, Stilson said, the production could cost up to $50,000. The Southeast Missourian is paying for $20,000 of that cost as the first corporate sponsor of a university theater production.

About half of the students in the entire theater and dance program will be involved in the production, either in the cast or in the crew. Costumes and scenery alone will cost around $20,000, while the rights for the musical cost $7,500.

'What a monster!'

Stilson compares this "42nd Street" production to a hydra. "It's one animal, but it's got so many heads," Stilson says while Southeast dance instructor Lees Hummel, choreographer, takes the cast through tap moves. "It's just one of those musicals that, when you do it, you say 'Wow! What a monster!'"

Dancing, singing, acting, costumes, sets -- exceptional work in all those areas are key to making "42nd Street" the kind of musical that will pack Rose Theatre, much like "Guys and Dolls" did in 2005. But Stilson, other faculty members and student theater veterans who worked on "Guys and Dolls" say there's no comparison between the two. "42nd Street" is much, much grander.

"This will be a Broadway-quality show," said Judith Farris, one of several vocal coaches working with the "42nd Street" cast. Farris knows a few things about Broadway productions; for the past several years she's worked as a Broadway vocal coach in New York City. This is her second academic year as a faculty member at Southeast, but Farris served as a guest vocal coach for "Guys and Dolls." In 2005-2006, Southeast didn't perform a musical.

"This show is going to be sold out," Farris says, 500 seats at each of the musical's seven performances.

As spring break winds past, the students and faculty run through compartmentalized rehearsals, three of them each day, each rehearsal focusing on a different aspect of production. They start at 9 a.m. and work through 9 p.m., with just a few short breaks.

By now junior Andrew Tebo is accustomed to working spring vacations. "We've done it before," Tebo says as he takes a short break from running through his lines. "It's just the way they work here. They push for perfection."

Tebo is one of the few students in the production who doesn't tap dance in his role as Julian Marsh, director of the fictional musical "Pretty Lady" that the "42nd Street" plot revolves around. And as he talks about missing out on his junior year spring break, his smile doesn't change. If he's unhappy, Tebo doesn't show it. Or maybe he's just happy because he doesn't have to tap.

"I'm fine with that," he says, still smiling.

Tebo, like Farris, says Rose Theatre audiences are in for a spectacle unlike any they've seen in Cape Girardeau.

"I think it's going to be the biggest production that has happened on this stage," Tebo said.

Some freshman theater students are being thrust into that spotlight their first year in the program. Two of them play two of the most vital roles in the "42nd Street" plot -- Blake Russell as Pat Denning (the forbidden lover of fading diva Dorothy Brock) and Chelsea Serocke as Peggy Sawyer (the lead of the production, a chorus girl who becomes star of the show).

Serocke said any jitters she might have about being thrust into the department's brightest spotlight have been calmed through the advice of more experienced students. Serocke has a background in musical theater (though tap dancing is new to her) and Farris said her strong singing ability helped land her the coveted role. "42nd Street" will be her first public production on the Rose Theatre stage.

"The upperclassmen have been great about helping me out," Serocke said. "It's tough, but I'm definitely having fun."

Russell has performed on the Rose stage before, most recently as a supporting actor in "A Streetcar Named Desire." But nothing in his experience has prepared him for the enormous production that is "42nd Street."

"Every day it's surprised me because I'm used to high school, I'm used to community theater and this is so big," Russell said.

Action backstage

The action on stage is only the tip of the iceberg. Behind the scenes dozens are working on everything from sets to backdrops to costumes. In the Rose Theatre basement, racks of clothing, hundreds of items in all, are placed wherever they can fit. A team of six students -- senior Jen Sturm, sophomore Kelly McLendon, senior Mary Wall, sophomore Beth Winschel and junior Megan Johnson -- are working behind the scenes to prepare the hundreds of garments the characters will wear under the direction of faculty member Rhonda Weller-Stilson, Kenn Stilson's wife. The audience won't even see them, but their role is essential to pulling off a quality "42nd Street."

Weller-Stilson and her crew face an extra challenge from the space limitations at Rose Theatre. They barely have room to fit actors and clothing in the tight basement spaces.

Upstairs the story is no different. With such an elaborate set and so many dancers on stage at once, the Rose Theatre stage is bursting at the seams, said Stilson. Logistically the show would have been much better suited to the River Campus stage when it opens next fall. The River Campus season will still open with a musical, "Big River," but not one as elaborate as "42nd Street" in its combination of song, dance and glitz.

The reasons for not holding "42nd Street" until fall are both pragmatic and idealistic, Stilson said. On the pragmatic side, the department wouldn't have had time to get such a production ready for the fall. Students and faculty have been working on "42nd Street" in some capacity since last fall.

On the idealistic side, Stilson wants a big blowout production to serve as a send-off to the department's stage for decades.

"Basically, it's a finale to the Rose Theatre stage ... and we want to treat it as such," he said.

See related story at http://www.semissourian.com/story/1194978.html

msanders@semissourian.com

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