McCallum becomes first high school to perform Cyrano: The Musical

Originally written in Dutch, Cyrano: The Musical premiered in 1992 at the Stadsschouberg Theatre in Amsterdam. One year later, it came to Broadway translated into English. Now, in 2016, it hits another landmark with McCallum High School being the first high school to perform the musical. Based on the 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, t’s an immortal love story for the ages, an ill-fated trio known to all. The witty, poetic Cyrano, the beautiful Roxane, and the title character’s obnoxious nose.

I kid, of course. Although Cyrano’s gargantuan nose is impossible to ignore, the third person involved in the love triangle would be Christian de Neuvillette, a handsome but naive cadet in the French army (Owen Scales). It is he that Roxane (Miranda Vandenberg, Ellie Zambarano), who is the most beautiful and sought after woman in all of Paris, falls for. This is much to the dismay of Cyrano de Bergerac (Max Corney), a gifted poet and Roxane’s (hopefully very) distant cousin, for he is in love with her as well. However, it is not their relation that is the problem. Because of his facial affliction, Cyrano considers himself to be too ugly to deserve Roxane’s affection. Wanting to profess his love to her but not confident enough to do it directly, Cyrano offers to ghostwrite Christian’s love letters to Roxane, as the young man’s own skills for the written word are severely lacking. In one stand out scene, Cyrano stands in the shadows and feeds Christian romantic lines to shout up to Roxane, standing on her balcony a la Juliet (definite foreshadowing for what is to come for the lovers). Christian and Cyrano’s regiment is called into battle and Christian is killed. Roxane, in her grief, retreats to a nunnery to mourn her beloved and Cyrano finally professes his true love for her, knowing that Roxane fell not in love with Christian but with the person who wrote the letters.

For freshman Owen Scales, Cyrano was his first experience doing a musical at McCallum, describing it as “exhilarating…long…but awesome.” As for being a freshman and having a starring role, he says that the experience was “exciting but pretty scary because I didn’t know what to do but I think I figured it out along the way. I loved it.”

Junior Tristan Tierney, who played the baker Raggueneau and Viscount Valvert, says that his favorite part about doing the musical was “building it from the ground up.”

“We created this really amazing thing from what we thought at the beginning was nothing,” said Tierney.

Putting on this musical was no easy feat. There’s the typical long rehearsal hours that all McCallum musicals necessitate but also, because the musical is so unknown, there are no recordings of the songs in English and the script came to department handwritten. According to Scales, he had to learn the score by playing the notes he was supposed to sing on the piano. Despite these challenges, doing an unknown musical is a learning experience for the students and ultimately makes McCallum Theatre stand out.

“I knew it was going to be a new experience and I’m thankful for every show I do because I learn something from it and I definitely learned something from being in this show.” said Tierney. “And when I apply for college next year, the other applicants won’t have Cyrano: The Musical on their resumes, will they?”