By Chelsie Derman
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Zoe Talbot, a junior English education major and president of TCNJ Musical Theatre (TMT), has loved theater since eighth grade. They had joined TMT as an eager, show-hungry freshman, but shortly after that, Covid hit — right before TMT’s big spring production — which crushed their excitement.
The curtains were closed.
TMT canceled its mainstage spring 2020 production, “The Wedding Singer,” and so Talbot was denied the opportunity to see their costumes on stage for a TMT production. But after all changes this semester, the show is back on. TMT will be performing “The Addams Family” and the preparation is well underway, with the opening show on Feb. 24.
“This is our first time putting on a show on the mainstage with a professional director since 2019, the spring of 2019, before we were even at the college,” Talbot said, “so that’s super, super exciting. I’m excited to see us put an entire production through.”
When Covid struck and the world went into quarantine, show productions were critically affected. Unfortunately, shows couldn’t happen like normal and were either canceled altogether or moved to a virtual format. Now, shows are coming back strong in a somewhat normal — or traditional — manner. Of course, that doesn’t mean Covid isn’t completely disregarded. Masks-wearing is still required for both cast and audience members. However, shows can now return in-person with a full audience.
For TMT, people are already racing to order their tickets.
“We have about 500 seats (in the theater) for all four nights, so that’s really incredible,” Talbot said.
Talbot explained that there will be a lot more seats for their “The Addams Family” production, than their smaller fall 2021 production of “Little Women,” simply because it is in a larger venue. While “The Addams Family” was in Kendall’s mainstage, “Little Women” had been in the Black Box theater.
Fortunately, all three theater groups at the College — TMT, All College Theatre (ACT) and Lyric Theatre — will have productions this semester.
ACT plans on putting on “Twelve Angry Men,” a well-known Broadway production. Meanwhile, Lyric Theatre is performing “Live Out Loud” both on Broadway and on campus (because the school can only put so many students on the bus to New York). Lyric Theatre will be working with Broadway’s Andrew Lippa and Kate Baldwin.
Jonathan Vogel, president of ACT and a senior chemistry major, talked a little bit about what's currently going on with their production of “Twelve Angry Men,” and how far along they are before show day.
“Our production managers are Braden and Justine,” Vogel said. “They recently closed applications for our assistant production manager, assistant director, and state director for the production, and they just recently opened up applications for assistant stage managers and lead production departments, so from anything from lights, sound, carpentry, set, hair and makeup, costumes, props and programs, so they still have to fill those.”
Auditions for the show occurred on Friday, Feb. 11 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.
“So as far as planning-wise for the show that’s the extent of what has happened so far,” Vogel said.
Regarding Covid regulations, Vogel said ACT will just be following the school rules.
“As far as we know right now, we have just been following information we’ve been getting from the college,” Vogel said. “As of right now, everyone’s still required to wear masks, but I don’t believe there’s going to be any changes from last semester, so masks in the audience, but I don’t think they’re limiting the number of audience members that can be in the space, any more than normal.”
The number of students on stage is also not limited.
“None of our shows had an enormous cast, just because they’re smaller cast shows,” Vogel said. “But going off of things like TMT shows they had last semester, they had 26 students in the cast (Little Women). We only had four people on our show last semester, so I don’t believe there’s any real limit for the amount of participants in the show.”
Vogel’s excited to work as designer rather than the production side of things. He’s also thrilled about their particular production, “Twelve Angry Men.”
“I feel like we might get a lot of involvement in terms of both people coming out and auditioning for the show and also audience members coming to see it just because ‘Twelve Angry Men’ is a classic play,” Vogel said.
Last semester, ACT had performed “Spoon River Anthology,” based on Edgar Lee Masters’ book.
“(‘Spoon River Anthology’) was kind of our own adaptation of a book,” Vogel said. “It will be nice to have a show that has some sort of name recognition. I’m excited for that.”
Braden Drake, a junior double major in communications and women gender studies, and the project manager/publicist for ACT, said she’s excited for the organization to get back on its feet.
“Our numbers, in membership-wise, have dropped, but I think this is going to be a show that’s going to help us build back up,” Drake said.
Drake said the combination of graduating seniors and ACT going full-virtual last year just naturally caused a reduction in numbers.
On top of the fact Drake’s glad they’re getting new members, Drake enjoys training new ACT members so they could be future leads or board members themselves
“I really want to be able to have this be a really good learning experience for everybody so we can leave the show feeling like we have a solid group of individuals who are ample prepared for the next show to come,” Drake said.
Justine Denicola, a sophomore psychology major and vice president of ACT, looks forward to getting more of a behind-the-scenes experience of creating a production as in the past she’s only been on stage. Denicola is also involved with TMT and said she is working on costumes for “The Addams Family.”
“I think it’s really important that everyone who is on stage kind of gets the chance to be on the production staff at some point and just kind of see how much goes into it,” Denicola said. “It really makes you feel so grateful as an actor when you see how many people have your back, how many people are working to make you look good on stage, make sure that the sound’s working right. I’m very excited to have an opportunity to lead that with Braden who’s incredible and I trust her with everything.”
Meanwhile, Lyric Theatre is preparing for its show, “Live Out Loud,” which will be on two dates: April 8 for the New York show, and April 27 for the show here at the College’s Black Box Theatre. Eighteen students are currently enrolled in Lyric Theatre.
Lyric Theatre Director Nathan Brewer talked a little bit about how they will be working with Broadway composer Andrew Lippa (known for the lyric’s in the Broadway musical “The Addams Family,” “The Big Fish,” and contributed three songs to the Broadway “Your A Good Man, Charlie Brown”) and singer/actor Kate Baldwin (played Sandra Bloom in Broadway’s “Big Fish” and also starred in Broadway’s “Finian's Rainbow,” “The Full Monty,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Wonderful Town”).
“Andrew Lippa will be teaching our students a masterclass in which they will sing songs, and receive feedback, by the man who composed the songs,” Brewer said. “It is a rare and exciting opportunity to receive instruction from a living and legendary composer on their songs.”
Brewer then went on to talk about how Baldwin will teach a masterclass to the students. According to Brewer, while Baldwin will rehearse and perform with the students in New York City, when the students do the performance at the College, the students will take over Baldwin’s singing part.
“I have observed both Andrew and Kate teach masterclasses to musical theatre students in the past, and they are exceptional teachers,” Brewer said.
Brewer said many students in Lyric Theatre will be performing for the first time in New York City. The performance will take place at the historic Laurie Beechman Theatre on 42nd Street — which Brewer said is located in the “heart of the theatre district,” not far from Times Square.
“My hope for the show is that our students cherish this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with Broadway royalty,” Brewer said.
Editor's Note: The article previously stated 500 seats were already booked for TMT's "The Adams Family." This is incorrect; there are 500 seats in the whole theater. The number does not apply to the number of tickets ordered. Second, Talbot worked on costumes for "The Wedding Singer" and had not intended to perform in the production.
