By Catherine J. Barrier
Life in the 1930s was different than it is today, but a good musical never goes out of style, and such is the case for Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s fun-filled, original version of Babes in Arms, being produced anew this month in Narberth.
Babes in Arms is a family-friendly story of a group of teenagers who are left without adult supervision when their vaudeville parents go on summer tour. To avoid the local sheriff sending them to a work farm, they negotiate with him to allow them 2 weeks to put together their own production and show off their talents and abilities, and a wealthy man with Southern roots agrees to fund the production (with one condition). What follows is a mix of social reaction, reconciliation, comedy, romance, tap dancing, ballet, and great music, all in a story that lets us see talented teens growing up, having fun, and involved in self-discovery.
“Babes in Arms is a fabulous show!” said Cheryl Chewkanes, the Narberth Community Theatre’s (NCT’s) historian and the Stage Manager for Babes in Arms. “It’s not a known show, but once people come, they’re going to really enjoy it. There’s a lot of singing and dancing, and the choreography is great!”
“The show is the 1937 version and we’re doing it with a full orchestra (22 musicians),” said Raquel Garcia, the show’s musical director, who has been with the NCT for the past 5 years and who has been their musical director for 5 previous shows, including Jane Eyre, West Side Story, Children of Eden, Beauty and the Beast, and Seussical.
“It’s a classic show, a standard in the American repertoire,” said Garcia. “It’s a toe-tapping kind of music. And the theater is quite equipped and very versatile—for the lighting, the stage, and the sets. It allows us to do a lot.”
“I think the music in Babes in Arms is some of the best music ever written for musical theater,” said Robert Marsch, the show’s director, who has been directing for the past 25 years and has been in the cast of a number of shows at NCT, including Sweeney Todd. “It’s got music people will recognize—like ‘My Funny Valentine’ and ‘The Lady is a Tramp’—music that they might not realize that they know. They’re classic songs.”
“It’s a ‘campy’ show, like The Little Rascals set to music,” said Mark Thompson, who has been acting for more than 15 years, since he was 13, and plays the lead male role of Valentine LaMar. “You can just go out there [on stage] and be a kid again.” Thompson acted in high school, was in Assassins in college, and has been with the St. Bernadette Players for the past 8 seasons. He will be making his NCT debut in this role.
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| Brenda Pretko and Mark Thompson in Babes in Arms at the Narberth Community Theatre |
“It means a lot to me to have the lead in this show. It means the director trusts me to carry out his vision for the character,” said Brenda Pretko, who plays Billie Smith in the show. “And I feel extremely fortunate to get to sing some of the most beautiful music ever written for musicals, music that has become standard pieces in many musical genres, such as pop and jazz.” “My Funny Valentine” has become such a classic jazz number that it has appeared on over 1,300 albums, performed by over 600 artists.
“I love to sing, and I’m a vocalist. I get to sing ‘My Funny Valentine’. I think what I like best about this show is that I get to sing these amazing songs,” said Pretko. “I also like that I get to flex my acting muscles to play a character with such a strong sense of herself.”
Pretko, who works at Drexel University Oklahoma
“What’s challenging to me [about this role] is having to get into the mindset of someone from the 1930s that has to fend for herself,” said Pretko. “Billie [Smith] is a survivor, a very thoroughly independent character in a 1930s setting. I’m used to the modern creature-comforts. I’ve never had to live her kind of life.”
“I grew up watching musicals and loved them, and I’ve always wanted to perform in them because they looked like so much fun,” said Pretko. “With the encouragement of some friends, I decided to pursue [my dream]; they persuaded me to start acting.”
“This cast is young, fun, and energetic,” said Pretko. “They’re a very talented group.”
“We have a whole array of ages in the cast, and two of them are really talented dancers who are featured in the show,” said Garcia. “There are also high school students and a few adults.”
“Rodgers and Hart seemed to like to do a lot of dance music, and sometimes we’ve had to cut out some of the dances, in previous shows, but this time we don’t,” said Chewkanes. “We have the dancers for this show.”
“It’s a great honor to be working with this cast, to be sharing the stage with them; I’m just part of the group, going out there and doing what we have to do,” said Thompson, who earns his living bartending at the Iron Hill Brewery. “It’s an unbelievably talented group. It’s been a delight to work with them.”
One challenging part of the production is the [long] ballet, which includes the whole cast. “We’re using a scrim, a sheer piece of material that can be seen through with certain light,” said Chewkanes. “Behind that will be some actors holding cut-out pieces, and all that is used to communicate the passage of time. The challenge is getting the right lighting and the logistics of everyone moving correctly.”
“The challenge, and probably the most interesting part of the show for me, was that ‘ballet’, or dream sequence, called ‘Peter’s Dream’,” said Diane Hodgkiss, who has been performing and/or choreographing shows at the NCT since 1996. Over the years, she has choreographed such shows as You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Singing in the Rain, and more recently, Beauty and the Beast. “In that era, those types of shows always had a longer dance part, and trying to come up with a story line that fits the show and includes certain dance styles that fit the music, that was probably the most artistically challenging thing.” That particular dance scene runs for about 10 minutes of the show.
“There’s a lot of tap dancing, and in the ballet sequence—‘Peter’s Dream’—the music for that part of the show is more like Gershwin’s music,” said Garcia. “There are a lot of different tempos and a lot of different styles [of music] in just [that] one number.”
“[The members of the cast] are all very energetic,” said Hodgkiss. “This particular show requires that the actors be ‘over the top’. It’s a time period—the Great Depression—that none of them can relate to, and to see their personalities come alive on stage—in the acting and dancing—that’s what I enjoy about it.”
“The biggest challenge is the actual script,” said Marsch. “It’s a comedy, but it’s really corny, and it needs to be played ‘over the top’ to make the comedy work. And it has huge musical and dance numbers.”
Babes in Arms first opened on Broadway—starring Mitzi Green, Ray Heatherton, Alfred Drake, and the Nicholas Brothers—at the Shubert Theatre on April 14, 1937. At first, it was somewhat ignored, being more of a family-friendly show and not being plush or having any nudity or show girls. But then suddenly, every other Broadway show folded, and on July 17 that year, it was the only musical still playing on Broadway. As a result, its greatness “got noticed”. In October 1937, Babes in Arms was transferred to the Majestic Theatre, where it ran until it had run on Broadway for a total of 289 performances.
The original production was choreographed by George Balanchine (1904-1983), one of the 20th-century’s foremost choreographers, a man who pioneered ballet in the U.S.
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| Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1936 |
Rodgers and Hart claimed that they employed a “commercial instinct” in their creative process that set them apart from many in the show-producing circles of their time, and Hart’s lyrics moved away from the then-more-standard eternal rhyming into an easier, more vernacular and sometimes playful use of language, which ended up raising the standard for Broadway songwriting. They focused on the integration of story and music in their shows and often included a lot of dance music in them. After Hart’s death, Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II, and the two continued providing audiences with high-quality musicals.
Narberth Community Theatre is a not-for-profit theater company made up of actors, musicians, and production crew members of all ages and walks of life. The company produces a wide-range of theater productions and family-friendly programming, normally offering 3 professional productions per season. Now in its 51st season, the theater company has gone through numerous venue changes over the years.
“We started the Theatre as an offshoot of the Narberth PTA,” said Cheryl Chewkanes, who has been a member of the group since 1966. “After the Narberth PTA formed in the late 50s, it did a Follies show every year for a few years. It then started doing shows (plays and musicals), and we’ve done 2 or 3 shows a season ever since.”
“One of the first musicals [we did] was Fiorello, and that’s how I got involved,” said Chewkanes. “My parents were the musical directors for that production, and I played the violin in the orchestra.”
“In the beginning, we had just a few alternating directors—for example, Bill Gray and Bob Penrose, both of whom still come to our performances,” said Chewkanes. “Now, we’re bringing in new people, like director Robert Marsch. This is his first show with the Narberth Community Theatre.”
“We had our 50th anniversary banquet earlier this year, and in gathering and looking at all the pictures from our productions over the years, . . . well, . . . it was really exciting to see how we’ve grown,” said Chewkanes.
“We started giving the performances in the Narberth Elementary School Bala Cynwyd High School , to Lower Merion High School
“Ten years ago, we were fortunate enough to get the space in the basement of the Church,” said Chewkanes. “We built a larger stage out front of the small one they had and added lights and curtains, and now we have a permanent home with ample space to store all our stuff. We were very fortunate to find this space to rent.”
“Every show we do is just as fresh and alive as the very first show we did in 1959,” said Steve Arcidiacono, the 2010-11 President of the Theatre’s Board of Directors and the producer, along with Susan Davit, for this production of Babes in Arms.
“We have people from all walks of life getting involved,” said Chewkanes. “They have their own careers, and they love to act. It’s amazing how much talent is out there! And our shows have been selling out.”
“This cast is mostly young people,” said Marsch. “It’s fun watching them bond together. I’ve worked with a number of them before, and I’m pretty easy to work with. I take pride in the fact that people like to work with me.”
“If people want to just sit back and be thoroughly entertained for a few hours—and escape their problems, which we all have, they should come see the show,” said Hodgkiss, who is also a firm believer in supporting the Arts at every level.
“People should come and see the show for a fun, family-friendly experience, and they’re sure to leave with smiles on their faces,” said Pretko.
“It’s a great show!” said Thompson. “For the price of the ticket, it’s awesome entertainment. There’s nothing to think about. It’s just a fun show. It’s one of those shows you can just enjoy.”
* Photo of Brenda Pretko and Mark Thompson Courtesy of Robert Marsch and the Narberth Community Theatre
© 2010 by Catherine J. Barrier. All rights reserved.
* Photo of Brenda Pretko and Mark Thompson Courtesy of Robert Marsch and the Narberth Community Theatre
© 2010 by Catherine J. Barrier. All rights reserved.
