They look like the teenagers you see jostling each other in line at the local movie theater or, for that matter, the ones sprawling on the couch in front of your TV, even as you read this. They are typical, which is to say, wildly unpredictable young people of no particular caste or class: there’s a big guy in an army sweatshirt; a cherubic-looking boy, not yet grown; a girl in a cropped Lacoste polo giggling into her cellphone. They represent any teen, anywhere. At least until they start to sing. And then the sound unleashed is so pure, it startles. Their faces are slightly upturned, almost glowing. They are united both vocally and emotionally. When one of them falters, another offers a half smile and sings over the missed note. “I’ve got you covered,” he seems to say.
The kids gathered around a piano at the Seabury Center in Westport are among the hundreds of students who have enrolled in classes offered by the Center Stage Theatre Company, founded just two years ago by Jill Jaysen, a Westport mom who, prior to this venture, had worked as a Wall Street stockbroker and a soap-opera actress before establishing a successful Westport-based communications company.
In the spring of 2004, Jill tapped into the excellent contacts she had among Broadway theater professionals (she’s on the board of the National Music Theater Network), somehow convincing them they should hop on Metro-North to Westport to teach classes at her new school. Once the instructors came, they were hooked, says Jill, who still gets a little breathless when she describes watching a young person “discover the magic of standing on a stage. You see the child connect with ‘This is what it feels like to act.’ And then ‘This is what it feels like to work together to sing a song.’ There’s nothing more alive than that. It’s a sort of ‘present-at-the- creation moment.’ ”
Broadway-caliber instructors are at the heart of the Center Stage mission, but just as important is that the classes are taught from a “pure positive” approach, in the words of student Nina Demeter, who is now a seventeen-year-old junior at Lauralton Hall in Milford. Jill happened to see Nina try out for a production that had no connection to Center Stage, an audition that Nina recalls as the most embarrassing moment of her life. She had flubbed it.
“I left the stage and cried,” says Nina, who had no real acting experience and little confidence in her ability to deliver lines. But Jill saw that she could sing and dance and asked her to consider Center Stage’s classes. Finances, Nina said, were a problem. Jill made that problem go away. Today, Nina is a charismatic actress, a standout in a group of exceptional young performers. Like many Center Stage students, she goes to auditions for professional productions; she would like to find an agent.
“Before Center Stage, when I tried to use words on stage, I’d freeze. But working with Jill changed that,” says Nina, who took a Center Stage improvisation class to break down her tendency to hesitate and second guess. “She pushed me to try to find the answers myself. We don’t mimic her or anyone else. She taught us to just be the character.”
“Jill talks about a nurturing environment,” says Deborah Findley, a Westport mother. “Actually, all the theater schools do. But with Jill, it’s really true.”
Michael Findley, Deborah’s son, signed up at Center Stage during a difficult time in middle school. “He was having a hard time connecting with kids,” says Deborah, who recalls Michael’s prior theatrical experience, playing the part of a turtle. “He had what we called his turtle look on stage,” Deborah laughs now. “A little not relaxed, a little withdrawn.” And he certainly didn’t sing, let alone show any inclination that within a year’s time, he would play — to the hilt — the lead role in the Center Stage production of Godspell. Michael needed a key to unlock not only his voice, but also his charm, his place among his peers and his natural charisma on stage. He found that key at Center Stage. “He looks so relaxed on stage, as if he’s just singing around the house,” says Deborah.
Jill is pleased but not surprised by these transformations. “I call it theater for life,” she says. “It’s using acting as a means of gaining self-confidence, of conquering fears, and accomplishing something that will make a kid say, ‘Wow, I did it. I can do anything.’ ”
And while Center Stage focuses on process, its products have already scored big: Last fall, 06880: The Musical — the first musical written and produced by the school, largely by its high school and middle school students — was performed at Broadway’s Beckett Theatre, as part of the prestigious New York Musical Theatre Festival. The musical also won our region’s version of a Tony, a Moss Hart Award, given by the New England Theatre Conference.
The 06880 experience started because Jill wanted to expose some of her older students to the process of creating a musical. So she devised a class that would “incubate” a play, of no predetermined subject or style. “We entered the process without a rigid road map. I just knew I wanted the kids to create something that reflected their own lives,” says Jill.
And true to life in the theater, there were major struggles to work through. “Kids learned firsthand that the sky doesn’t fall if you have to say goodbye to one director or actor and welcome in a new one,” says Jill. “They learned how to take a forced change in plans and make it a good thing.”
She asked composer Lawrence Rosen, who co-orchestrated Elton John’s production of Aida, to join the 06880 team. Rosen signed on and wrote a song for each actor to perform, using the “sheaves of hand-scribbled notes the kids churned out,” says Dal Lowenbein of Weston, whose daughter Zoe was in the 06880 cast. The students were recorded singing their songs. Rosen then spliced his spoken advice into the CDs, instructing kids on how to work on their numbers at home. Dal, for one, saw an amazing transformation as her somewhat reserved daughter — who had been homeschooled for a while because of Lyme disease — evolved from a little girl with a big, but untrained, voice, to a polished performer.
In fact, 06880: The Musical is all about evolution, with its first act focused on what it’s like to move from middle school to high school, played by a group of younger actors. The second act opens as high school ends for these same characters — this time played by the older actors in the group. With this neat construct, 06880’s creative team devised an ensemble-style piece of theater, with no starring roles and no kids playing a tree in the corner. And while the Center Stage kids based the story on life in the 06880 zip code, the story is universal to teens — and Jill has been solicited by various entertainment-industry executives about a continued life for the production. There is talk of a movie adaptation; it might be produced off-Broadway or used by other schools around the country. Heady stuff, but, meanwhile, back at the Seabury Center, Jill con-tinues to welcome new students into her Center Stage programs. Her audition process is usually a chat over a soda at Starbucks, with no monologues, no singing, no résumé required. She tries to assess whether her prospective students have a real curiosity and passion for theater — because it’s in that quality a child’s potential resides.
Hushed intensity
On this day, a class is gathered on the Seabury Center stage with instructor Walter ONeil, an actor and singer who was in the original Wicked cast on Broadway. ONeil is a dynamo, blocking out the cabaret-style show they’re in rehearsal for, belting out random riffs, hoofing through some of the choreography, miming every part. His goal is to get the kids to act the songs, as opposed to simply delivering a technically perfect rendering of their words.
A boy named Adam Kaplan is on stage. ONeil wants him to go for the hushed intensity of a whisper in one part of his song, then let his voice crack in another, to allow emotion to flow through. At its climax, he wants the words to tumble over each other, as if the feelings behind them were too urgent to wait for enunciation to keep pace.
“You have a pretty voice,” cajoles ONeil. “You’re a great-looking kid! But that’s not enough. I want laser beams coming out of your eyes!”
“I can do it,” Adam says with a tremulous confidence. “I got it.” But he won’t do it the first time. He’s a teenager, so he’ll hold back. He’s not as unbridled as ONeil, who has now hopped onto the stage, showing him what he wants.
“Bigger!” he exhorts. “It doesn’t matter that you don’t have the vocal power right now. I want your spirit. I know it’s in there!”
Adam takes a swig of Dasani. There’s no begging off or backing down.
There’s no not doing it. So he sings it again and this time his voice shines, his eyes shine, he shines.
ONeil is exuberant; he appears to be near tears as he asks the class to give it up for Adam. They stomp and cheer. “How do you feel?” ONeil asks the boy, who looks elated. “How are you?”
“I’m OK,” says Adam, shy again. “I’m good.”
Adam is good and on the day of the performance he is flawless, even by ONeil’s exacting standards. When it’s over and Jill bounces on stage to pump up the (already deafening) applause, she’s flushed with her trademark “pure positive” pride. “I’m not trying to replicate the real world of cutthroat auditions and rejection,” she says afterward. “Hopefully, the positive experience at Center Stage gives kids the chance to rise to their highest level, so they can bring this new-found confidence to whatever their next step is — in theater or wherever else life takes them.”
For information about Center Stage Theatre Company classes and performances, go to cstcompany.com or call 341-9659.