‘Sweet Charity’ comes to life on stage

Last Thursday MacTheater opened its doors with its fall musical, Sweet Charity. The musical follows the turbulent love life of hopeless romantic Charity Hope Valentine (Sydney Safarik), a dance hall hostess in mid-1960s New York City.

Filled with colorful sets and costumes, Sweet Charity, captures the energy and heartbreak of a cheerful optimist as she tries over and over to find love and make something more of herself.

Always looking at the bright side of life, Charity (Safarik) is determined to find love after a seemingly endless amount of bad dates and relationships. After running into international actor Vittorio Vidal (Henry Mayes), Charity quickly falls in love with the suave actor.

Their romance is cut short, however, sending Charity on a journey to pursue her dreams.

MacTheatre continues its Sweet Charity journey with a second week of shows beginning on Thursday and ending with a matinee on Sunday. Tickets for the remaining shows are on sale at mccallum.ludus.com or available at the door.

We are pleased to present some of the best photos from dress rehearsals and this past weekend’s run of Sweet Charity in this week’s Tuesday Top 10.

A CHANGE IN PERSPECTIVE: During Sunday night’s performance, senior Sofia Rayas (Nickie) and sophomore Ava Dallesandro (Helene) mock Charity’s optimistic dreams of having a normal, loving life but soon realize that there is hope for them to achieve the same. The scene was filled with twists and turns, which was prevalent in Rayas’ acting.

“When doing the scene, there’s sort of an emotional switch in the characters and music,” Rayas said, “so getting that to look and feel accurate took a while.”

The scene with Rayas and Dallesandro included a song: “Baby Dream Your Dream.”

“During the song itself, my partner [Dallesandro] and I definitely liked to feel the emotions while we sang,” Rayas said.

Rayas’ favorite part of the production was working with the student assistant directors: sophomore Maggie Brown, senior Lucy Kuhn and senior Ana Mejia, as well as her other friends in the program.

“We [the students involved in the play] end up spending a lot of time together because of how long the rehearsal hours are,” Rayas said. “We get closer as the show progresses, to the point where I feel like I see them more than my own parents. Spending that much time with someone you actually enjoy being around is honestly pretty great.”

Caption by JoJo Barnard. Photo by Sophia Manos.

DANCING INTO CHARACTER: Junior Zalie Mann takes center stage during the opening night of Sweet Charity as the ponytail girl, a dancer in the New York nightclub, the Pompeii Club. Mann is the featured dancer during her scenes.

To prepare for the role, Mann had to do research on her character as well as study the dance style and watch videos of others playing the character to draw inspiration from. She also hopes to try for a more positive environment in the coming shows, saying it’s quite easy to get into a negative headspace. To her, the cast and crew were able to make the show an optimistic place.

“I think we did a great job of pulling together and providing encouragement to each other,” Mann said. “We had a great tradition that we call ‘good show’ where we stand outside in a circle as the audience is getting settled in their seats and we do a bunch of weird theater kid things.”

She thinks this helps the group center themselves and focus on the show. Personally, Mann will close her eyes before the show starts and think about what her character would be feeling to get rid of any thoughts that she might have. Overall, she is satisfied with the show and how everyone is working together to put on the best they can.

“The atmosphere is pretty good,” Mann said. “There’s some drama but nothing we can’t push through to work together and make a good show in the end.” Caption by Callen Romell. Photo by Eliza Jensen.

(BITTER)SWEET CHARITY: For Sydney Safarik, playing Charity Hope Valentine gave her a chance to learn the lessons that Charity learns throughout the show, and gain new insights that she got through portraying the character.

“The role encompasses such a perfect blend of comedy and truthful moments,” Safarik said. “Getting to step into [Charity’s] shoes is such a blessing.”

For Sararik, getting involved with Sweet Charity, and participating in the musical was a no-brainer.

“There are so many singing, dancing and acting moments within the musical, and getting to do the thing I love night after night fills me with so much joy,” Safarik said. “I have so much love for my fellow cast and crew mates; everyone works so hard to help this show go on.”

The cast put on its first weekend shows, Thursday through Sunday and will present their second weekend of shows this upcoming weekend.

“I look forward to the rest of our spunky fun season on shows,” Safarik said. “I think each of our shows showcases lots of funky comedy and our incredibly talented cast. I am so honored to be working with such amazing people.”

Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Sophia Manos.

GETTING INTO CHARACTER: Playing the dry and witty Helene, friend of titular character Charity Hope Valentine, isn’t a stretch for sophomore Ava Dallesandro. In her first named role with MacTheatre, Dallesandro was able to pull from her own experiences and make the performance even better than she had originally hoped.

“I think I’m lucky with the person I was cast as because I really do like and resonate with my character,” Dallesandro said. “That makes performing and the experience just so much more wonderful.”

It wasn’t all a breeze though. Tech week is notoriously stressful, and Sweet Charity gave the theater program a run for its money.

“The very hardest part is the week right before performances start, our tech week, because everyone’s sort of jumbled and nothing’s really come together yet,” Dallesandro said. “It’s when you have to put the most trust in your peers and co-stars.”

This trust made the show run smoothly in the end, however. Despite facing multiple prop malfunctions and hitting a few bumps in the road, the production has been able to successfully pull off multiple shows. Dallesandro owes it in part to her co-stars Sydney Safarik and Sofia Rayas.

“I love who I get to work with all the time,” she said, “[Sydney and Sofia] are so amazing, they’ve made it such a wonderful experience.”

As the show enters its second and final weekend, Dallesandro is sad to see it go. Despite the possibility of getting to perform one more time at the Heller Awards later this school year, next Sunday’s production marks the moment she has to stop thinking about this show and move onto the next.

“You’ve built such an intimate relationship with your character and you know all your lines and blocking and you know the show so well,” she said, “You see all the people performing these roles and then it all goes away one day. It’s hard to say goodbye.”

Caption by Helen Martin. Photo by Alice Scott.

VICTORIOUS VITTORIO: Senior Henry Mayes (Vittorio) carries senior Sydney Safarik (Charity) home from dinner, marking the beginning of their apartment scene. According to Mayes, this is a turning point in the characters’ relationships.

“The scene prior, Charity pretends to faint in order to get into Vittorio’s arms, hence why I am carrying her in this photo,” Mayes said. “This photo marks the beginning of when Vittorio and Charity begin to learn more about who each other is as individuals.”

Mayes particularly enjoyed developing Vittorio as a character because of his complex background.

“Creating Vittorio has been a lot of fun,” Mayes said. “He’s a famous Italian actor who grapples with his attachment to his girlfriend, Ursula, when he becomes interested in Charity. Vittorio is highly egotistical and constantly seeks the spotlight.”

Caption by Alice Scott. Photo by Eliza Jensen.

Freshman Finley McBride poses mid-stage at the dress rehearsal performance. Photo by Ellie Grace Hodges.

DRESS AND SUCCESS: Sophomore Lilianne Kirby performs “I love to cry at weddings” during Thursday’s Sweet Charity dress rehearsal. According to Kirby, the show took much time to be put together, but the payoff has been worth it.

“There are rehearsals almost every day, which takes up a lot of our free time, but you can tell the people in this production are committed to it,” Kirby said. “In the beginning it seemed a lot messier, but watching the show come together was really cool, and it’s something everyone in Sweet Charity should feel proud of.”

The production is ensemble driven with full cast numbers like “Big Spender” and “Rich Man’s Frug,” which Kirby said is what completes the show.

“All the interesting choreography is the show is such a unique style,” Kirby said. “It’s so fun to dance or even just to watch. Everyone puts in their best effort, and it makes the show amazing.”

Caption and photo by Alice Scott.

FIGURING OUT THE SHOW: Senior Finn Griffith (Daddy Brubeck) performs the number “The Rhythm of Life,” in which the Rhythm of Life Church performs a sermon on retribution and absolution. Griffith enjoyed performing the scene.

“It’s so much fun to just tweak on stage to be honest,” Griffith said. “The whole cast has a fun energy for the number.”

Sweet Charity still has four shows left to perform, and Griffith is excited to continue to work with the cast and crew of the show.

“Like any show process it took a good amount of time to get things together—this time maybe even into the shows a little,” Griffith said. “But that’s just part of doing theater.”

Caption by JoJo Barnard with reporting from Alice Scott. Photo by Eliza Jensen.

OVERCOMING URSULA: Seniors Addie Knight (Ursula) and Henry Mayes (Vittorio), share an intimate moment in Vittorio’s apartment as they try and repair their character’s loving relationship.

For Knight, the role of Ursula was a bit of a challenge she had to overcome.

“[Dancing and acting] aren’t my top qualities, so I had to get out of my head, specifically with Ursula who doesn’t do any singing.” Knight said. “I had to give myself a fresh start and the chance to give it a try.”

Dancing and acting weren’t the only thing Knight had to experiment with on stage. During night two, the unexpected happened. The bed underneath Sydney Safarik (Charity) unexpectedly broke leaving Knight with only one option in her next scene, improv.

“When the bed broke underneath Sydney there was that first moment of ‘Oh my God, is Sydney OK?’ and then that second moment of ‘Oh wait, I get to improv! I get to make something up in my scene,’” Knight said.

Caption and photo by Eliza Jensen.

PLAYING NICKIE CAN BE TRICKY: McCallum’s theater program kicked off night one of its new play, Sweet Charity, this past Friday with a full house in the audience awaiting their performance. Junior Sofia Rayas, playing Nickie, said that opening night went really well.

“It was actually the first time we did a full run through with costumes and sets because we didn’t have time during dress rehearsals,” Rayas said. “The only problem was during bows the curtain kept opening and closing.”

Rayas said she enjoyed working with the cast and building character relationships.

“I liked working with Sydney (Charity) and Ava (Helene) because we are sort of a trio in the show,” she said. “I also loved working with Ms. Nat with choreography.”

A lively production with many dance performances, Rayas said this show was fun to perform, and had a lot of high energy.

“A lot of the numbers are high energy and require a lot of costume changes,” Rayas said. “But being Nickie has been such an amazing experience.”

Caption by Priya Thoppil. Photo by Eliza Jensen.