By Merle Exit
Free Synagogue of Flushing Community Theatre Group, better known as FSFCTG, is presenting yet another musical directed by Maryellen Pierce, a full-time teacher at Mary Louis Academy. This time it’s “Legally Blonde the Musical.”
You can always count on a large cast and a good show. For Pierce, 30 years of directing at FSFCTG has become both an artistic task and a chance to work with inspiring professionals as well as those who just want to have fun.
“I do it for the sheer enjoyment of putting people who may not know each beforehand into a working relationship building a team that creates a piece of art,” Pierce said. “In the long range, it’s a gratification that I get when a 12-year-old starting out with my directing them in a small role is now in college and cast in a leading role.”
Paul Regan is one such person. Cast as lawyer Emmet Forest, he has taken on his first leading role and has the ambition to continue professionally. What has he experienced over the years? “I love that everyone is so supportive and that we are having fun,” he said. “Getting paid to act may be a whole other atmosphere.”
Musical Director Paul Johnson runs a professional program called CAP21, a conservatory and theater company.
Johnson got wind of a role that would suit student Britain Gebhardt: that of Brooke Wyndam the perpetrator of the criminal case. Gebhardt, who travels from Manhattan, said she makes the trip “for the enjoyment of what community theater should be. It’s a true pleasure to have Maryellen Pierce as a director.”
You can certainly expect Amanda Doria to steal a show with both her comedic facial expressions and “belt” singing voice. It is her 10th year at FSFTCG. She portrays Paulette Bounofuonte who works at the beauty salon. Doria, like many of the other members, performs in various community theater groups in Queens. With all of that talent and experience, do her ambitions lie with the Big White Way? “Not in the least,” she said. “I want a secure job and community theater gives me a chance to express myself with less stress.”
Her full-time job is working with lawyers.
It is Brittany Juilfs who landed the leading role of Elle Woods.
“As my first book show after a two-year hiatus following a musical theater degree from Columbia College in Chicago, this has been one of the most funs shows ever,” she said.
Her experience and reviews are ones to be placed on her resumé as she plans for a professional future. “Legally Blonde the Musical” has a cast and crew of close to 40 people. On a Broadway stage that may not seem as large. At one point I counted 30 performing one musical number. How does that happen?
John Barratta is the longtime technical director who is responsible for building the sets. Add a runway and you have space along the sides to extend the stage as some of the cast sing and dance.
David Arzberger is this show’s choreographer and certainly did a fine job. Once a show is choreographed, much of the responsibility is turned over to the dance captain, in this case, Amanda Montoni.
“My role as dance captain is to be there if anyone has questions about the dances, if they need something explained in detail, or just reassurance of what the steps are,” Montoni said. “I teach the choreography to cast mates who might have been absent during the rehearsal when it was initially taught, and to re-teach it if anyone is unsure. Besides being a helping hand, I have to know all of the choreography to make sure the dances are running smoothly and everyone is clear on the steps.”
Montoni has an extensive dance background dancing since the age of 2.
”The most difficult part about doing this is making sure everyone is on the same page, the number looks great, and lives up to the choreographer’s and director’s expectations,” she said.
As far as getting satisfaction, “even though some numbers aren’t perfect — it’s live theater, anything can happen — it’s such a rewarding feeling when you look at the improvement everyone has from when we first started,” Montoni said. “The progress is amazing. Cast mates tell me, and show me, they can do things they’ve never thought they could and I would definitely do it again.”
There are those members who attend the auditions on their own, some who are recommended and people who simply drop in and ask if they can simply help with tasks like painting the sets or assisting Pauline Baratta, in charge of the costumes. It’s all about musical theatre creating a community.
Final performances take place this weekend.
If you Go
“Legally Blonde the Musical”
Where: Free Synagogue of Flushing Community Theatre Group, 41-60 Kissena Blvd., Flushing
When: Saturday, Nov. 16 at 8 pm, and Sunday, Nov. 17 at 3 pm
Cost: $18, $15/students and seniors
Contact: (718) 428-8681
Website: www.fsfctg.org
