By NANCY HILER
As recently reported, the North Bellmore Elementary School District has revamped its district-wide visual and dramatic arts program for fifth- and sixth-graders. The former Creative Arts Program, or CAP, took on the new acronym SAL when renamed Student Arts League. In its new incarnation, the sixth-grade section continues to be a selective, creatively gifted offering, while the fifth-grade section is open to all students at that level and is conducted at each school by the individual art instructors.
At the end of June last year, a transition year for the program, drama students performed the play, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." This year, another work by Welsh novelist Roald Dahl was presented, "James and the Giant Peach." As with the art segment, two separate drama groups, just over 30 students in all, rehearse for about three hours twice a month, bused into Newbridge if that is not their home school.
Since the two groups practice together only twice during the school year, the play is split into halves, with the one group performing the first part and the other group the second part. "There are two Jamies, two of each of the other characters," Lo Bosco said. She said she was hoping for one seamless performance, despite the unusual setup and the limited practice time.
The two groups came together to practice one last time at the dress rehearsal the very day of their performance, held the same night as the art exhibit. The only other time the groups got together was to see the play "Jane Eyre" at the Queens Theatre in the Park in Flushing in January.
"I want to see a lot more enthusiasm," she told one group during a recent rehearsal. "Something strange is about to happen. There's a giant peach in the sky. It's not a piece of paper." She referred to a cardboard drawing of a peach suspended above the Newbridge auditorium balcony that the young actors were peering at.
In the play, the character of James is forced to live with his two aunts, Spiker and Sponge, after a rhino takes his parents away. "The aunts are horrible people, selfish, lazy and cruel," the play's often-needed narrator, Newbridge student Stephanie Brown, said. Later in the play, James meets an old man who gives him magical little creatures called crocodile tongues, which he drops, causing a giant peach to grow on a tree in front of the house, so big in fact he goes inside of it, and an adventure begins.
That adventure is conveyed by way of long speeches and imaginative scenes that the students often have to help the audience visualize by their physicality. The children explained that they auditioned for their parts in front of one another and voted for those they thought would be best as the particular characters, with Lo Bosco entering in only in the case of a tie.
The students seemed upbeat, dedicated to their new craft. "I'm very proud that I'm able to memorize all these lines for four scenes," said Newbridger Nicole Benevento, who played one of the Jamies. "The most difficult part is memorizing the really long parts," she said, adding that she only acted around her family, not in any plays before. "We learned how to make our voices louder because you have to be heard in the back," John Dinkelmeyer School student Kelly Subin said. "We learned to talk to each other in the scene, not to make it boring," Newbridge's Sophia Koukoulis commented.
Lo Bosco reasoned with the children as she prodded them into character during their rehearsals. She told the youngster who played the old man to slow down. "You're limping, you're a grownup, you do everything slower. Drag your words slower." She told Dinkelmeyer student Sean Gaffney, who played the role of a blind earthworm, to feel his way around rather than effortlessly plopping himself into a chair on stage. "It's a challenge," Gaffney commented later, smiling behind oversized sunglasses.
"Things look good," Lo Bosco told the children during a recent rehearsal. "But we need to get our voices louder, our bodies more active. We can surprise them [parents and others in the audience] with how professional we've become in such a short time, and best case we dazzle them; we can wow them."
Comments about this story? NHiler@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 234.
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