[NEohioPAL] Review/Article on Chagrin Falls Performing Arts Academy

[Bob Abelman]

Youth theater lives, trives with passion

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This article appeared in the Times papers 7/1/10

In the 1930s and 1940s, an adolescent Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney did a series of backyard-musical films where the logical solution for what ails you was to "put on a show."

 

Babes in Arms, their earliest film, found the two teens and their buddies staging a musical to help revive vaudeville after it had succumbed to motion pictures.  In Strike Up the Band, the kids do a musical revue to finance a high school band competition and pay for a pal's life-saving surgery.  

 

Apparently putting on a show just requires a song in your heart and a pocket full of good intention.

 

"And a lot of people donating their time and energy," notes Luke Wehner, a recent graduate of Brush High School and the Chagrin Falls Performing Arts Academy.  "And it takes lots of planning.  If I've learned one thing its plan, plan, plan!"

 

Mr. Wehner did not just put on any show for his senior project.  Along with Academy alumna and current Boston University theater major Olivia Fine, he co-directed and acted in an extremely ambitious production of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, performed past weekend in the Chagrin Fall High School's black box theater.  



Proceeds from both performances, staged after months of planning and just two weeks of intensive rehearsal, were earmarked to support local area youth theaters.

 

It is from local youth theaters like Playmakers, Stagecrafters, Heights Youth Theater, Fairmount Performing Arts Conservatory, and Near West Theater that the show's young cast members cut their teeth and found a forum for their burgeoning creativity.  The majority of them-Nick Hyland, Patrick Mooney, Derrick Hann, David Levitz, Frances Furnas, Corlesia Smith, and Austin James Murray-chose to advance their knowledge and fine-tune their skills through the Academy.   

 

The Chagrin Falls Performing Arts Academy was established in 2008 and is an accredited, half day high school program under the umbrella of northeast Ohio's Mayfield Consortium.  Ten school systems constitute the consortium, including Aurora, Beachwood, Chagrin Falls, Mayfield, Orange, Richmond Heights, Solon, South Euclid-Lyndhurst, West Geauga and, more recently, Shaker Heights.

 

According to Academy director Tom Fulton, "this is a college preparatory program that provides talented juniors and seniors with a challenging educational and performance-based experience.  Students going through this program work with working professionals and, by doing so, are well on their way to becoming working professionals themselves."   

 

This production of Jesus Christ Superstar featured two Equity actors with local youth theater ties.  R. Scott Posey, who played Jesus, was recently a guest artist in the Heights Youth Theater production of Children of Eden.  Ben Fankhauser, who portrayed Judas, is fresh off a national tour of Spring Awakening and was active in Stagecrafters and Heights Youth Theater when he was in middle school and high school. 

 

Music director Sean Szaller, who was largely responsible for recruiting the magnificent 11-piece orchestra, has directed for several youth theaters over the past few years.

 

Although Mr. Posey's professionalism bolstered this production and Mr. Fankhauser's well-honed talents nearly stole it, it was the efforts of Mr. Wehner, Ms. Fine and their young ensemble of performers that made this production soar and inspired spontaneous standing ovations.  Their energy, their creativity and their skills enthralled the audience; their obvious and unbridled passion for performing won them over.

 

This production of Jesus Christ Superstar serves as testimony to the importance of youth theater and arts education in our community.  "As someone who struggled with engaging in the traditional classroom," admits Mr. Wehner, "I found a place to feel accomplished, to feel successful, to feel challenged.  I found a place where I felt supported and safe to take risks and grow." 

 

This production also provides evidence that the performing arts have found their way to the next generation of performance artists.  It is in the safe keeping of those who, in the spirit of those who came before them, wholeheartedly believe that the cure for what ails you is to put on a show.

 

Reader feedback is welcome.  Visit:  www.chagrinvalleytimes.com/contact_us.php

 

 
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