Page 10 - Priorities 7

A Skill Set for the New Century
Creative and Technical Abilities Blend In This Dazzling Musical
inutes before the house lights dim and S
I’VE GOT
GEM
RSHWIN!
the doors open to the audience, the
electricity among the cast members is palpable. On stage, musicians tune up instruments and voices. A group revs up team spirit with a hand-clapping song.
Off the stage, crew members, stage hands, siblings with nowhere to go and other assorted hangers-on are milling about, setting up equipment and bumping into each other. Director Sue Barry, the brains behind the chaos, is asking (in an unnaturally strained voice) for everyone to stay quiet and keep calm.
Suddenly, everybody vanishes, the house is open and the audience starts filling the seats.
Two hours and lots of audience hand-clapping later, the last measures of I’ve Got Rhythm fade, John and Julia take the final bow, and it’s over - a triumph bigger than anybody expected for the Priory’s first musical in a long, long time. Ms. Barry tells the second-night crowd she hopes it will be the
ome weeks later, Cayewah Easley, head of the Division of Fine Arts, reflected on the way a musical production also draws together
artistic and technical skills. The production itself was built on the traditional arts - music, acting, writing, choreography, costuming and set design. The production is now accessible via the Priory web site thanks to high-tech tools. The months of work, excitement and growth that went into the musical can be shared.
This blending of art and tech skills will be fruitful for students in the job market 10 and 20 years from now, Cayewah believes. She is developing this theme now in the Priory’s Division of Fine Arts.
In Gershwin, students used the campus’s new digital camera to record rehearsals and the on-stage production. Literally every day during the final week, new images were ready to post to the school web site. Cast members Charles Kou and Richard Lin, members of the campus ClubWeb, designed an “Events” section with a description of the show plus thumbnail-sized photos to enlarge on-screen. The page includes a complete biography of Gershwin, one of the most influential composers of the 20th century, and links to other web sites that
Director Sue Barry has produced student musicals here and abroad (two years ago in China). Her full- length musical, “Under Construction,” was produced with excellent reviews on the East Coast. She is currently writing and composing another musical, this time about Edward S. Curtis, the famous photographer of the American Indian.
beginning of many musicals to come. Musicals create a special sense of community, she said.
Indeed, the way Sue designed it, the show combined students, parents, sibs and faculty, musicians, actors, artists and technicians. It came together in a way that let the best talents and the beginners all share skills and grow.
Cayewah Easley, head of the Division of Fine Arts, uses advanced technology as a natural extension of the artist’s tools.
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Background: art students’ New York skyline theme was repeated in the stage set, posters and programs.