Bellmore’s Jerusalem Avenue Elementary School hosted some of Long Island’s best aspiring performers, who took the stage for their first professional-grade production of the 1998 novel turned Broadway classic and Tim Burton film, ‘Big Fish.’
The troupe of students are enrolled in the Nassau BOCES Long Island High School for the Arts, which offers career and technical programs for half of a student’s school day, ranging from music and performing arts to video game design and animation.
BOCES is an alternative education program for young people who want to begin training for their careers as soon as possible. For the theatrical students, performing Big Fish allowed students to collaborate with professionals in the industry, including Broadway professionals and career sound designers.
“This is just one of the many opportunities that is offered to students at Long Island High School for the Arts,” said LIHSA Principal Lindsay Rogan. “The school provides students an opportunity to study at a pre-college and pre-conservatory level when they are still in high school.
“These CTE programs meet the district arts programs and then take them to the next level, we are able to provide students two and a half hours of just arts education every single day,” she continued.
The goal of this intensive artistic education is to prepare students to enter competitive colleges and fields with years of training to support them. Chris Brick, a teacher in the performing arts department and director of Big Fish, supervised the productions.
“It’s a more truncated version of the musical that people saw on Broadway,” he said. “The film and the musical are both really beautiful stories. It’s a story about family, it’s a story about finding who you are.”
Two 30-person teams of students performed Big Fish on Jan. 27 and 28 at Jerusalem Avenue, each with over 30 student members from cast to crew. This LIHSA production is designed to focus heavily on storytelling in the absence of Broadway embellishments.
“That was kind of the concept going into this for me was how do we make this feel big without it being without it being big — how do we tell this really gigantic story through minimal design, which has been a challenge,” Brick said. “It’s been really, really great to work with kids in the process.”
Student auditions for the musical began in September, leading into five hour rehearsals after school each week, where students worked on set design, line readings and choreography.
“A lot of our students are going to college or going right into work, starting auditioning right after high school,” Brick said. “Our goal is to give them that professional experience so that they know what’s expected of them when they graduate from high school.”
The three LIHSA students, each 17, were excited to put class theory to practice.
Cora Jones of Freeport played Amos Calloway. Going through the rigorous rehearsal process was an incredible experience, she said.
“It’s really fast paced, and we get to work at a professional speed,” she said. “It feels like what we’re doing is really important, and like we’re working at the (professional) level.”
While producing the musical, traditional classroom activities were worked into the process.
“We had to do a character analysis and write a paper about our character and our character’s impact on the plot line, things we don’t really get to work on at our home school,” Jones explained.
Jackson Reiser of Lynbrook plays one of the leading roles, Edward Bloom. He celebrated the team’s accomplishments.
“I feel very proud of how it’s come together and how hard everyone works and how we come together to make things work,” he said. “Coming to LIHSA, I just feel like I’ve grown so much, and I’ve learned so much… I feel like I’m closer to where I want to be as a performer.”
Marilena Castoro of Smithtown played Sandra Bloom, also a central role.
“It’s a really beautiful story… the music is just like, wonderful, and it’s like, just great to just get a chance to work on it all,” she said. “I’ve always struggled a little bit with insecurity, but coming here, I feel more confident in myself, and I’m growing into the person that I’m supposed to be.”
For more information, visit LongIslandHighSchoolForTheArts.org or follow @lihsa_official on Instagram.
