Just like in the movie: Actors are often athletes, too. Many now are trying both.
By Brian Truitt
When Zac Efron's character in "High School Musical" darts between basketball practice and play rehearsals, the jocks and drama nerds go ballistic. After all, being a star on both court and stage just isn't cool.
Believe it or not, real life at a real high school isn't much different from the Disney movie. Cole Kouvaris, 17, is captain of his high school soccer and volleyball teams, not to mention a straight-A student. But when he accidentally showed up at soccer practice one day with heavy makeup and enough hair gel to make Little Richard's coif look tame, no one cut him any breaks. He heard his teammates' catcalls even before he arrived on the field.
"The whole team was like, 'Oh, tap dancing, are you?' " says Kouvaris, a senior at The Bolles School in Jacksonville. "And I'd be like, 'Sorry, guys, just doing my best here.' "
Tap dancing, he was. Kouvaris had been cast in the starring role of his school's high-steppin' fall musical, "42nd Street."
As it turns out, there's some truth to the hit teen movie. Like Efron's character, a growing number of teen athletes are removing their uniforms to shine in costume on the stage. The smash franchise "High School Musical" and popular TV shows like "Dancing with the Stars" and "American Idol" are inspiring kids to break down stereotypes and test their talents on both field and stage, experts say. Notes teen expert Susan Smith Kuczmarski: "You're finding more of it now because it's very acceptable and cool."
Well, not completely. Student-athlete Kouvaris told his college adviser about his big role in "42nd Street" before he told his parents: "She kept being like, 'It's not like you have to tell them, 'Mom and Dad, I'm going to jail.' "
Erin Moffitt, 16, who is a junior at St. Francis High School in Wheaton, Ill., will star this spring both at third base for her softball team and as Sally Slaton in "Parade." Moffitt says having both musical and softball practice on the same day can be tiring. "But it is really fun," she says. "A lot of my friends are involved in both, and it's just a good experience to get the most out of high school that you can."
Sophomore T.J. Manzo, 16, of Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch, N.J., enjoys participating in a musical so much that he regrets he didn't do it sooner. Although he has heard the ribbing from his football teammates and has had to deal with the challenge of juggling off-season weight-lifting sessions along with rehearsals for "Beauty and the Beast," Manzo is excited about showing the school a whole new side of himself.
"I have football friends, theater friends and a lot of female friends as well," says the gridiron defensive tackle and center turned actor. "All of them are telling me, 'I'm gonna be in the front row cheering for you,' and I have to tell them, 'You can't cheer in the theater like that. It's not like football.' "
Go to top
Yes! I starred in "Annie Get Your Gun."
By Al Harrington
NBA star of California's Golden State Warriors.
You know what was more nerve-racking for me than any basketball game I've ever played in? Performing in my high school's production of "Annie Get Your Gun" -- the first time I had ever performed in a musicalin my life. It was a greatexperience, though, and my English teacher at St. Patrick's High in New Jersey thought my personality could carry the lead, so as a senior, I got the part of cowboy Frank Butler.
It showed a different part of me, that I wasn't just this star basketball player. I shocked my mom and my dad with how well I did. They didn't know what to expect when they came to the show. My mom was like, "Make sure you don't embarrass me." But believe it or not, I nailed it, and everybody thought it was a good thing.
The end of that school year, in 1998, I went on Rosie O'Donnell's show to get a ball signed for an auction. She made me sing "Anything You Can Do" with her on the air. It's my favorite song from the show because it's the easiest one to remember. And I want to also go on record that I am not a good singer at all. I was terrible. This is not a singing voice.
I didn't get much needling from my high school teammates for being in the musical because a lot of them were in it as extras. But when I was drafted by the Indiana Pacers out of high school, a lot of veteran guys busted my chops and would say, "How can the star player be in a musical and be singing?" And when I got to the Warriors last season, guys like Matt Barnes found out, and they were like, "Dude, what were you doing in a musical?" That's not "gangsta."
If you're a high school athlete who wants to try out for a musical, go for it. Obviously, people are going to tease you, but my whole thing is, broaden your horizons. You never know; that musical could have made me also want to be an actor, and maybe my whole life would be different. All kids should try different things because you never know what is your true love.
|
Today's 13-year-old stagehand could be tomorrow's Broadway hitmaker. Just ask Thomas Schumacher.
By Brian Truitt
"If you take all of the major sports teams in New York and put them together, Broadway sells more tickets. But more than that, theater is our shared language."
So claims Thomas Schumacher. And he should know. He's the producer behind the biggest Broadway beast ever, the blockbuster Disney show "The Lion King," which has grossed an estimated $3 billion worldwide. As one of the country's leading Broadway boosters and now president of Disney Theatrical Productions, Schumacher wants to spread the gospel all the way into America's school auditoriums.
His new book, "How Does the Show Go On?", is a primer on everything you always wanted to know about the theater but never asked, written with children in mind. It opens like a stage curtain -- from the middle -- and introduces young readers to the range of crafts behind all that Broadway dazzle, from the lobby to the backstage marvels of makeup and costumes. Plus, what's a theater book without some theater lore, such as the origins of the word "box office," the definition of a "swing" actor and why people never utter the word "Macbeth" inside a theater? (Shhh! It's cursed!)
Inherent in Schumacher's message is that theater isn't just for actors -- or, for that matter, adults. Instead, it's a colorful and fantastic part of the American landscape for all ages -- and a catalyst that brings communities together, with professionals, amateurs and audiences. In other words, theater is a lot bigger than most might think, he says. And young people can be the beneficiaries.
"If you're a kid and you get a chance to be a part of a play, whether you're on stage or offstage, whether you build scenery or help with costume changes or do makeup or work with the lighting crew, you're part of a team that is working together," Schumacher says.
"
Unfortunately, he laments, all is not well in today's magical world of school theater: "Today, there are high school musicals being done at a level far superior than anything in my generation. That said, there is much less being done today than back then."
Schumacher's own theater experience began in grade school. By the time he was in high school, he was acting in such classics as "The Music Man" and even directing community productions. "Literally, at the same time one set of kids were outside playing Pop Warner football," Schumacher, 49, recalls, "I was in the theater learning how to tap dance."
Now, he's doing what he loves. "I really believe in these school programs," Schumacher says. And he is steadfast in the belief that arts curricula are critical to a child's development. Kids learn about what they can do in a theatrical setting and see it as a career, a hobby and a family. Not to mention that among a certain school-age set, Disney's hit "High School Musical" movies have again made it cool to be involved in musical theater "for pretty much everybody," he says.
"
You don't have to be the tallest, you don't have to be the prettiest, and you don't have to be the best dancer," Schumacher says. "But I always tell kids to learn more about it and go be in a play in your community. It's not about becoming an actor -- it's becoming part of the theater."
|
Go to top
|
Issue date: Aug. 5, 2007 Watch out: We may break into song. That's because from Broadway, Va., to Beverly Hills, Mich., more than 700 submissions came from all over the country for our first HSM USA WEEKEND Showstopper, lauding high school musicals.
Our search for the best unleashed a torrent. Readers sent mountains of materials showcasing their shows. There were scrapbooks, programs, cast T-shirts, pink promo buttons for "The First Robot Rock Opera," plastic electric roses, photos, newspaper clippings, 11 letters of reference from "Oklahoma!" cast members at Ruben S. Ayala High School in Chino Hills, Calif., and even a plush Cat in the Hat, from the Dr. Seuss musical "Seussical."
Next week, we'll reveal the HSM USA WEEKEND Showstopper of 2007. And we'll offer an exclusive poster featuring the hot stars of Disney's "High School Musical 2," the sequel that airs Aug. 17.
But first, we want to take you behind the scenes here at Showstopper headquarters. In addition to the great standards and a huge number of productions of newcomer "High School Musical," we discovered a host of originals that were worthy of attention.
Greg Leader, a vice president at Sports USA Radio Network, wrote "True Colors -- The '80s Musical," but instead of taking his dream to Broadway first, he brought it to Glenelg (Md.) High School.
"The '80s were as foreign to [these students] as the '60s," he says. "But the issues of racism, economic breakdowns and cliques and things we talked about in the '80s [still] are prevalent."
Hermione Gilpin, 17, a rising senior at Cascia Hall Preparatory School in Tulsa, went much further back, mining Greek mythology to write and direct "Finding Persephone" at her school.
An absence of guys at the all-girls School of the Holy Child in Rye, N.Y., didn't stop students from performing testosterone-heavy 1776. Cast members went through "guy school" to learn how to act like men, and they did research to capture their characters. "The Founding Fathers were awesome and put together the country," says recent graduate Emily Houlihan, 18, who played Thomas Jefferson. "But they had flaws, too."
At the Rhode Island School for the Deaf in Providence, every high school student takes part in the drama program. This year, the students, who have hearing losses ranging from mild to profound and/or other learning or physical disabilities, tackled the difficult choreography and acting of "High School Musical." Explains drama program founder Dana Janik: "There's a kid in the back row who has cerebral palsy. He's up there, he knows every step, and it's fine that he can't keep up. He's having a ball!"
Ultimately, her school's musicals are like others in America: They unite students and the community. "It's the one thing everyone comes to," Janik says. "The parents are proud to see their kids doing the same thing every other high school is doing."
|
|
