Behind the Mask

Emily Waterloo was hired as the Director of Performing Arts in the spring of 2021. In her first year, she was to direct the fall musical, the spring play, and the one act in addition to teaching high school theatre classes. Emily was able to gain her footing in the community and begin to understand the students: their strengths, passions, ethics. She found out quickly that there was a group of kids as hungry and determined as they were gifted.

by Lawson Marchetti Stage Manager, Phantom of the Opera Class of 2017

One morning in March, she arrived to her classroom to find her theatre students discussing the shows they’d seen on The Great White Way, and what they’d love to do one day—Hamilton, Mean Girls, Six—but one in particular, the longest-running show in American history, was top of mind. Emily had a growing feeling that, for next year’s opener, all the signs were pointing to a masterwork and a lifelong dream.

On closing night of Junie B. Jones, the audience was asked to remain in their seats for a post-show announcement. Jay Lusteck (Class of 1984), a Prep, Phantom, and Wicked alum, appeared on the projector screen as lights dimmed, and he wished the school the greatest success with a show that was nearest and dearest to his heart. The screen rose up to reveal a stage covered in blue light, fog, and a white mask on a pedestal, as Jay’s voice proclaimed, The Phantom of the Opera!! The audience roared as “The Music of the Night” swelled underneath them. Very shortly after the announcement, auditions were held. What materialized were three juniors in the leads followed by a sophomore, three seniors, a transfer student, and a freshman, at the helm of a cast of nearly one hundred students.

The students needed scripts in hand immediately. Usually, a licensing company mails the school vocal scores and librettos, often in

PHOTOS BY LISA PATTI

the same book. There were no librettos. It seemed we were putting on a true opera; more than anything, music would have to be the focus. For music direction, Emily scored local legend Eva Hart. In late May, Eva commenced music rehearsal with the nine leads. Lucy Allen, the junior transfer student who played Mme. Giry, was particularly grateful for these early rehearsals. “I was amazed by the kindness I received, even before I landed the role; at the school I was coming from, someone in my circumstances wouldn’t’ve dreamed of being cast. When we first started rehearsals, I had terrible imposter syndrome. I remember my mom picking me up after the first week, and I just cried because of how many real friends I already felt I had.”

The most difficult number soon presented itself: “Notes/Prima Donna.” “We fought that number from the first rehearsal until November 5th,” said Robbie Hight, the junior who played Raoul. “We would get so frustrated and even distraught—I mean it’s 11 minutes twice in the show where eight of us are all singing completely different operatic lines over one another.”

Another difficulty was the scheduling; Prep always seems to attract students with wonderfully varying interests, which always seem to produce wonderfully convoluted calendars. It was also over the summer that Eva chose Dr. Tim Walker to conduct the show and assemble the orchestra, the engineer-extraordinaire dads of TN@tS (Tuesday Nights at the Shop) designed and broke ground on the set, and the show was fully costumed.

Rehearsals trucked along as school and football started. About seventy percent of rehearsals were music rehearsals. With this score, it was necessary. The chorus were called to learn ensemble marathons, often operas-within-the-opera, such as “Hannibal,” and “Masquerade.” Robert “TJ” Thomas, football player and Phantom cast member, recalls, “I didn’t really understand how difficult it would be. I ended up really having to carefully plan to learn all the music, while, at the same time, maintain the focus I needed on the field and in the classroom.” There was, appropriately, a near-worship among the core company of the 25th anniversary cast and production, which, for several performers, threatened to lead to emulation over originality. When it clicked that Emily and Eva wanted original performances, it was beautiful.

Eva worked with the cast and Emily handled the many technical plans. After all, what other kind of show has a crashing chandelier, a life-sized elephant, a moving boat, and a trick mirror? Not to mention live gunfire and pyrotechnics, falling snow, and hundreds of remote control candles. While even the monkey music box was a challenge to assemble, perhaps the grandest feature was the chandelier. There was an entire fundraising campaign solely for this essential centerpiece. It was during this time that many of the technical plans were solidified and final decisions made on set and scenic design.

Prep is one of two educational programs in the United States licensed to produce Phantom in the 2022-2023 school year; no one does this show. It’s too difficult, too colossal, too expensive: point being, there are few costuming companies with 19th-century wardrobes stocked in their warehouses ready to send to high schools, community theatres, and even professional houses twice a year. And the show needed late-19th century costuming. Mary Frances Boyd, costume and make-up artist researcher extraordinaire, was enlisted. She drove to Jackson that day with a truck full of costumes she pulled from Brookhaven Little Theatre (BLT) that she thought might work for some ensemble pieces, and they began researching and reaching out at once to secure the rest. The cast would be dressed in costumes from New Stage Theatre, Copiah-Lincoln Community College, Brookhaven Little Theatre, Spotlight Costumes, and key pieces from Broadway Costumes. Students put in long hours in the theatre, parents worked endlessly on the set, and the Waterloos met a private plane full of costumes from Cookeville, TN, on a tarmac, among other things. The choreographers, performing arts power couple Amile and Kathryn Wilson, began instructing the ballerinas and teaching movement for the grand ensemble numbers. Gregor Patti (Class of 2017) and I returned from working on Rent in Nashville, eager to keep the creative flow alive. Gregor came to several rehearsals as a coach, zhuzhing key acting moments, and I assumed the role of stage manager. When I didn’t know where to begin, Robbie Hight, in many ways the MVP of the show, stepped up to the plate. When he wasn’t on stage, he was working on my computer and knew the entire show inside and out. What would’ve taken me an eternity of head-scratching was complete in a couple of days.

The next order of business was to make a run-list. Every furniture piece, prop, technical effect, quick change, and curtain movement had to be precisely tracked, assigned, and executed. Rachel Hammack, another brilliant junior, was the student stage manager I inherited when I arrived. She learned quickly and exceeded all expectations. A particular titan among this heroic crew was Madison Grimes, a sophomore. Originally cast in the show, she opted for doing crew instead. She single-handedly was responsible for turning on and off all the more than one hundred candles in the show, operating the upstage curtain, and caring for all the show’s glass props. “I think people see me work and think that I’m stressed,” Madison told me on a phone call. “I’m really not! Organizing is very calming for me.”

As we entered the last week of rehearsals, the largest of the remaining concerns all involved music. A sitzprobe, German for “seated rehearsal” in opera and musical theatre, is the first time the cast and the orchestra rehearse together, sans staging for the actors, solo la voce. Prep had also never done a sitzprobe before. Originally an eighteen-piece ensemble, it was now a twenty-four piece. It had been Dr. Walker’s intention to come to several of our rehearsals before adding the orchestra to become familiar with our voices and tempi, etc., but instead, he had to fly to Mexico City for two weeks to rescue a renowned Russian violinist and his brother (the former would play for us). We only had four days with the orchestra, a total of twelve hours.

The two-and-a-half hour score was running twenty-three minutes over on final dress. The students were tired, confused, and distraught. Dr. Walker asked Emily for notes, which we would compile and send before Saturday’s opening, and gave us a message for the cast: I’m following you. We looked in all of their eyes after they got out of costume and said, “This is your show now. Yours. Your story. Dr. Walker has you all in his ear. All of the tech is in place and ready for you. You drive the car now. If something is too slow or too fast, Dr. Walker is going to follow you, but you have to drive it. Don’t hesitate.”

I say all this partially to point out that even with a fantastic facility, state-of-the-art equipment, the most extravagant bells and whistles, and the finest technical professionals, the problems we faced until opening were still problems for the adults. When we were able to do our jobs to the level needed, we found the kids had been there waiting to blaze down the path we’d been jamming. The junior chorus, as young as age seven, knew exactly where to be on stage and when. When there weren’t enough hands on crew for a quick transition, the seniors in the cast collectively handled it. Four upper school girls with their own makeup to do volunteered to do makeup for others. Saturday night, November 5, I looked down at my watch. Lights had dimmed on Anne Melton Hewitt, the freshman who played Meg Giry, and as the audience leapt into a standing ovation, I yelled, beaming, into my headset, “Guess what time it is! Guess what time it is! They did it!” It was 9:30 pm, two-and-a-half hours exactly after top of show. Eighty upper school students had just carried a twenty-four piece orchestra and hundreds of technical elements through the most difficult musical in the canon and shaved off twentythree minutes after one rehearsal.

The show was immaculate. The actors shocked even us when the chandelier first flew up. Several of the leads were completely possessed by their characters and the story. You couldn’t imagine you were watching an upper school production, and neither could audiences. The only performance that didn’t sell out was opening night. Madison said the most exciting part of the whole process was being able to glimpse audience reactions from hidden vantage points in the wings.

Closing night would come, however, and the students would begin dreading it. They all wanted an extension, which, of course, would have been just; they’d been living in this drama for six months. Most other iterations of this show have lasted months, years, decades. When Will sang his last, “It’s over now, the music of the night!”, I’m not sure there was a dry eye in the building. Most photos I have seen from after closing are swollen-eyed actors and cheeks streaked with tears. Actors, crew, family, and fans slowly trickled out of the theatre. Bobby Gross (Class of 1992) found Emily and congratulated her on breaking the Fortenberry ticket sale record.

We’re still figuring it out. We had two seventh graders operating our spotlights for the entire run. The one live firearm was shot every night by an eighth grade boy. The song that nearly destroyed the cast is now being performed for competition at the Mississippi Theatre Association. As we comb through all these then and nows, we realize a certain attitude, a willingness, determination, and willful confidence accompanied every person at every turn. After closing, the mother of a featured seventh grade actress took Emily by the arm and said, “Do you know that no one has really seen her, for who she is and what she can do, before now? You’ve changed her life.”

The show is about seeing the human under the monster, the abandoned, trembling child under the mask. Can you see it, can you forgive, can you meet someone where they need it, despite everything? “There was a moment where all of us started building each other up instead of airing our frustrations,” said Lucy Allen. “I think that’s because of the story we were telling. It’s broken people, overcoming fear, seeing and loving how things really are.”

The sky’s the limit for the program. “If you had told any of us - me, Holly, Will—seven months ago [that we’d accomplish what we did], none of us would’ve believed you,” Robbie says. “I’ve never learned so much about acting before I did this, and I know now that this is what I want to do with my life.” And for some, like TJ, this musical was even a first. “If I have to say anything to younger students,” he tells me, “it’s look what can happen if you go out on a limb and just do something!”