Have you heard? There’s a rumor in Westminster-berg! Have you heard what they’re saying on the street?
50 seasons going strong! 50 years still going on!
September Song Musical Theatre!
And yes, do, please repeat!
In a retrospective look back at their 50 seasons of existence and their current production of Anastasia, we’ve sat down with some of September Song’s finest theatre-makers to chat shop and discuss the past, the present, and the future!
Thank you all so much for letting us ‘early-crash’ your busy rehearsal schedule for Anastasia to do a little look-see retrospective on the company as it celebrates its 50th season! Thank you, Allen Cross and Kelly Stoneberger! Now what are your official titles as far as your role with September Song?
Allen Cross: I’m the Executive Producer. And Kelly is…
Kelly Stoneberger: I’m on the board. And I’m assistant directing Anastasia. I’m also music directing it.
Allen: Debbie (Director Debbie Mobley) is directing and I’m producing and all the ‘what-nots.’ I also do the graphics and the website.
Kelly: Allen keeps us so organized. We have QR-codes for rehearsal check-in. It’s been amazing.
So this is 50th Anniversary of September Song. How long have you guys been involved with the company? Surely neither of you are old enough to be founding members…
Allen: No, definitely not founding members. But I’ve been involved since 1999.
Okay that’s still half of the theatre’s lifetime. How did you come into it in 1999?
Allen: I auditioned. I was in the ensemble for Bye, Bye Birdie. So September Song used to be at Westminster High School and that’s where I graduated from. I don’t know if I knew anybody in the show? But the year before I had gone to see the show. They had done Annie that year. A bunch of my friends and I went to see it and I loved it and I decided I wanted to do that the next year. I’d been doing shows in school, I loved theatre, and I figured once I was out of school, I could do it. So I went with a bunch of my friends and we all auditioned and I was the only one to get in! And I’ve been working with them ever since.
That’s pretty amazing. Kelly, when did you get involved with September Song?
Kelly: Not 1999. I was in Colorado at that time. I didn’t move out here until 2008. But really for me it was that I had students who kept being in the shows. I would help prepare them, help them practice, and then along came Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
For any company that’s been in existence for 50 years, I have to ask, which year Joseph was this?
Kelly: 2016. And— fun fact! My whole family auditioned. Including me. And my whole family was cast in the show. Except I was not cast in the show. So my whole family was in it. But not me.
Allen: Didn’t you audition for The Sound of Music a few years earlier or later and not get that one either?
Kelly: Fun fact— I’ve never been in a September Song show! Which is hilarious because I’ve worked in a lot of shows. I worked semi-professionally in Colorado, I’ve done theatre shows here with other companies in Maryland. But I’m okay.
I feel like you get relegated or assigned to vocals and musical direction.
Kelly: But I love music directing and that’s been great. Now there are shows that I would audition for— like this one. I thought about because this show has great music but there isn’t really a role for me in Anastasia so I didn’t audition. One of these years! But I’ve really come to enjoy music directing. Anyway, my whole family did Joseph and then continued on. My daughter and my son did Beauty & The Beast (Aug/Sept 2017 Disney’s Beauty & The Beast) and The Little Mermaid (September 2019, Disney’s The Little Mermaid where my daughter, Lillian was one of the Ariels.
That’s wonderful that you both have been involved for quite a while and are still involved! Now this one might be a harder or deeper question, but what project over the years that you’ve been involved with September Song is the one that you’ve enjoyed the most?
Kelly: It’s actually this current production of Anastasia here in 2024. Our ensemble is the most invested ensemble I have literally ever worked with.
Allen: They’re very serious.
Kelly: They walked in day one, and I said, “Stay I Pray You” is my favorite number in this show, you’d better not screw this up.” And it’s my favorite because it is just a gorgeous piece of music. I said, “We’re just going to try it. We’re going to trainwreck it.” And I was thinking I wouldn’t have parts or commitment, oh but I did. Not only did I have all four parts but I literally have six tenors and six basses in this production. In a community theatre? That’s unheard of! I have all of these amazing male voices and some very strong women as well. And the process has been wild. It’s the investment of this cast specifically. Our principals are phenomenal and we do have understudies for every role. They are also heavily invested, so should anything happen, they are ready to go!
Allen: What I love about that is we’re covered. Not just for shows. If the principal character is conflicted out of rehearsal or sick or being called for a costume fitting— the understudy just slips right in. And we just keep going.
Kelly: And we give our understudies extra rehearsal time, which is something I’ve been told does not happen at a lot of other theatres.
This is excellent though. Having understudies is one thing. Having them ready and rehearsed can literally save a show. I’m very pleased to hear this!
Kelly: It really just is this cast for me. We’re not up in production or even anywhere near tech week so for me to say that they sound this phenomenal, this early on, that’s something. It’s so interesting that this show is the show for me— my daughter’s not even in it and I love getting to do shows with her. So if I had to pick a second, it’s probably Mermaid, because I got to watch her do Ariel at just 16 years old. We would just sit there and cry, Allen and I.
Allen: We would. And I’m going to be doing that for this show too.
Oh my! Now is this show— Anastasia— the one for you too?
Allen: I guess it depends on what capacity you’re asking. So my favorite to be in and perform in? That was Once Upon A Mattress in 2002. It was a while ago. But it was an all around fun show and I was in the ensemble. I have a lot of fun in the ensemble. And I feel like that is something we try to make sure happens here at September Song. We make every cast very aware that everyone is important. Just because you’re in the ensemble does not mean that you’re unimportant. An ensemble can make or break a show.
Kelly: We make it very clear, with every production, that we are very ensemble focused from the get-go. And a lead role can be great and wonderful, but a good lead or even a great lead cannot overcome a bad ensemble.
But a good ensemble can overcome a bad lead.
Kelly: You literally took the words out of my mouth; I was just about to say that. I’ve seen that many a time. Leads are leads but without the ensemble you really are missing something.
Allen: Especially for this show specifically.
Kelly: They’re the storytellers. We feel really strongly that they are a huge, important part of every show. It’s never just about our leads. We spend time with the leads too— I don’t want you to think we’re over here only coaching and working with the ensemble, but I do want you to know that we value our ensemble at least as much as we do our leads.
I totally get that and I think it’s really an impressive ethos to work with when it comes to any type of theatre, especially musical theatre. Now, Allen, you said Mattress from a performance standpoint, but what about a show that meant the most to you from your EP position?
Allen: Last year. And not because it almost didn’t happen. I still don’t understand— I mean I know why we were able to do it, because everybody knew what they needed to do to make a catastrophe less catastrophic. That was community coming together to complete this truly Herculean task and get this show up.
Kelly: We knew it was bad when Allen was helping paint. Because Allen does not paint. He does not. We normally have that all covered, he arranges everything and does so many things, but last year—
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I just realized that I know what you two are talking about, and you two obviously know what you’re talking about. But our readers at large, unless they attended September Song’s 2023 production, probably have no idea what you two are talking about.
Kelly: Oh yeah. So… Sound of Music that almost wasn’t because that freak weather storm— tornado, floods, whatever it was— that took out the power to the campus where we were supposed to be doing The Sound of Music (September Song’s fourth production of Roger & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music— 1977, 1989, 2009, 2023 ) and we had to make a last minute emergency move to The Carroll Arts Center with a massive downscaling of our set— so that’s what happened in a nutshell.
So there we are, 1:00am at The Carroll Arts Center with Stephen Strosnider (director The Sound of Music 2023) and Lindsey Cyr, both helping us get there— they were amazing. So we’re all there, we were flagging, falling asleep, and then I put Six on.
Allen: And we did the whole entire show of Six, while standing there painting.
Kelly: At this moment I knew we were in something deep because it’s after one am, Allen is painting, and we’re delirious, singing Six trying to regroup. But we put that show up and it was a miracle. I mean I feel bad for Jim (Set Designer Jim Stoneberger) because when it was set for the college, that was a truly phenomenal turning set. I mean what he put together once we had to emergency move was still so amazing, but I wish everyone could have seen his original set.
I was still very impressed. I knew going in that you guys had shifted venues and honestly I had expected to come in to just people on a stage, concert style, so that fact that he built a new set for that space and it looked as polished as it did was amazing.
Kelly: He definitely has that kind of brain. You just have to give him a minute to think about how he’s going to solve that problem, even when the problem is that level of catastrophe.
I cannot imagine being in that position, any of you, really. Show must go on!
Allen: It was a very hard decision. We had put so much time, effort, and money into that show…but the real kicker was that the cast was ready. That cast was beyond ready. They could have done that show weeks before. If it had been a cast that wasn’t as prepared, I don’t think we would have gone to such lengths to find a new emergency venue, build a last-minute emergency set, and still have the show go up as planned. I was so proud of our efforts, especially from the “show must go on” standpoint. We did what we had to do. Afterwards, it dawned on me that we kind of had to mourn the show we didn’t actually get to do. I know that sounds dramatic because we still got a show, but it was just not quite what we had thought it would have been and that was an emotional time for everybody involved.
Kelly: We owe that so much to the team that we had on that show. It really says a lot about our working dynamic, how much we all trust one another, how much we all care about supporting one another in these theatrical adventures. I hadn’t started music directing with September Song until 2019, then we weathered the whole pandemic, and our first show out the gate this side of the pandemic had this crazy, catastrophe-level complication, and we still pulled through.
How did we decide that Anastasia was the show to celebrate 50 years of September Song? A lot of companies who are fortunate enough to make it to a milestone celebration— 10 years, 25, or like you guys here, 50, tend to want to go back and either do the first show that was done in the company (September Song’s first production was How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in 1974 and was performed again in 1995 for the company’s 21st season) or they pick a show that has a deep-seeded significance to the company. How did you guys decide on Anastasia?
Allen: I got to see it on Broadway in 2017 with our Dmitri (Ethan Brown) and our Stage Manager (Sierra Green); we got to see Christy Altomare in the title role. Within the first five minutes of the show I looked at both of them and said “when the rights become available for this, we’re doing it.” I tried to get the rights to it for last year but it wasn’t available. And then this year they granted it to us. Anastasia is probably the most ‘modern’ show we’ve done in terms of the rights being recently released, obviously it’s not set in modern times, it’s set in the early 20th century.
So part of it was that I saw it and I loved it. Ethan and Sierra saw it and they loved it. When the movie came out, (Anastasia 1997) I was a teenager, I loved it, and I can remember saying, “They need to make this into a stage musical.” And then they did 20 years later.
They did. And they ruined everyone’s childhood by leaving out the two most important characters in the movie— Rasputin and Bartok! Bring them back!!!
Allen: Yeah…not sure how they would have worked on stage. But anyway, loving it, being so pleased that it was finally a musical, and I knew that for our 50th anniversary I wanted a big ensemble show. I mean last year with Sound of Music, Stephen did a great job of incorporating the ensemble members, making that show more of an ensemble driven piece, but that’s not traditionally an ensemble-heavy show. But with Anastasia, it’s all ensemble and bit roles galore. It just felt like the right thing for us to do. I want us to start doing shows that we’ve never done before.
Kelly: Allen wants us to do shows that are from a little bit more of the modern era. And I agree. I mean we all loved the labor of love passion project that was Sound of Music last year, but I think it’s been done at least three times before we did it last year here at September Song and it’s from th3 late 50’s or early 60’s. We need to do some more recent stuff that we’ve never produced before.
I am wholly in agreement with that sentiment. Did you guys have a backup plan in the event that you weren’t granted or couldn’t get the rights to Anastasia for this milestone year?
Kelly: That’s a good question. Did we have a plan?
Allen: I almost don’t want to say it. But…Les Mis.
Wait— didn’t you already do that when ever blessed other community theatre was doing it all across the summers of 2014 and 2015?
Allen: No! We did Music Man and Mary Poppins. We’ve never done it. I’ve been toying with the idea of it. Maybe next summer. We’ll see.
Given your ensemble-focus, I think that would be a good show for you guys to attempt, if you have the right space. I don’t know anything about The Scott Center at the college because I’ve yet to see one of your shows there.
Allen: It’s amazing. It’s a great space.
Hey Jim, is it a good space to design sets in?
Jim Stoneberger: I can design sets anywhere. But that space is awesome.
Kelly: Truth. He really can.
Maybe you should take a page out of Cockpit in Court’s book and call him your Scenographer instead of just ‘Set Designer.’
Jim: How about Scenegineer?
Allen: Yep. We’re changing the face of theatre credits. Ground floor— Scenegineer. You heard it here first.
You guys are evolving. I love this. This is wild. Welcome Jim Stoneberger from the back of the rehearsal hall peanut gallery to the 50th Anniversary Retrospective! Where were we? Thought about One Mis More…got the rights for Anastasia, here we are working on it, we’ve heard why Allen loves it— Kelly, why do you love it?
Kelly: There’s the element of the classical music to this show and I did start out as an opera singer so that’s literally singing to my heart’s origins. There are classical musical theatre components but there are also modern singing styles too. “Journey to the Past” and “Petersburg”, all of those songs are beautiful and modern. But there’s still nods to the old school. It’s balanced. I love when you can amalgamate and respect without throwing it all away. It bothers me sometimes when people only want to move into the modern world of musical theatre and they say “we have to throw out all the old things.” But I hate that because that’s how we got here. So nods to that are wonderful. And that’s what I love about Anastasia. There’s an old-school feel but it also feels very new and fresh. It’s an old, historic story, a period piece, but still feels very modern and very fresh. I love that feeling. And again, with the ensemble, I know I keep bringing it up but I love how active and engaged the ensemble is for this show. With “Stay I Pray You”, which I think is one of the most beautiful musical theatre pieces ever, you get this amazing sound and feeling. The ensemble pieces are just really, very well written. They’re really tight. They’re fun to teach and they’re fun to sing. They’re wonderful. If I were not music directing this show I would throw myself in the ensemble.
Allen: You will be in the ensemble.
Kelly: Oh yeah! We both will. For the concert in New York.
Concert in New York? Do tell. Because I feel like it’s not every day that a community theatre gets asked to come bring their show up to New York City and Broadway to be a part of something like this.
Allen: A couple months ago— let’s say March— I went onto the internet forum that I use for website inquiries and there was an inquiry from this Manhattan Concert Productions, saying that they were doing a staged concert of Anastasia and would we be interested in participating. At first I thought this had to be some sort of bogus scam thing, but I looked into it, they turned out to be legitimate, and I said “Yes, we’re interested.” And we just went from there. We had to send in an audition reel of things that we’d done recently.
Kelly: We sent in our nuns from our Sound of Music last year. They were phenomenal.
Allen: And we got accepted! We decided to sit on it and not announce the concert prior to auditioning the show.
I can completely understand and respect that decision. You didn’t want people turning up to auditions just because they thought they were getting their ticket to perform in New York.
Kelly: We wanted people who wanted to be involved with September Song and with Anastasia the show, so we waited to announce it.
Allen: First rehearsal. It was my last announcement at that first rehearsal. And mouths just dropped. I would say 90% of the cast is participating, including Kelly and myself, Debbie (Director Debbie Mobley), our choreographer, Amy Appleby, who also plays Lily Malevsky-Malevitch, so she’s doing double-duty. And she’s actually been with September Song— she goes back, I think one year before me. So 1998? Amy and basically grew-up and became adults at September Song. She has choreographed here for a while.
So without using the term ‘resident choreographer’ Amy is basically your ‘resident choreographer.’
Kelly: Yes. She is phenomenal at making people who cannot— or don’t have dance training— I won’t say ‘cannot’ because you don’t know what you can or cannot do until you try— but she is sensational with helping people who do not have the training, she helps them move well and look good. There’s something about her and she never makes it unmanageable.
Allen: Amy would rather choreography look cohesive and polished than it to be as hard as she could make it. She’s a dancer and she’s got skills but she also understands that not everyone comes in with the same skillset or experience.
Kelly: Totally right. She is capable of really complex choreography. But she also doesn’t want people to feel inadequate or have the show not look as polished as it can if she works with what she has rather than trying to force something really complicated on people who may or may not have that training and experience.
Allen: And we have had choreographers like that before— where it was very, very ambitious choreography. Now if we were all three or four years in with dance lessons or we were all Rockettes, it would be phenomenal. But Amy understands how to get a clean, crisp, and polished look without us all having to be Rockettes so it’s wonderful.
That truly is wonderful. Now, we derailed a little there talking about your wonderful choreographer. Where were we? Going to New York for Anastasia (February 17th 2025), being thrilled about good choreography, aah. What would you say has been your biggest challenge so far in the process of getting Anastasia up on its feet?
Kelly: There’s my husband over there… pointing to himself. Jim and his schedule.
Is it his schedule or is it worrying that there’s going to be another last-minute venue switch that’s going to cause chaos and pandemonium in the Scenography-Scenegineer world?
Jim Stoneberger: Hey I’m doing okay so far.
Kelly: He was traumatized from last year.
Jim: Hey this set is much more mobile. Not that we’re going to jinx it. But the set does have a train.
Kelly: Yeah, not to call out into the ether to ask for problems here, but so far this production has gone relatively smoothly.
Allen: Costumes maybe?
Kelly: Yeah. Costumes. Our Costumer has his hands full.
Allen: Andrew Malone. He costumed us last year for Sound of Music.
Jim: Senior Center Facility selling his costumes. That’s a challenge.
What?
Jim: Yeah…so he made some of the Russian crowns for the Royal Family…and he left two of them here. One of them got sold. And the other one I came in, and it was sitting on their table with a price-tag on it. I emailed the manager and said, “We made a boo-boo, if there’s anyway you can find out who bought it, we would really like to get it back…” But isn’t that fabulous? The crowns are so awesome people bought them thinking they were wearable art!
Kelly: So yeah, keeping the costumes that are made in house and available to us, but also costuming on the whole has been the challenge here. We did overcast the show. We always lose a few people once we get into rehearsals, so we overcast to prepare ourselves. And this year… we did not. I mean this is truly wonderful because everyone that we cast we did truly want, we just now have a slightly larger cast than we were originally anticipating. We are so incredibly fortunate to have the cast that we have.
I do really love to hear that. What is the most challenging concept for the costumes? The Tzar Ball in all white?
Kelly: We’re actually not going all white. If you actually look it up, the color palette is creams and ivories so that’s the vein we’re going in. I think the actual Royalty is in all-white but all the other ball-goers are in creams and ivories. And that is historically accurate. We’ve really been doing our research to make sure that we’re historically accurate as best we can be.
Kelly Stoneberger, wearing the Dramaturg’s hat for the show as well.
Kelly: So has Debbie. She’s read three books on the Romanovs and she’ll come in with all sorts of facts. She has researched the world out of all this! And she’ll come in with these books, treating them like recommended reading as prep work for the show. It’s great.
Allen: I think we’re all going down that historically accurate rabbit hole a little bit. I’ve been watching documentaries on the internet and on YouTube because as much as we can we like to be as accurate as possible in our aesthetic and our details.
I love that you guys have a focus on detail and accuracy. That shows a level of dedication and commitment to your overall product. There’s heartfelt passion going into the work you’re doing here. September Song has a mission statement or an ethos that they operate under, so how does Anastasia fit into that?
Allen: So our mission statement— “September Song is dedicated to providing a quality gift of the arts through musical theatre to all of our participants, on and off stage as well as to our audience of all ages.”
Kelly: Anastasia falls right into that. We try to provide a quality experience for all of our productions but especially with this show, we have so many opportunities to do that, in the ensemble, in the principal roles, in the design of the show, it’s all there. We try to be as professional as we can be in every sense of the word without saying that we’re ‘professionals.’
I know that can be difficult because the technical definition of that word that gets thrown around so very much literally just means ‘paid.’ And you guys can have that professional workmanship, craftsmanship, attitude, etc. but you’re still ‘community’ in the sense that it’s all volunteer.
Kelly: Exactly. And we provide a cohesive experience where things are done well, you know what’s happening all throughout the process, you’re informed every step of the way, nobody’s time is wasted, we strive for that level with everything, and I feel like so far we’re achieving it with this production of Anastasia.
Melissa Grim: What are we achieving with Anastasia?
This is the best type of interview. The pre-rehearsal, random people wander on in, and contribute to the round-robin-retrospective conversation!
Kelly: Oh she’s not random. She’s our Props Mistress. Mistress Missy!
Fantastic! How long have you been involved with September Song, Missy?
Melissa: Since 2003. My first show here was Hello, Dolly!
That’s amazing. So Missy, you’ve been with them since after Allen but before Kelly, and you’re handling all the props and you’re making magical props for Anastasia. What’s that been like so far?
Melissa: It’s not bad. Nobody has purchased my props by mistake from the senior home like those crowns…
I see that Properties people do not leave things lying around the way Costume people do!
Kelly: She runs a tight ship, let me tell you! Part of that professionalism that we strive for!
Jim Stoneberger: Missy is by far the most diligent, dedicated props person, props mistress, of anyone we’ve ever worked with.
Melissa: Yeah, I am 100% a props person. I don’t sign or dance, I do props.
Jim: Everyone knows you don’t touch Missy’s sh*t. Or you lose a finger.
Melissa: But I’m not mean!
Kelly: She is not mean but she does keep everyone on task and we are so grateful for that. Missy is very good at very gently saying things like “did you think about X. Or Y. Or Z?” and then all of us creative people have that moment of, “Oh…crap. No. But gosh! Thank you!” We really, really need her!
Melissa: I’m an operations person by nature.
Kelly: She is such an integral part of what we do here at September Song. The fundraiser that we just had back in April, Missy kept us so on target. She was our target task-master. I mean we all have our strengths and there isn’t a ton of overlap. So we all balance each other out.
Jim: Missy is our glue.
I love that. Everyone needs glue. Now, Melissa, you said 2003 was when you came on board with September Song, I already asked Kelly and Allen this— but what was your favorite show to work on?
Melissa: Oh my goodness. That’s a tough call. It’s hard because there are things that are special about each production I’ve worked on. Like my favorite set was the first time I did Anything Goes (2007.) It was a fold-out set, a precursor to Jim’s sets for sure. I loved making the Jellyfish for Little Mermaid (2019.)
Oh! Were those the jelly-brellas! I remember those! And I loved those! I thought those were so clever!
Melissa: Yes. Umbrella jellyfish. They were on IV polls.
Kelly: Melissa is really on top of her stuff. She thinks about these things that nobody remembers to think about— like the heaviness of certain props how things need to have weight to them but also still need to be mobile. It needs to look heavy but not be heavy.
I think this goes back to what you guys were talking about earlier, how you try very hard to pay attention to details and verisimilitude. And it occurs to me as we’re talking about details…I’ve actually overlooked asking Jim here what his favorite show was to work on.
Jim: Wow. That’s tough. It would have been the original Sound of Music…for me…last year. We’ve been over that story. But it’s a tough call. Mermaid was good. Beauty & The Beast was my first ‘origam-folding-set’ but that was really only half-origami style. I did the castle and the bookshelves for that. I think I liked The Little Mermaid because of the ship.
Kelly: Oh yeah the ship! The ship came out of the wall.
This is incredible. Just hearing you guys talk all about these fond memories made over the years should want to make people come out and play with September Song any chance they get. Now, since there are four of you here, all four of you can answer this, what has been your favorite part of working on Anastasia up to this point in the process?
Jim: I don’t know if it’s my favorite part but it is the most challenging for me at this point but it’s the fact that we are using the projections that we’re using. So for the first time I have to try and match the design of my set to the projections.
Allen: It’s the same for me every year with producing. It’s the process of going from planning it, to auditioning it, to watching them take the director’s vision, put it with the designers work, the actors work, with the music, and the dancing, and just watching it all come together. If you’re not going to be in, that for me is the coolest thing to watch it continue to grow and grow and grow and then there it is. This incredible finished product all put together. And doing it with people who are your friends— these folks are family to me— doing this with your theatre family, there’s nothing more rewarding.
Kelly: For me it’s getting the nuance of the actual music and we got there really quickly with this production. Musically it is a bear of a show. Watching the cast grow, particularly with the nuances of this music, the leads and the ensemble, it has just been such a joy.
Allen: Some of what they’re doing is just so natural and organic. We’d be running a scene and they’d come up with something and you’re just like “wow, that’s great, keep that.” And not to step on your musical toes, Kelly, but from a musical standpoint, we’re to a point to where a month ago she was able to be very nitpicky with music because they were so advanced coming into this rehearsal. And that’s going to make for a gorgeous sounding show.
Melissa: I love that this is a project that’s from a different era. This is not an era that I knew a lot about, of course I do now because I’ve been doing my research. I’m really picky about looking things up, like can I use cellophane tape for Sound of Music? Yes, it was invented in a time that was appropriate for the show. I learned for this one— spiral notebooks were not invented when this show takes place so my reporters can’t have spiral notebooks. That’s been a really interesting process for me. And actually learning about The Romanovs. I sort of knew about them? But with this, I’ve really had to look them up, inform myself about what was going on so that the props were accurate and suited for the right time. Even though they’re a very small piece of it, it’s important to me that they’re accurate.
I can really appreciate and respect that. As a detail-oriented person, there is nothing more irritating to me than seeing a prop or costume or set piece that is glaringly out of place, especially when you’re in an intimate venue, because that will pull me right out of the wonder and the magic of the show. You can ask a lot of your audience, particularly when it comes to suspending their disbelief for so many things, but little details that are wildly inaccurate can pull me right out of enjoying an otherwise brilliant and wonderful performance.
Allen: Our entire team is on-board with that.
Melissa: You will not see people come on with blank papers. Ever. I want the props to enhance but not pull focus.
I love that. Why is it so important for you all to be a part of September Song?
Allen: It’s been part of my life for 25 years. Our hiatus due to Covid…I mean I know that was really hard for a lot of people but not having this— the family, the project, the joy that this brings— that was really incredibly hard for me. Carroll County tradition is important to me, this is where I grew up. And there are still so many people who don’t even know about us, despite our being in our 50th anniversary and that blows my mind, but there are people who have been involved and coming for generations. We’ve got a third-generation little one in this show, whose mom and grandmom have done shows with September Song. It’s a really wonderful community tradition and institution. It’s important because it’s a place for like-minded artists.
Jim: Because it’s the best f**king community theatre in the world.
Welp, I was making bets…47 minutes and 55 seconds…how long we could go without the f-bomb being dropped, but colorful language aside, that does seem to be an appropriate and simple statement. I’ll allow it!
Allen: Leave it Jim.
Kelly: Only my husband. But him aside, I’ve worked with a lot of community theatres over the years. I started when I was very, very young— I’ve been doing this since I was four. I’ve worked with many, many companies. They all have their own specialness. It’s funny though— because we just have something. If you leave September Song to go do work someplace else and you come back— you know exactly what I’m talking about. We have a little fairy dust or something. A little magic, a little something. We work very hard to keep the family feel of it. And it’s not fake. It’s really real and we really work hard to support that ethos.
Love it. Missy?
Melissa: It started out as a creative outlet for me because my job stopped having a creative outlet, so that’s where it started. But now, I think because we only do it once a year, it makes it so much more special. Especially over the last ten years, I would say we’ve really worked hard to lift each other up to make the whole experience better. We make it the best possible production that it can be!
Kelly: Not just the production, but we’re all trying to put good out into the world and be decent people too. We think that’s really important.
Melissa: And don’t think we’re all just over here having drank the Kool-Aid. This is an evolved experience and we really do love and support one another.
Jim: In all seriousness, f-bombs aside, everyone here does a tremendously great job of folding professionalism into community theatre and making this a positive, professional experience.
Allen: We still have fun but we do recognize that we have a job to do. We’re being respectful of everyone’s time from a scheduling standpoint. I’ve always said, “you can have fun and still be professional.” There’s not a person here among us who would say that we’re not having fun.
This truly sounds like an epic company to work with. Now, the last two questions that we have time for before your rehearsal really needs to get underway— why do you want people to come out and see Anastasia?
Kelly: Because it’s going to be amazing.
Allen: The talent is awesome.
Kelly: It’s stacked.
Allen: Oh yes. That’s a word. The talent is stacked!
I like that word. Missy?
Melissa: It’s kind of a new show, especially in the area. And I think we’re the people to show it off.
Jim: People are going to get more of a professional experience than they think they are from this community theatre show.
This is the hard one. If you had to sum up your experience of all the years you’ve spent working with September Song Musical Theatre in just one word, which word do you use?
Allen: Family.
Melissa: Scissors.
Kelly: Gratifying.
Jim: Integrity.
Anastasia plays for four performances only— August 9th & 10th 2024 at 7:00pm and August 10th & 11th 2024 at 2:00pm, in The Scott Center for the Fine & Performing Arts at Carroll Community College— 1601 Washington Road in Westminster, MD. Tickets are available at the door or in advance online.
