KAYS Morning Show's Gerard Wellbrock recently interviewed Director Brenda Meder on the upcoming Hays Community Theatre performance of "Annie."
$20 tickets. All seating is reserved. You can get at hctks.com.
Wellbrock: The Hays Community Theatre is presenting "Annie" on Thursday, July 23, Friday, July 24 and Saturday, July 25. This is Gerard Wellbrock. We'll visit with director Brenda Meder and cast members on this edition of the Hays Post podcast.
Wellbrock: But first, Brenda, congratulations! I just had Kim Sabula with the Fort Hays State Alumni Office announce their award winners. You'll be the Distinguished Service Award winner for the Fort Hays State Alumni Association. Congratulations! Very well deserved. That's a great honor.
Meder: Thank you, I was more than surprised and incredibly humbled. So, so yeah, it's cool when it comes from within your own community and university; you know what that's like when you stay here. It's got a little different vibe to it, and then to have those years pass and go well- that was the right vibe; this is where I was supposed to be.
Wellbrock: Well, you've left your impact obviously, and we joked before we went on the air, retired from the Hays Arts Council. Although it probably hasn't felt like you were retired.
Meder: Not yet, not yet.
Wellbrock: You've been busy, yeah.
Meder: Staying on through the school and youth programming, which was, you know, just a privilege to be able to do. And then literally that's wrapping up, and we've already done auditions for Annie at that point, so it is. It has been Annie for, oh, anywhere from six to 10 hours a day.
It just when you're in the trenches for something that doesn't mean we're directing all that time, but you know you're researching and you're watching watching other productions.
You're reviewing things and you know working with other people on the team because this isn't a this isn't a one man gig.
Really when you want it to, when you want to have a standard and you want to make sure that everybody as the leader is able to bring their best. You're bringing the best possible production to fruition because this is this is a big show and it's not an easy easy show.
It is complex music and not just for the two guests we've got here today, which we'll meet soon.
Our actor playing Daddy Warbucks and Annie are here. Whether it's some of our ensemble numbers or the servants, or the Bert Healy show, the orphans. My goodness, we are so blessed with the most amazing core of young ladies that are just going to blow the roof off of Beach Schmidt.
But the music for everyone is there, and Hayden Sillman's our music director, and he's just been doing an amazing job and really trying to get everybody lined up well.
And Jackie Creamer accepted my invitation to come on board as the choreographer, and she has not made it easy for an awful lot of the cast members.
We've tried to take into account that these aren't necessarily professional dancers, but most of them have never even really done dancing or been trained in dance, and we're trying to do everything that we can within the scope of possibility to again elevate the big picture. I think we will have really done that.
Annie just has such an incredible, rich history. As we were talking beforehand, it's like this is the 60th anniversary.
Even though it wasn't built for that, I don't think the community theater selected that as its show for that reason.
So we're on the precipice of the first performances of "Annie" 60 years ago, which is really hard to believe.
It's an incredibly beloved production that's been performed all over the world, reprised over and over and over again, with hundreds and hundreds of young women, even in the professional world, having played the role of Annie.
It's just got an incredible legacy. But I also want to remind people this isn't a children's production. It's a traditional Broadway show with a cast of adult actors.
It's just that a large cadre of needed actors are children for the orphans. I wanted to make sure young men. There are no male orphans, but we had six young men come out. They are integral to a couple of our ensemble scenes.
So we have got young men and young women, some as young as 7; our oldest cast member is 68, and everything in between.
Fifty-two cast members, and all of them have just been working so hard and bringing such a level of professionalism in the best sense of what that means.
Wellbrock: You mentioned it's, "Annie." I think most people know the story. It was turned into a movie. Maybe multiple times. When you do a production that is so well known, is that a little more challenging than maybe just some random play that someone maybe hasn't seen?
Meder: On some levels, it is. The good news is that people are familiar. It's like I want to see that. And there have been so many different incarnations, so many different ways done.
Everything from "Annie Jr." or middle schools and high schools to the most esteemed professional productions, so everybody's also very comfortable and familiar with the idea that this can run the gamut and still be an amazing show.
I poured over so many productions, things made for film, stage productions filmed for television, not to mention, stage productions that you were able to get your hands on. We've certainly had some that we've used a little bit more as our inspiration.
But there's no doubt in my mind, no matter how familiar someone is or isn't, this cast and this group of people behind the scenes—and there are a lot of them with costumes and makeup and stage management—it's going to be worth every penny of that $20 ticket and more.
Wellbrock: $20 tickets. All seating is reserved. You can get tickets at hctks.com. You mentioned 52 people in the cast. Twenty-nine are ages of 7 to 14. Let's go meet one of them. Daddy Warbucks is with us here today. Tell us a bit about yourself and what drew you to "Annie."
Ben: So my name's Ben.
Wellbrock: Oh, you're not Daddy Warbucks.
Ben: Yeah, I have done theater a lot in the past, but it's been maybe 20 years, and so I was excited just to get back engaged with the theater in the area. A little bit of typecasting helped.
Meder: He did not have to shave his head just to get the role.
Ben: All right, that was what I was already. I came in with the look. Oh yeah.
Meder: And we're lucky enough that he had the voice and the personality and the acting chops to back it up. He's got a completely different life on the other side of the stage.
Wellbrock: What's been exciting about it? I mean, you jump in; it's "Annie." I mean, as you talked, everybody knows about it. What have been the challenges? But what's been so fun about this?
Ben: I mean, the challenges are like Brenda said: it's a huge musical. The music of it, the production of it is big, and so that's been challenging.
But it's also really been the fun stuff. The amount of time that we get to spend working on all these pieces and getting to know the rest of the cast through that, and just working together with so many of the things that we're doing has been just a ton of fun.
Wellbrock: And imagine pulling off a production like this that is so well known. It's challenging, but also kind of exciting at the same time.
Ben: Absolutely, yeah, it's very exciting. We're really looking forward to it.
Wellbrock: All right, we do have Annie, probably I guess one of the stars of the show.
Meder: I could have brought more in, but I knew we only had so much room. So, Ben Houchin and Lola Gerber.
Wellbrock: Lola, Annie, what's it been like to be a part of this production?
Lola: It's been a lot of fun, exciting. It's fun being here with all the cast.
We have such an awesome cast, and everyone's so talented,. It's been fun because, like, you get to act with your friends, you see your friends.
Then you also get to meet new people, how Ben said, it's challenging, but it's a lot of fun, and at the end all your hard work pays off.
Wellbrock: Have you done a lot of theater before, or is this the first time?
Lola: No, I've done theater before. I have done theater at my school.
OK. I've been in "The Beverly Hillbillies" and then "The Wizard of Oz."
Meder: But we'll give a little advance props. This young lady is going to be the Artful Dodger in TMP's production of "Oliver" this fall.
Wellbrock: Oh wow!
Meder: So yeah, so she's got some stuff to back it up. And I'm also going to give Lola props on another thing. She's the only cast member who's pretty much needed to be at every single rehearsal.
My style is to just do scene work so that if people aren't needed, we're not wasting their time.
But Annie pretty much is in every scene, and she's the only cast member who pretty much has had to be at every single rehearsal, even when it's been a breakdown.
Wellbrock: Wow, good for you! What's been the most exciting thing about working with all the kids? That's the cool thing about this. We've got 29 kids, 7 to 14 years old, in this one. That's got to be kind of fun. But is that a little bit challenging too? A little bit, or is it just exciting to work with so many young people on this?
Lola: It's exciting to work with all the young people, and it's cool, even the little ones, how talented they are too. When they can dance, they can do acting.
Wellbrock: Well, we appreciate you stopping by, and so glad you're part of this. It's going to be a lot of fun for everybody.
Meder: Well, and we have a dog. Oh, we do. Well, this is Sandy, the dog.
Sandy will be played by Fonzie, who is the sort of house dog and emotional therapy dog for Options. Oh, Jennifer Hecker's dog. Fonzie. We've got a beast of a Sandy.
Wellbrock: Well, wouldn't be our dogs because they would not be. You'd be kicking him off this set. Let's talk real quick. It's coming up here Thursday the 23, Friday the 24, and then Saturday the 25.
Meder: All at 7 p.m. Curtain first at 7 p.m. And people will be able to get tickets as a walk-in.
I'd love to say we're going to be sold out, but that would be hard to imagine. But I can say I've gone on and looked, and for as long as we're still not opening for a number of days, ticket sales on some nights are going pretty well.
You can pick out your seats when you go onto the site, and it's really easy. Again, just type in the search engine Hays Community Theatre.
What comes up will be the option to go right to "Annie" for tickets, and you can click the link, pick out your own tickets, and know exactly where you want to sit. It's floor seating only, and again, just one price: $20 a reserved seat. But it's going to be pretty spectacular.
Wellbrock: Yeah, that's exciting. You mentioned just the cast alone and 52 people involved, and then you mentioned everybody behind the scenes to pull this. Oh, this is really a community theater production.
Meder: No, it is. It is the backgrounds and the scope, the ages, the backgrounds, the scope of previous experience.
That's the beauty of theater. It defines what it means to find a tribe and be a community because there could not be a more diverse group of individuals that have come together to present what we're going to present this week Thursday.
Wellbrock: Guys, thank you so much for coming by and talking about Annie. It's going to be a lot of fun, folks. Get your tickets again. You can go online to hctks.com.
As Brenda said, you can certainly get them at the gate. It's going to be a great, great performance Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Beach Schmidt Performing Arts Center, Hays Community Theater's presentation of "Annie."