‘Follies’ featuring local talent as well as Broadway veterans on Irvine Barclay stage By Michael Rydzynski
For Irvine World News
Harvey Evans, Stephanie Zimbalist and Teri Ralston rehearse a scene from "Follies."
Don’t look now, but there’s a new youth theater company coming to town. And kids have already found their way to it.
Brian Veith, Jamie Thiessen, Samantha Whitford and Brandon Brown are four Irvine teens appearing in “Follies,” the most ambitious production to date of the 18-month-old California Conservatory of the Arts, a San Juan Capistrano arts school, which will present the 1971 Tony Award-winning Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman musical at the Irvine Barclay for three performances beginning Thursday, Jan. 29.
“ I love the show,” said Veith, 17, an Irvine High School junior, who plays Young Teddy in the show. “I actually love anything Sondheim. It’s a lot of hard work but also a lot of fun.”
“ I love the show,” echoed Thiessen, 17, a Northwood High senior, who plays Young Hattie. “It’s so much fun. We dance and sing and wear cool ’40s costumes and get to work with professionals.”
“ That’s my favorite part, working with professionals,” said Whitford, 15, a sophomore at J. Serra High School, a Catholic high school that also houses the conservatory, which has an enrollment of 90, including adults.
“ We’re working with people who are a lot more experienced than we are. And it’s a very fun, very interactive and very upbeat show, despite the fact the characters are old,” Whitford said.
“ They’re not that old,” Thiessen said. “They’re remembering happier times.”
“ They’re happy but they’re not happy with life,” said Whitford, an ensemble member and dancer.
But Veith, Thiessen and Whitford say they are happy with the conservatory. (Brown, 18, a University High senior, was not available for an interview.)
“ I had a lot of fun doing my first show, ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ last October, and thought it’d be a real neat experience working with professional actors and actresses and being in a professional production with ‘Follies,’ so I auditioned for it,” said Veith, who, with Thiessen and Whitford, also dances in the large production numbers when not portraying his character.
“ I love this place,” said Thiessen, who, like Veith, heard about the conservatory from voice teacher Mary Amorosia.
“ It’s like my second home,” said Whitford, who auditioned for the Orange County High School of the Arts in Santa Ana. Her parents later read about J. Serra High School and the conservatory and got their daughter into both, transferring her from Irvine High last fall.
“ That means I have three homes,” Thiessen said, referring also to Musical Theatre Village, an Irvine youth theater where she and Veith are in rehearsal as members of the dance ensemble in “Annie Get Your Gun,” which opens Feb. 12. That will mark the 13th MTV show for her, “about 40 or so” for Veith.
The connection between the Orange County High School of the Arts and the conservatory is not a coincidental one. David Green, a founding director of the school and its vice-president and artistic director for 15 years, co-founded the conservatory in the fall of 2002, the first show being “Nunsense.” He also directed “Little Shop.” “Follies” will be the conservatory’s debut at the Barclay.
At the time of the interview, the teens had not yet gotten to the point of working with the show’s director, Teri Ralston, a veteran of Broadway, having been in the original casts of two other Sondheim musicals, “Company” and “A Little Night Music,” which chronologically flank “Follies” on either side.
“ I’ve never worked with her before but I was excited to hear she’s directing the show,” said Whitford, whose only other conservatory show had been “Snoopy,” which followed “Nunsense.”
“ I’m in one of her classes at the conservatory, so I know her,” Thiessen said. “She’s great and she knows a lot.”
“ Working with professionals is an ‘awe’ thing really,” said Veith, who, in addition to “Follies” and MTV’s “Annie Get Your Gun,” is in Irvine High’s “Once Upon a Mattress,” which began rehearsals this week. (He has also attended Opera Pacific’s summer Opera Camp and South Orange County High School for the Arts at Dana Point High School.) “When you know they’ve been in original Broadway casts and companies of ‘Follies’ and other shows — wow.”
“ And as good as this place is, it’s better now,” said Whitford, whose musical experience includes South Coast Repertory Theatre and, last summer, Southern Lights Musical Theatre. “Without Will (Rodriguez, administrative assistant to Green), the conservatory would not be running as smoothly. And there are newer and better teachers and you get more experiences and more opportunities.”
One of the “newer and better” teachers is Ralston herself.
“ David invited me to teach here last fall,” said Ralston, who lives in Laguna Beach. “And he asked me what show I wanted to direct. I love ‘Follies.’ It’s one of my favorite shows and it’s a very ambitious project for the school. Originally I thought to have the students play the young people roles and local people do the adult roles. Since I’ve done Sally twice, I thought of putting myself in it.
“ And it’s grown from there. David said, ‘Why don’t we get some more names?’ Since I knew a lot of people in the business, I got on the phone and started calling around. And everybody I talked to said, ‘Yes.’”
Which has resulted in a cast that is a veritable “Who’s Who” of the performing arts world: John Raitt (Billy Bigelow in the original 1945 Broadway cast of “Carousel”); Harvey Evans (Young Buddy in the original “Follies”); Kurt Peterson (Young Ben in the original “Follies”); Stephanie Zimbalist (“Remington Steele”); Betty Garrett (film version of “On the Town” with Gene Kelly and “All in the Family”); Julie Wilson (original runs of “Kismet” and “The Pajama Game”); and fellow Laguna Beach resident Jonelle Allen (“Two Gentlemen of Verona” and “Dr. Quinn”).
This will be a staged reading of “Follies,” meaning the performers will read with script in hand amid minimal sets, but the action will be fully staged. Green will serve as producer.
“ David is an amazing man, wearing so many hats,” said Ralston, herself doing double duty as Sally and director. “And we have Michael Borth as musical director, who’s been here from the beginning. He’s an excellent musician, extremely organized and takes on so many different tasks. Will is unbelievable, doing so many things for the conservatory as David’s assistant. And I just love teaching here. It’s a very good program.”
“ The students here are amazing,” said Borth, who will conduct a 20-piece pit orchestra of students and professionals. “There’s a lot of raw talent eager to learn. It’s a matter of tapping into the resources. Orange County, being between Los Angeles and San Diego, sometimes falls into the cracks as far as finding talent is concerned. But this is one of the best casts I’ve ever worked with — and I’ve toured with a lot of companies.
“ And to have all these professionals coming down to help us is wonderful. They’re so talented and so giving of their time.”
Zimbalist, fresh from playing the Teacher in “Define Gravity” in Los Angeles last fall, is one of them.
“ The students are talented,” agreed Zimbalist, star of the former television hit series “Remington Steele” opposite Pierce Brosnan and daughter of another TV star, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (“The FBI”). “And the professionals are extraordinary. This is a lark for me. It reminds you what you don’t know: ‘Oh, I better sing better next time. Oh, I better dance better next time.’ These things come together on spit, wishes and camaraderie. Give us 800 for an audience and watch how fast it comes together.”
This will be Zimbalist’s performing debut in Irvine, never having heard of the Barclay until saying “yes” to Ralston.
“ But it will be my second time to Irvine, as I was accepted by (UC) Irvine 30 years ago,” she said. “It was between that, Stanford and Juilliard.” She chose Juilliard.
“ Follies,” which opens on Raitt’s 87th birthday, will play before the largest audiences in the conservatory’s young history.
“ We’re a growing school,” Ralston said. “We’re hoping ‘Follies’ will introduce more people to the school and its wonderful students.”