Set in the late 1940s in New York, Parkland Musical Theatre students will showcase their talents in the famous Broadway play Guys and Dolls.
Nathan Detroit, played by Grade 9 student Dallas McNeil, is a loveable but broke perpetuator of illegal gambling through crap games in the underbelly of the city.
Detroit’s girlfriend Adelaide, played by Grade 12 student Michelle Haire, is the talented, sultry lounge singer who has waited patiently but eagerly for him to propose — for 14 years!
Sky Masterson, played by Grade 11 student Ryan Kelly, contrast with Sarah Brown, played by Grade 11 student Jessica Schmidt. Brown is a sweet missionary woman, desperate to clean up the corruption of the city, wrought by the likes of gamblers like Masterson and charachters like Nicely Nicely Johnson, Harry the Horse, Big Julie and Benny Southwest
The News Review caught up with the play’s four lead actors to talk about their performance, which hit the stage Feb. 1 to 4.
PNR: Tell me a bit about your characters.
Haire: “My character adelaide, she’s really antsy to get married.”
McNeil: “But I’m more of a bum and I’m kind of just not really wanting to get married,” he said with a laugh, the other actors giggling off to the side.
Schmidt: I’m a mission doll. I’m very conservative, trying to bring people to our little save a soul mission.
Kelly: “And I’m the exact opposite, I’m a high rolling gambler.”
PNR: What do you like most about your characters?
McNeil: I love how sarcastic (it is) at times. It seems like me.
Haire: My character, I love she’s a dancer and I’m a dancer also. And she’s very high energy and she’s just a lot of fun to play.
Kelly: My character I like him because he’s very suave and confident which is something I’m trying to be myself so this is helping me improve myself. And he’s got a pretty good sense of style.
Schmidt: I think I like how awkward how Sarah is in a sense. Naive is a really good word to use. She’s kind of just new to everything that Sky has to offer and that’s kinda cool.
PNR: Is this your first performance you’ve ever done?
Kelly: This is my first.
McNeil: This is my first too.
And it’s the girls’ third year.
PNR: What have been some of the challenge in portraying your character?
Haire: For Adelaide I would say that she’s so high energy that its sometimes hard to come off like that.
And she has such a high voice. It’s just a lot to do all at once.
McNeil: Trying to be sarcastic when something hasn’t come up that’s entirely worthy of the sarcasm (laughs). Just pulling sarcasm out of nowhere.
Schmidt: I feel like it’s been fairly easy to slip into Sarah. She’s me in quite a few ways. She’s very quiet but can be loud and speaks her opinion.
Kelly: The challenge for me is I’m a cadet so I’m used to being stiff and not supposed to move at all. Many times it’s been commented (that I need to) loosen up. The opening scene, I have to walk downstairs and they’re always going on, even now, for how I walk. ‘Be more suave, ooze confidence!’ And that’s the biggest struggle for me.
McNeil: Don’t be a board!
PNR: What do you guys hope to do in your future? Are you guys hoping to go into acting professionally?
Haire: I was actually thinking about going to a performing arts college after I graduated, so that’s definitely an option.
Schmidt: its always been kind of a background dream of mine to do something with performing in the future but we’ll see what happens.
McNeil: A bit, but still deciding
Kelly: I’m a musician at heart so it’d be cool to be on stage performing with instruments but I plan on (taking)the military route.
PNR: How has this experience been for you guys to be the leads of the play?
Kelly: Stressful. You have to memorize lots of lines.
Schmidt: For me this is my first year being anywhere near a lead and so its been a good confidence boost in just pushing myself to do the best that I can and really opening up on stage.
Haire: I met a whole bunch of new people and I have a whole bunch of new friends so it helps with like social anxiety if you have stage fright, because everyone is very welcoming.
Schmidt: It really turns into a family by the end.
Tickets for the performance are on sale now and can be purchased by calling the Parkland Box Office at 250-655-2736.
For more information visit www.parkland.sd63.bc.ca.
