Page 26 - 2018 Festival Edition

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Working up a sweat on and off the set
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THE MUSIC MAN
ABILITY CHOICE FREEWILL OPPORTUNITY LIBERTY RELEASE REDEMPTION ABILITY CHOICE FREEWILL OPPORTUNITY LIBERTY RELEASE REDEMPTION
TERRY BRIDGE
Sta Reporter
Donna Feore has a phrase she likes to use to remind her cast what they’re in store for from a physical standpoint.
“There goes your GoodLife membership,” said Jason Sermonia, who is Clar- ence Clayton Hix in Feore’s production of The Music Man this season at the
tional productions with massive dance numbers. The Sermonia siblings have been with the company for a few seasons now – this is Jason’s sixth and Genny’s third – and the pair is well-versed in what Feore is looking for, and expecting from, her dancers.
They were both cast members in her 2016 staging of A Chorus Line. As soon as it was booked, Genny, who watched Jason twist and twirl in Feore’s production of Crazy for You two years earlier, had a realization.
“I’ve got to train,” she said.
To have enough strength and stamina to flourish, let alone just plain keep up, with the exhaustive original choreographed dance scenes featured in this year’s edi- tion of The Music Man, the Sermonias and the rest of the performers need to train rigorously and routinely.
That no-need-for-a-gym-membership line, it turns out, is not true.
continued on page 28
Stratford Festival.
“This is your gym right here,” added Genny Sermonia, Jason’s real-life and on-stage sister as Gertrude Hix. “We always laugh, but it’s so true.”
Feore is the director and choreographer behind Mer- edith Willson’s Tony Award- winning musical comedy
at the Festival Theatre this season, and she’s garnered a reputation for staging sensa-
PAGE 26
THE BEACON HERALD | 2018 FESTIVAL EDITION
JASON SERMONIA (SECOND FROM RIGHT) AS CLARENCE CLAYTON HIX WITH MEMBERS OF THE COMPANY IN THE MUSIC MAN. PHOTO BY CYLLA VON TIEDEMANN.
JASON SERMONIA (TOP, FAR RIGHT) AS CLARENCE CLAYTON HIX WITH MEMBERS OF THE COMPANY IN THE MUSIC MAN. PHOTO BY CYLLA VON TIEDEMANN.
GENNY SERMONIA (SECOND FROM LEFT) AS GERTUDE HIX WITH MEMBERS OF THE COMPANY IN THE MUSIC MAN. PHOTO BY CYLLA VON TIEDEMANN.
GENNY SERMONIA (LEFT) AS GERTRUDE HIX AND JASON SERMONIA (FOURTH FROM RIGHT) AS CLARENCE CLAYTON HIX WITH MEMBERS OF THE COMPANY IN THE MUSIC MAN. PHOTO BY CYLLA VON TIEDEMANN.
GENNY SERMONIA
JASON SERMONIA