Old is new again at Haldane Drama. This spring, the community will be invited to the Haldane auditorium to watch the drama department’s current production, “Les Misérables.” For some, it will be the second time.
Haldane Drama’s 2018 performance of the same play featured sold-out shows and a set design that wowed the audience, setting a high bar for this year’s production. Though the student stars of the 2018 show have long since graduated, their memories of time spent on the Haldane stage underline the lasting impact that Haldane Drama has on students’ lives.
\William Speziale, class of 2019, performed in the 2018 Haldane production as Jean Valjean. “Theater makes a family,” said Speziale when asked to recall his time in Haldane Drama. “It’s a challenge that many people take on alongside others, whether it’s sports or higher academics or anything I think. It’s definitely a forged-in-the-fire family that you kinda walk out with, whether or not you know it at first. You spend so much time with these people, and of course, there’s high school drama in the drama club, but even through all that, there’s love at the end of it.”
Justin Roffman, class of 2019, played Marius in the earlier production. “The part that really has stuck with me is the commitment that everybody has put in and the gravity with which everybody treats Haldane Drama in general,” said Roffman. “You could say there’s maybe a stigma around high school theater across the board, but given the community that we have at Haldane and the fact that you have so many people with so much experience in the industry that are so excited to give that back to high schoolers coming up, experiencing what that world can be. It just creates this culture of support and appreciation–from the choreography, and the directing, to the set building. And then the whole community comes out to support that, and you just get this really wonderful combination that I don’t think exists at many high schools.”
Juliette Barkman, class of 2020, was a sophomore when she played Fantine. Her favorite moment from any Haldane Drama show was the first time the live orchestra would come in to rehearse during tech week. “We would get to go from the rehearsal tracks to hearing the actual band play for the first time, which was just so much fun,” she said, “it really brought the shows to life.”
Longtime Haldane Drama Director Martha Mechalakos, who directed the 2018 Haldane production, cited the musical’s 40th anniversary and the range of current Drama members as the main reasons for the show’s return to the Haldane stage. “It’s a casting thing. I knew we could cast it. And it’s very male-heavy. And that’s kind of where we are right now with our group. I felt like I could cast it really strongly. We have a lot of depth in many categories as far as voice types, so I’m excited to do it,” she said.
While he loved his time as Jean Valjean, Speziale’s favorite role wasn’t during his time in high school. His favorite performance was as James Blond in the middle school’s performance of “MISSION: Possible!,” a punny spoof on the debonair secret agent James Bond. Opposite him was Justin Roffman, who played Silver Thumb, a character inspired by the classic Bond villain Goldfinger.
Speziale did not pursue drama at SUNY New Paltz, where he went to college, but he has participated in a number of performances at the Depot Theater in Garrison, as well as a performance of the Culinary Institute of America’s “The Nutcracker” at the Hudson River Performing Arts Center.
For Roffman, his favorite moment was the finale of his final performance of “Les Misérables.” During the final number, the audience couldn’t contain their applause. “I almost broke character seeing that people were like on their feet, whooping it up and cheering throughout the whole duration of the finale,” said Roffman. When asked about specific memories from Haldane Drama, Speziale recalled, “I think possibly the funniest moment from Haldane drama that I can remember was during the ‘Pirates of Penzance’ when we were all supposed to crawl through the the audience as pirates and sneak up onstage and one of us, I won’t say here, but one of us went out two scenes early crawling through the audience. So two of us, just as pirates, went out and dragged him back into the side room by his legs through the audience, and it got a lot of weird stares, but it just added to the fun of it.”
Having fun was part of the advice Speziale had for students in the current production. He said, “I think especially with ‘Les Miz’ it can be a heavy show, emotionally and physically, so there are so many times when you just have to either grin and bear it or see the fun in it.” He also offered practical tips. “Take care of your vocal cords,” he said, and “drink lots of throat coat tea,” he added, “It is strenuous and difficult but so so rewarding.”
Roffman advised the next Marius, senior Owen Powers, “to not hold back in any way. I think there were some moments given that Marius in particular has this whole arc of the conflict of whether to stay with the revolution or fly away into relative safety, and the intensity and gravity of that decision is a pretty clear aspect of the character to lean on.”
Barkman suggested that freshman Carla Coleman, who will play Fantine this year, should make the character “her own.” She advised, “really just dive into the character and play into both the amount of relationships that she has on stage, but then also the relationships that she has in her life that you don’t see.” She continued, “In [the song] ‘I Dreamed a Dream,’ for example, when she’s singing about her past, we don’t ever see that relationship that she has, but it’s such an important part of her story. So just really find out what that means to you.”
While all three students shared a past with Haldane Drama, life has led each of them in different directions. Speziale now works as a freelance archery instructor. Roffman graduated from Northeastern University and now works full-time as a Product Design Engineer at Apple. Barkman graduated from SUNY New Paltz and is currently working towards her master’s degree in social work at Columbia University.
Looking ahead to this spring’s production of “Les Misérables,” Mechalakos reflected, “It’s a great show to do. And it’s fun for the audience. It’s fun for the performers and for everyone on the team. I’m just really excited to do it again.” She concluded, “I know everyone will deliver.”
