School gets ready to rock with new musical
Posted Mar 5, 2010 By Desmond Devoy
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Desmond Devoy, Ottawa East EMC
Arise from your slumber: Liam Mahar plays the bumbling Detective Dense who, by missing obvious clues, lives down to his name as a kind of English version of Inspector Clouseau.
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Desmond Devoy, Ottawa East EMC
Taking Direction: Director Kathleen Logan instructs her young actors on how to look down at a piece of evidence in unison, during an afternoon rehearsal for "Legend: A Musical Mystery Who Done It!" at John Paul II Catholic School last week.
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EMC Entertainment - For two days next week, John Paul II Catholic School in Gloucester will go from being a regular elementary school to The School of Rock. 
Desmond Devoy, Ottawa East EMC
Tea Time: Sarah L'Ecuyer, left plays the old family nanny while Faythe Beck plays the ditzy maid.
Indeed, the students in the school's drama club have been given a crash course in the history of rock, particularly in the famous Woodstock festival of 1969.
"They didn't know the bands. They didn't even know what Woodstock was," said Kathleen Logan, the show's writer and director, during an interview before a dress rehearsal for the show on Monday, February 22. So, she told her students to "go home and find out about Woodstock," in preparation for the show Legend: A Musical Mystery Who Done It!
"We've found some obscure Woodstock songs," that are used in the play, though, she admits, some of the music from the peace and love festival in upstate New York were also inappropriate but "we worked around it." Logan also wrote a number of the songs herself, but "we've done original songs here before," in the 17 years that the school has been putting on drama productions, often musicals, like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Logan decided to do a far-out, Scooby-Doo meets Rolling Stones mystery since "all of the mysteries that are out there are murder mysteries," a genre she said "did not seem appropriate," for an elementary school. But mysteries, however, were another matter. In fact, appropriately enough, "it is a surprise ending," so much so that the students were not given the last act of the play until close to the end of rehearsals because "I didn't want them to tell everyone who did it!"
While the script and some songs are new, some elements of English Restoration Comedy or even French Farce are evident in the play, since "you've got people coming in and out of secret doors. The timing is really important," in those scenes, said Logan.
Along with the help from all of the students and parents, on the production side, Logan has received a lot of help from producer Helen Featherston and costume designer Joyce Allard.
"I would write the basic script and Helen and Joyce would go through it and make it that much better," said Logan humbly of her efforts. Unlike some playwrites, who are fiercely protective of their work, Logan freely admits that the script "is full of clichés. It takes place in a billionaire rocker's mansion," and is replete with instantly recognizable character from any Agatha Christie novel, like the ditzy maid, the faithful old British butler and the diva rock band front man.
"I'll find a way for every kid in that drama program to say a line," added Logan. While the play has a "Woodstock tie-in," with the fictional superband in the play having played there, "I kept in mind that I was writing for students. In my mind's eye I see them...but I also write for adults. There are times that I am writing away and I'm just laughing away and some characters get away from me," like the time she began writing one character's dialogue in rhyme, and then it had to continually rhyme for the remainder of the play. In this play, however, "every character has a catch phrase," lending credence to her self-described dependence on cliché in this production.
Ottawa's Catholic School Board is also helping out on the technical side.
"We don't have access to a lot of equipment so our board has a floating tech system," that will be used, said Featherston, which includes cordless mikes attached to the student's costumes. The school's caretaker has also volunteered to take photographs of the kids in costume.
"Every student deserves to have, no matter how small their role, a costume that makes them feel good," said Allard. "Some kids would never be able to take part in a drama production if they had to make their own costume."
Allard noted that she can spend up to three hours making a costume that will be worn, onstage, for a grand total of three minutes. But, for her, it's worth it, so long as the kids put in an effort too.
"If you work hard, we work hard," said Allard of the made-to-measure costumes, which are later recycled for other productions.
"It's also about making kids feel good about themselves," said Logan.
For as much as the students enjoy the experience, for the parents to see the final fruits of their sons and daughter's labours, "I think it's exciting for the parents when they come," said Allard. "They get to see their kid on stage for the first time, in full costume and full make up."
Logan's own children are testament to what early exposure to drama at an early age can do.
"My children went to school here and that's how I got involved here and two of them are theatre majors," she says proudly. One daughter is a graduate of the technical theatre program at Toronto's Ryerson University, while another is a musical theatre student at Sheridan College in Oakville, ON. Her third daughter is in the midst of rehearsals herself for a musical at Carleton University in Old Ottawa South.
"Legend: A Musical Mystery Who Done It!" written and directed by Kathleen Logan, will be on stage at John Paul II Catholic School's gymnasium, 1500 Beaverpond Drive in Gloucester, on Monday, March 8 at 12:15 and 7 p.m. and on Tuesday, March 9 at 12:45 and 7 p.m. Tickets for the evening performances are on sale at the door for $5.
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