 Welcome to Channel 17 to Very Mary Theatre's home space here at 20 Allen Street, now known as the Old North End Community Center. Very Mary Theatre is an organization that serves teenagers and children from ages 5 to 19. Our primary purpose is to be of service to our community, to provide opportunities for children and teens to express themselves through storytelling. Primarily we do shows that are a narrative with a beginning, middle and end, and we primarily do musicals. We partner with many, many schools in the area, some of them for over 20 years. We have summer camps at two locations, one here at 20 Allen and you'll see a little bit more of our space here in a second. We also have a beautiful barn that we rent in the summer down in Charlotte, Vermont, and we have a traveling wagon and our children rehearse for a week or so at the barn and then hit the road with the wagon and put on free shows at local parks and libraries in the area. The primary purpose, as I said, is to be of service for children and of all situations and backgrounds, we try to make ourselves accessible to everybody and so whatever obstacles might be in the way of a child being able to participate in one of our productions, we work with the family to help them overcome those obstacles so that they can be involved. We do 40 productions a year. We work with over a thousand children and teens each year. We do licensed shows and many Broadway shows, particularly with our teenagers and we're very proud of our teens. Many of them have stayed with us from the early years on, some jump on board during their teen years and they have really come to put on some outstanding productions for us. Speaking of our teens, we are preparing this weekend for King Lear, the Western and it's a musical that I adapted from William Shakespeare's King Lear with our music director Ashley O'Brien who composed music to lyrics that in some cases I created but in others were actually more sort of adapted or reworking Shakespeare's original iambic pentameter into the melody for a song. You can't do a Western without a steam train. We have a couple of exciting scenes that happen up there. If you don't know the story of King Lear, I can tell you that there's a subplot of a friend of Lear's named Gloster and Gloster has been duped by one son into making an enemy of the other and they end up finally meeting and recognizing each other in a very dramatic scene on top of this train. I'm going to bring you into our green room and our green room, if Micah could pan to the left over there you will see is our costume racks. There's actually a couple shows. We have King Lear and Hairspray costumes over here and hard at work going over their lines and songs and dances and having a meal prior to five hours of hard work are Hallie Newman who is playing Edgar who I mentioned a moment ago is reunited with her father, his father but Hallie's a girl playing a boy which happens a lot in the world of theater. On top of that train is where that dramatic scene happens and Gabby is playing one of Lear's what's in the original is called a fool. In our case it's more sort of a sidekick jester and Gabby loves comedy and Zenavia Wilcox is playing a couple roles one is the engineer of that train but primarily she is a troubadour and with three of her fellow cast members they come on in this really cool wagon and sing four different narration songs to help the audience follow the story. Zenavia how many years do you think you've been involved with Very Merry Theatre? Oh wow. Well I started in the fifth grade but I continued it since then and I picked it up sophomore year actually not freshman but sophomore year I picked it up again so I don't know exactly it's like a math question right now exactly but I've been here a long time it's pretty cool to see where it's been since. And where are you headed next year? Next year I'm going to Southern Connecticut State University so I'm really excited it's in New Haven so it's in the film. That is so awesome we love Zenavia at Very Merry Theatre and this is Gabby Boera. Gabby tell us your favorite story connected to Very Merry. So we are doing hair in the musical and we had one rehearsal it was dark out all the shades were drawn the entire room was like pitch black and we were spread out actually in this room like throughout the our little pods is what we call we had like little groups and Don like walked us through like one of the songs which one was it oh my god it was the walking yeah it was it was really it was incredible and I can never forget the Monopoly man the what is it the oil it was incredible I can't I can't go into depth or else I'd be here all day but it was it was a great time. And this is Hallie Newman Hallie has been with us in second grade and Hallie you were telling me the other day that your favorite original Very Merry Theatre adaptation is and then tell me why. My favorite Very Merry Theatre adaptation of a show is Peter Pan and that is my favorite because I did Peter Pan in second grade and it was like I'd been on stage before actually but I'd only been in like little little plays so I was like up with the big kids as a second grader and I was dressed as a star and like nothing has ever felt more magical in my entire life than like running across the stage trying to be flying and like watching all the older kids saying and I was just like this is like the place that I want to grow up so I'm really glad that I got to. And I'm gonna finish with Xenavia because I didn't think my questions were as interesting for her so Xenavia you you get to share a moment or a memory from your years of being with us. Moment or memory I think like I want to go back to hair because like I said like out of all the like Very Merry Productions I just loved hair so much specifically also because I was just starting to like get back into like the teen Very Merry world and like starting to everyone it was just one of those shows that was just so free and like directly portrayed like the view or like the vision of what Very Merry is supposed to be so yeah just like all of it as a whole. Because Very Merry is always doing multiple productions we are also preparing for hairspray with 30 younger teens next weekend so at any given point in the day our stage may represent three or four different shows. Right now it's mostly King Lear but beyond the the focus of the camera we have people working on our hairspray production right now. Our art director at Very Merry is Becca McHale and she is with us now and she's going to tell us a little bit about some of the choices that she's making and projects she's working on for hairspray. Well hairspray takes place in in Baltimore and so we're starting off with a set that is representative of Baltimore it has it's a series of Rick Roe Holmes and they're going to be up on stage the whole time and they'll have cut out windows that can be illuminated from behind and then it'll it'll really transform from being Roe Holmes to being part of a TV show dance set. How do you keep up this ridiculous pace of working on multiple productions at once and keep your sanity? Well luckily there's a leader at the helm who knows how to calm nerves and say everything's going to be okay and it's all going to get done so I definitely lean on Don if I'm starting to get a little concerned about things it's like it's going to get done and it does it always does with the help of other people if needed and somehow yeah it all comes together every time. We have an enormous amount of support in the community and Goodwill and much of it of the volunteer variety where people will come and play in a pit orchestra, paint a set, help with costuming, hair, makeup, playbill, intermission, house and green room support you name it and we have just an enormous amount of wonderful community members who help our children put on their shows. Micah is a cinema major is that right? That's correct and also minoring in theater which excites me very much because Micah's always been an amazing storyteller and Micah one of the things I thought maybe you could share with people is during your years here and we're continuing to do this to talk about how we use committees to help collaborate with sets and costumes and PR and hair and makeup and and how that you know informed your experience as an actor. Well just to to know that all these little things are going on in a production I I had never thought of that when I was in fourth grade but as I've been in more shows it's been it's been really cool to watch all these get together just to put together this one production that people come to see over a weekend but I think it's helped me become more involved with theater not just as an actor but just as a volunteer helping out with making all these productions realities but I've just enjoyed the whole process I I've never wanted to leave theater so I made it my minor in college because I never not want to do theater. Which is great for his old director to hear. Our goal is to not necessarily to provide a star vehicle for the children meaning that we try to adapt shows ourselves or we do and write our own musicals so that we can take on as many kids as want to participate in a given production and this allows us to really spread the wealth so that everybody gets a chance to shine. Alright thank you that's your tour we have one more space as I mentioned next door black box but it has new windows being put in it right now so we can't take you there but it's been a pleasure to share this time with you on channel 17