Good Tidings We Bring
The Show of Shows
Barrington High School alumni spanning 60 years pulled together a one-weekend show to entertain, raise awareness and create an endowment to solidify the school’s performing arts legacy.
THERE ARE TWO SHOWS IN every stage production. There is the one tht the audience pays to see, that follows a script, that sings and dances or storms across the stage. Then there’s the one that unfolds behind the scenes, in endless rehearsals, in the give and take between actor and director, in the stew of emotion and intellect and art that cast and crew create in their brief life together.
Both spectacles were a resounding success in a summer gala benefit that celebrated 60 years of musical theater performances at Barrington High School. The BHS Performing Arts Alumni Show was held July 9-10 in the school’s Johnson Auditorium, drawing nearly 200 volunteer students, and alumni and former faculty from across the country and raised $75,000 to seed a BHS Performing Arts Endowment.
The reuniting that happened backstage was just as important as the songs sung onstage during the Alumni Show, a musical revue that celebrated the joy of giving a great performance while reuniting alumni from around the country.
“The performing arts have played a really significant role in this community’s history…and the program is truly an asset,” said Marc Parker, BHS Class of 1973 and the show’s producer. “This was an opportunity to say, to go beyond saying, ‘We think this program is working, it’s having a huge effect and the community is very fortunate to have it. But you can’t take it for granted and expect it will always be there. You have to support it and cultivate it.’”
Parker began calling his BHS theater chums two years ago in an effort to buttress a program that despite its contribution to the success and fulfillment of hundreds of students could be hobbled by budget constraints. His vision was to lure grateful, grown-up student actors, musicians and techies back to their roots (with the promise of a Broadway-quality show) as a way to remind Barrington of its proud theatrical history. Also, his plan was to fund a college scholarship, and, like every stage production, a grand scheme. But with a lot of talent and hard work and a little luck, Parker got his way.
Claudette “Charlie” Carstensen, Class of 1971, a member of the production’s core group, served as art director and costumer. She researched past productions, helped to gather reams of artifacts – playbills, programs, photographs, videos, recordings – all which will eventually be archived at the Barrington Public Library, and she dressed a cast that was big, little, younger, older, in 60 costumes and more than 200 accessories. She was so busy dressing and doing, that she missed the show onstage.
“But the show backstage was really fun,” said Carstensen, one of many alumni who commented that BHS performing arts offers a place to belong and to learn technical skills and more intangible lessons – like teamwork.
“That’s why performing arts are so important,” Carstensen said. “They give people the kind of community where everyone is working toward a common goal.”
Carstensen, a resident of Tower Lake, who met Parker during the 1969 BHS production of “Once Upon a Mattress,” said the reunion show organizers recognized the “ups and downs and twists” that awaited them.
“How were we going to do this when most of the alumni weren’t even here?” she said they asked. “But every time there was a stumbling block, somebody would have an idea, something to contribute. There was so much cooperation, it all fell into place.”
It was James Kampert’s idea to form a core group of players who met weekly to rehearse, while distant alumni practiced remotely using videos posted on the internet. Alumni who once starred in productions like “South Pacific,” “Pirates of Penzance,” and “Pippen,” put on those characters again and to the last they were ready to take the stage, sing their parts and say thank you to BHS performing arts.
Kampert, Class of 1969, a retired theater manager, reprised the role of Benny Southstreet from “Guys and Dolls,” his 1967 BHS stage debut. Becoming Benny, he said, helped him discover who he was.
“The most important thing art has to offer is it shows people what they can do, who they can become,” Kampert said. “I’m the shyest person you will ever meet, but because I got involved in theater, I could put on a character who wasn’t shy, who was outgoing and friendly. It was almost therapy. It made me a better person.”
Caity Kania, Class of 2000, the show’s music director, took on the monumental challenge of organizing music for about 25 numbers, including medleys and pieces with 10 or more choral parts, plus choreography and staging. Parker called Kania, the mother of three young children, “an amazing force of nature.”
“She did what many people said was impossible,” Parker said. “She transformed a group of alumni from different generations and backgrounds, most with no formal training, into a cohesive cast.”
Kania stuck to a tough schedule, worried privately to her husband, accepted that there was a lot she could not control and, after the show, confessed to “an element of miracle.” The audience participated as well. “There was a lot of feeling going on in the audience,” Kania said. “A lot of feeling and a lot of reminiscing. It gave everybody a chance to ride the whole 60 years, like it was a rollercoaster, with all the ups and downs.”
“My youngest was 12 and my oldest was 74,” Kania said. “They were all volunteers. There was no paycheck, no grade. People who weren’t even on my list showed up ready to go. People came out of the woodwork to do some awesome things.”
Performances were interspersed with videos and reminiscing – the bale of hay prop that caught fire and had to be rushed from the building, a quest to find a Barrington homeowner who would trade their beat-up garbage cans for the prop department’s shiny new ones. And tribute was paid to faculty giants, including the late performing arts director, Richard Johnson, and choir director, Phillip Mark.
Operations Manager Gary Shaw, Class of 1973, who made sure bills were paid and tickets were sold, recalled that he played trombone in the theater orchestra during his years at BHS.
“Playing in the pit, you’re not just playing spots on paper,” he said. “You’re adding to the drama and theatricality of the program. That creativity pushes you, inspires you.”
That’s exactly what Shaw witnessed during production week, when the players, chorus and musicians finally hit the auditorium stage and soaked-up the lighting and other expert visual effects created by a tech crew that included alumni who had made careers in theater.
Energy soared as alumni who work as performers – lyric soprano Kallen Esperian, Jeff Galfer, who has appeared on “Law and Order” and daytime TV star Colleen Zenk – joined the show.
“The company kicked it up a notch,” Shaw said. “All of a sudden they were a Broadway cast and a darn good one. I think they just saw that everything they were working toward, thinking and dreaming was not only going to happen but was going to be better than their wildest imaginings.”
Chris Limber, Class of 1971, who put his job as education director of the Shakespeare Festival in St. Louis on hold to come back and who said “I really discovered at BHS what I wanted to do with my life,” was surprised to walk into the theater 40 years later to recognize the same smell of sawdust and to see the girl who played Golde to his Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.”
“Our eyes filled with tears and we hugged each other,” Limber said. “It was just a magical moment.
“It was a homecoming,” Limber added, “ with such a sense of purpose and celebration. Those moments in theater were really high points of our high school days together. To come back and create another wonderful, exciting, profound experience in that same space was very special.”
Reprising and reinforcing a legacy
The positive impact on a community—and especially its student population—is a driving force behind this historic reunion of people representing six decades of performing artists. Their mission to maintain the legacy was worth all of the rehearsals, long hours and travel. Many alumni spoke of their performing arts legacy – the camaraderie, the life skills, and in some cases, the life-saving benefits of retreating to the unique “space” of performing arts during what can be a stressful academic world for high school students. Alumni want the show to go on and have built an endowment of both capital and awareness.
Here, the BHS Performing Arts Alumni Show’s cast, crew and residents comment on the show and the legacy of supporting the performing arts.
“I wanted to know more about what was going on down there (in the theater department),” said Marc Parker, about his foray into the performing arts at BHS 40 years ago. “There were so many people who put so much effort into a production and at the end, it was your group.I had a passion for performing arts. It’s an incredible art form that is totally ephemeral. It’s there and then it’s gone. You can record it, but it’s never the same. You don’t get the ambiance. When it’s live, you know anything can happen.”
“I think of the past faculty who had an effect on what we became in our real lives,” said James Kampert, Class of 1969.
“Marc talks about the importance of the endowment, but the gift he’s given to people involved in the show is even more valuable – new and unexpected friendships with people of all ages,” said Miles Galfer, Class of 1994, the show’s technical director.
“A lot of things had to come together and they did,” said Caity Kania, music director. “It was absolutely breathtaking to watch. The guys rallied each other. They’d go into a practice room to rehearse their choreography. I don’t know how many times I caught them rehearsing by themselves.”
“I’ve worked a lot of volunteer projects,” Charlie Carstensen said. “Unique individuals can do incredible things, if they have a true belief and the drive to do it.”
“Profit is usually the motivation for what many people do in life,” said Bob Lee, who helped with public relations and ticket sales. “But this was the pure joy of camaraderie and putting on a fabulous production for the community. To see a man with a dream, and many people said it was an impossible dream, and to see it turn into reality is a lesson for us all.”
“In many ways, the performing arts prepare our kids for the world stage,” Lee said. “It’s important that we maintain that asset and build upon it. There are a lot of talented young kids around.”
To donate to the BHS Performing Arts Alumni Endowment, visit www.bhstheater.com
ORGANIZERS OF THIS SUMMER’S BHS Alumni Show praised the support of the Barrington community and recognized the pivotal role that village president Karen Darch played in the production. Darch helped persuade the village board to let the production team of BHS alumni use Studio 141, the former Chuck Hines clothing store on Main Street, for meetings and rehearsals.
“It was the perfect space for us,” said Marc Parker, the show’s producer. “It gave us a presence in the community.”
Darch organized a 21-member Barrington Cultural Commission last year, aimed at coordinating cultural activity in the community that plans activities such as last spring’s Barrington Arts Festival and a themed holiday schedule of events in the village.
“Barrington is a community that loves the arts and loves culture, and we have a lot of people talented in those areas,” Darch said. “We’re offering those people a showcase, and we’re also showcasing the community. It takes you to a different level when you promote the arts. It says the arts are an important way of learning and expressing the beauty of life.”
“The community, in general, shows support for the fine arts, more than any I’ve ever seen in any of the places I’ve taught,” said Caity Kania, Class of 2000, who holds a master’s degree in music education.