All Shook Up

Brian Konrad welcome Jennifer Davies, the director of the upcoming musical 'All Shook Up' at Crescent Heights High School, which is inspired by the music of Elvis Presley. The conversation delves into the essence of the musical, highlighting its romantic comedy elements and the vibrant 1950s setting. The Jennifer shares insights about the cast, which features two performers for each role, allowing for a dynamic and engaging performance. The students' enthusiasm for Elvis's music is palpable, as they explore 28 songs that have captivated their hearts and inspired their performances. 

The discussion also touches on the challenges of staging the production, including the complexity of the set and the need for skilled choreography and vocal direction. The episode emphasizes the strong drama program at Crescent Heights, showcasing how the musical not only entertains but also enriches the students' educational experience. 

Brian is also joined by two students Addison Rittwage and Madison Pavlovic-Wanay who portray the character Sylvia. She is a strong no-nsense single mom and owner of Sylvia’s Honky-Tonk a main setting for the musical. Here their take on singing and dancing in “All Shook Up”

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Transcript

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Come on, everybody. And whistle a tune right now Come on, everybody, and stomp your feet real loud This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. And on the porch, we have something that I've been looking forward to. There's a new musical coming, the Medicine Hat. It's called All Shook Up. Crescent Heights high school, all about Elvis. Jennifer Davies is the director. Welcome and thanks for coming in. Thanks for having us. We are happy to be here. I love the poster. Tell me about the poster. Because it is. It captures Elvis movies. The poster features the roustabout who is a character, inspired by Elvis, who comes to town and he shakes things up and, really challenges a lot of the way that the people in the town, view themselves, view each other. Really sort of motivates them to try new things. Things like dancing and singing and falling in love. Wow. Sounds like one of his movies. It is like one of his movies. It's tremendously entertaining. It's a romantic comedy. And it's something that would appeal to many people of our community. Now, what time frame is this movie in? This musical is set in the 1950s. Okay, so when Elvis was king. Absolutely. Yeah, I younger Elvis, this would have been a younger Elvis, not the Vegas Elvis. 1954 55 with the hips swivel and Ed Sullivan and. Absolutely. Yeah. Where he has the guitar on his back. Yeah. And you'll see that he arrives with a guitar on his back and he rides in on a motorcycle. Now the actor who plays Elvis, how does he get into character? We have two fabulous performers. We have two performers for every role. Two performers? Yes. The whole show is double cast. And the students, share a variety of nights. So they are they they're combined for every night that we perform for the nine evenings. And the two young men who are playing the roles, Gibson and Wyatt are very motivated. I was singing, you can find them always playing the piano or guitar in our theater and at home, and they just are really passionate about music. And so, I thought they'd be great for this role because they are such a good match for somebody who's so inspirational for performing and for music. What was their reaction to Elvis? I, did they had they heard of him before? Absolutely. Everybody's heard of Elvis. He's a favourite. He hasn't lost his. You? No. Elvis is still, a hot, performer that people are just very invested in and very excited to hear his music. Sometimes people will be walking in the hallway and they hear the music, and they just walk into the theater to listen to the students perform. It's exciting for everybody. The students didn't know all of the songs. There's 28 Elvis songs. 28? Yes. Not all of them are full length, right. But there's 28 songs which are featured, and all of them, have really captured my students hearts, and they have fallen in love with performing them. And and you'll hear a variety of versions throughout the day in the theater. Okay. This production of All Shook Up, that's not the first one you've done. This is the second time we have performed All Shook Up. The first time we did it was in 2015. So 11 years ago and it's the only show in my 30 years of teaching that I have repeated, because it features so many soloists. And this year in particular, I had a lot of very strong students who are deserving of a solo. And so I needed to find a show that would best feature all of the strong singing voices we have at Crescent Heights, technically, is this an easy one to do or is it difficult? Well, that's why I waited 11 years. It's really hard. It's a really hard show. So, as I mentioned, there are 28 songs, but it's a really massive set piece. There's a lot of moving parts. We have 16ft panels, 16 by 16ft panels that move and slide and open and close. There's projections. There's really massive booths. There's many set pieces that were built, for the 2015 show, but then we've also added new ones or changed them. And so it's it's a really difficult show. And in terms of mixing the sound and doing the lights, we've actually brought back, former Crescent Heights student Colton McKee to help us out. We are familiar to Colton McKee. He's wonderful. So he he had also gone through the program. And, I also called upon, two other students who had graduated and had been in the show. Carla, I back for some help with choreography. We have two amazing choreographers. And they've done a great job, but Cal is just helping us fizzles. Choreographers are now performers for the last few weeks. Their focus is performing. And then the other person who we've brought back because it's a difficult show is our vocal director, Jocelyn Walters, who was actually one of the leads in 2015. And now she has been the vocal director for the last few years at Crescent Heights. That must be a job to take Elvis music and have adapted so that a female singer can do it. It provides new opportunities, and so there's lots of, very difficult, challenging songs that are sung in a new vocal range. And it's exciting to hear them sung that way. It's different than what Elvis had done, but equally challenging and beautiful. Okay, the motivation to take up theater arts among the students at Crescent Heights? I think it's very high. That's why they go there, I believe. I hope so, because you've been there a long time. You said 30 years. Yes. We have a very strong drama program. We are very proud of it. We've had excellent support from our school board and from our school and the Medicine Hat community. We have nine performances in the evening, and then there's two school matinees. And so thousands of people come to these shows each year, and we have lots of businesses who also do sponsorship, and we have a beautiful program. And it's one of the reasons why I hope students want to come to Crescent Heights, where they choose to audition and be in the theater arts program. We're really proud of that. These students have been able to travel around the world, performing and attending shows because of this musical and the money that's made from the musical helps us to fund, our theater and the programs that we run in the drama program. How is the music supplied for this production? Well, we are very fortunate because we also have an excellent band teacher, Mr. Curtis Perron, and we have a live band, a live band. Yes. It's a very excellent band. And many of the performers in the band, we're actually a part of the original one we did in 2015, and they were parents of students who were in the show. And then one of the students, was the piano player, and now she's back as the piano player, but she's an adult now. This is a termed a jukebox musical. Yes. Explain that for me. Okay, so jukebox musicals have a very high entertainment value, and they feature the music of a particular performer. And so there will not be songs that are not Elvis songs. In this musical, all the songs are Elvis Presley songs. Okay. Yeah. No shortage of songs from Elvis. How did you pare down to 28? Those are the ones that are included in the original production. And so this is a musical and we rent the rights to do it. And so the script is written by a publishing company, and all of the music has been arranged by the publishing company. And then, we apply for royalties, permission to do the show. Okay. You, mentioned the two leads. Are there any other, paid people who are taking part that you would like to mention? Some of the, actors? Actresses? Well, I have a class of 30 senior high students, and each one of them are incredibly strong. I would say that all of my students are very strong. The other, two leading females that would have a similarly sized role, would be, Hannah Fenwick and Abby, beacon. And, they play, Natalie, Natalie and and so that's a pretty huge part, but there's a lot of dynamic performers in their show. In the end, there are actually three weddings and there's, another romantic couple, but they're teenagers, so they're not getting married. So there's a lot of there's a lot of, stories to follow, and there's a lot of, singers who are featured. And I would say that they're all, very outstanding not to be missed when you're giving direction to these students. Have they seen other productions? Because in this world of internet, you can watch just about everything anywhere. Do they have they seen any other productions of All Shook Up? I am certain they watch a lot of YouTube videos. I'm very certain that they have investigated this. I haven't shown in class our version of All Shook Up. I, I'm hoping that they investigate it on their own, and I know they have. And sometimes our choreographers take ideas from either, traveling show or Broadway show or something they've seen online. And I would like to think that they've taken some of the best ideas, and that's inspired them for their performances. But a lot of what they do is, something that's motivated by what they think the character would best do. And I really like that. And that's something I encourage my students to do. So there's a lot of blocking where, they've asked to come in and rehearse and there's certain scenes where they've chosen the blocking. And I really appreciate that motivation and that, incentive, to develop their own characters. That's what I was going to get to, is that you can mimic what you've seen before, but if you want to put your own self into that character, that's what you want as a director. Absolutely. And I'm really proud of how each student performs the role differently and so well. The music has to be sung the same way because the band has the music written out, and that's how they play it. Each student has chosen to perform their character in their own unique way, and there might be some different ways that they say some of their lines or some of the movements that they do on stage. But they've certainly personalize that. And I think that demonstrates their strength in performing well, as Elvis would say. Thank you. Thank you very much. And we're going to break and we're going to have two of the people who are in the production when we return, Burnin, burnin, burnin from Love for now, down to the sparks on the stove. What I feel fine I feel like. And now I'm joined by two of the people who are in the production of All Shook Up, Addison Rittwage and Madison Pavlovic-Wanay. I hope I got those right. Yeah, now you are. You're on stage and you're responsible for the choreography. Yes. So maybe I want to start with you. Okay. Madison, because I'm interested in the dance part. What, like, you probably never even saw the dances that they would have done when Elvis was king. So how did you get yourself prepared for this? Definitely had to do my research before. Watch lots of videos of Elvis, yet some inspiration to bring their show to life. Did you go? What are they doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I tried my best, but, you know, to make it almost nostalgic for people, right? What are some of the dance moves or anything particular, like any of the dances, like, I don't know, like the twist, I suppose. Might be part of it. I don't know, I'm not sure if I remember the name, but I think maybe the bowler. Is that what it's called? I hope that one escapes me, but if I saw it, I'd probably know it. Yeah, that's in the show. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And how is it for translating your vision to your fellow students? It's, you know, sometimes it's tricky to get people to kind of understand the way he moves because it's kind of funky, almost. But, once people kind of got that idea, it was really kind of brought the music in the editing together. Okay, Addison, you are an actress in the production? Yes. What is your role? I play the role of Sylvia. And who is Sylvia? Sylvia is a woman who owns the honky tonk, and she's definitely a strict person. And she has more of an attitude. Okay? A daughter and she falls in love with a guy named Jim. So she has a strict attitude, mirroring the attitude of parents in the 50s. Yeah, rock and roll came out. The devil's music. Yeah. So kind of lead us through. You say you fall in love with one of the characters in the show? Yes. There's a lot of, like, love situations in our show. A lot of people fall in love with a lot of different people. But it starts off with Jim falling in love with this other younger lady named Sandra, and Sandra kind of ends up breaking his heart, and then I kind of end up comforting him and being there for him. And then I show him my love, and then it kind of just we end up together again. I'm on the rebound. Yeah, I'm from the music. Do you have had you heard any Elvis Presley music before you came along to this production? Yes. Did you have any favorites? Not particularly. I grew up with, like, my grandpa liking a lot of older music. So then I would hear, like, certain ones. So, yeah, I'm not. There's not really any particular ones. Like, there's a couple I definitely didn't hear about before the show, but. And is there lots of Elvis music in this production? Yes, they're all the songs. They have some examples of some of the songs that we're going to hear when we, attend the play, Blue Suede Shoes. Oh, yeah. There's Can't help falling in love. Oh, yeah. There's a mix of teddy bear, hound dog. Oh, yeah. And then there's, Heartbreak Hotel. Oh yeah. How about, was it in the jailhouse Rock? Yep. That's always. Oh well yeah. By it away. Right off the bat we're going to start with a good one. Yes. The reaction of the students having to learn these songs, they're like oh my God what were these people thinking. These songs. Generational gap I guess. Yeah. But they have gotten into the spirit of rock and roll for sure. Okay. What's the premise of the movie? Like you said, Jim is is, a drifter that sort of happens to come along. Is that how it works there? He's always been in the town for as long as, like we know in our musical, but Sandra ends up coming in like to the town being new. And we have a lot of older, like people who've lived in the town for a long time. But then we have like the roustabout he's the one who's very new to the town, and he shakes us all up and puts us dancing in the groove of, like, the rock and roll and everything. Okay. All right. Now, I believe this play has been produced many times before. Do you take any references from those previous productions, or do you try to put your own stamp on it? Well, we did do this show ten years ago, and there was an option to kind of take choreo from that and bring that into our new show. But me and the other choreographer, Morgan, we really tried to put our own touch on it. So it was kind of something new for people to watch. Yeah. Okay. Well I would like to be in the audience but I need to know the dates. The dates. Our opening night is on the 28th and then we played to the 31st and then we also play February 3rd to the seventh. So there'll be ample opportunity. Oh yes. Where do I buy tickets on ThunderTix. And we also have our CHHS website. You can find it online. And also if you find any posters, there should be either a QR code or like a little link to it. And then you can buy tickets on there. And then there are all of our dates and then the seats that you can choose from. Okay. How many people are involved in the production off the top of your head between all the different I would say like 45 people, especially since now we have some juniors come in and help in the background and dance and sing. Yeah. And then how many people behind the scenes? Because those are always the ones that nobody ever sees. But you can't do production without them. We have a lot of parents that come and help out, and they run lots of our props and their set pieces. And we also have Mister Look, he definitely helps us out and stay focused and make sure all our props and everything are on the right timing. What draws you to theatrical arts? I think it was the main reason I came to Crescent Heights just because I've had like aunties that can went to the school and went through the program and it just kind of felt like it needed to be something that I tried out. And it just really once I got into it was something that I really began to love. Now that's in your blood. Yeah. Yeah. Addison I didn't start theater till grade nine, but a lot of my friends did it and I was like, I feel like I should give it a try. I was more nervous to put myself out there, but once I did, I created a lot of new friends. And it's a great sense of belonging at Crescent Heights. Yeah. And that's the specialty of the school, I believe, is, performing arts. That's that's the magnet that draws the students. So you have like minded people. I'm. I'm back. You guys have a lot of fun. Yes, we do, except having to do interviews like this. Well, thank you very much, Addison and Madison and, good luck. As they say in the theater. Break a leg. Thank you. Thank you. Oh yeah!