As if by magic, for the second year in a row, the Vero Beach Theatre Guild has amassed another large cast for a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.
Once again, the performers and crew for “The Mikado” opening tonight (Thursday) include a number of newcomers to the Guild, many with talent and training.
“I know – it’s amazing,” says director Mark Wygonik, Guild president and a longtime participant who recalls times when even readers theater – the usual off-season fare – was the low-budget, lower effort option that gave first-timers a shot at performing.
Magic is in fact what drew newcomer Jake Corvino to the Guild. The rising senior at St. Edward’s School plays Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, on whose absurd decrees much of the plot turns. It was Corvino’s lifelong love of magic that got him used to performing in public; he has been acting in school plays for years, and now wants to major in theater in college.
For first-time cast member Marlee MacArthur, who plays Katisha, the awful “other woman” who is betrothed to the Mikado’s son, the Guild has been a way to assimilate. A recent arrival to the area, MacArthur studied music history at Temple University and took part in an amateur opera group. She has sung in musical theater all her life.
“They’re really wonderful,” she says of the Guild members. “When I got here I went online and I looked up all the different theaters and I went to audition at several different places. The welcome and the camaraderie was so much more than at any other place that I auditioned.”
For the two weeks leading up to opening night, it was crunch time, as the cast calls it. The “books were down” – lines memorized, so that blocking could be set, literally one step at a time. And for a play that involves 10 lead actors and plus chorus, that is no simple task.
Quarterbacking is Wygonik, who also directed last summer’s “Pirates of Penzance.” The summer operettas are benefits for the community theater’s three-story expansion, the beginnings of which should be in evidence by opening night.
Last year, “Penzance” raised $15,000.
Wygonik’s cast waits in respectful silence in position for their next direction from him, mouthing lines of other actors to cue their own. Later, during music rehearsal with Greg Harris, choral director at Vero Beach High School, they are obviously taken with the music, including the many students among them.
While the story line is a 19th century madcap satire of British politics (thinly disguised by its setting in far-off Japan), the music is difficult.
For MacArthur, it is her first play since moving to Florida, though over the years she has made frequent visits to her late mother and her father, George MacArthur. MacArthur grew up in Philadelphia, and has been acting since she was seven and got a part in “Oliver!” at the since-closed Chestnut Hill Theatre.
“I was very good at a young age,” she says. “I could match pitch and carry a tune when I was three years old. I remember dancing around the table with my Italian grandmother singing folk songs. I just never stopped singing, so my mom decided, ‘Let’s get her on stage.’ “
Her mother, a nurse and research scientist, always worried about her daughter’s future, so her support was not without caveats. “My sister’s a photographer and I’m a singer, so it was scary for her. ‘Are my kids going to be able to make a living without a retirement plan and health insurance?’ ” says MacArthur. “Mom had a rule: I wasn’t allowed to do anything that interfered with school. I wasn’t allowed to do anything that paid. And I wasn’t allowed to participate if I got less than an A-minus in school. Anything she thought would get me swept away with the stage.”
Her singing ended up earning her a scholarship to a well-known Catholic girls’ school, Mount St. Joseph Academy, and she ended up performing at the school’s numerous fund-raisers. “Basically I sang for my education,” she says. “At the time we couldn’t have afforded to send me to private school.”
To date she has supported her passion for singing mostly by waitressing. “I’m a dramatic mezzo soprano, and that’s tough because your voice doesn’t mature until you’re older.”
Because of her interest in literature and history, she finds “The Mikado” engaging on many levels. It is her first Gilbert and Sullivan play. Though she has seen plenty from her school days, she is just now appreciating their fun.
“I felt obligated” to go see her friends’ productions, she says with a laugh. “I just didn’t get it: What, another verse? But now that I’m doing it, I’m loving it, more than I ever thought I would. It’s absurd, like commedia dell’arte.”
As Katisha, MacArthur lets ‘er rip, bellowing her part and filling the stage with gesture. “With hair and makeup, we’re going to make me hideously ugly,” she says with delight. “Instead of playing her like she’s ugly, I play up her dual confidence and insecurity.”
And then there’s Jake Corvino, 16 and a rising senior at St. Edward’s School. An avid amateur magician who performs around town, Corvino is also a top golfer at St. Ed’s; at one point he dreamed of being a pro golfer; now he dreams of having a career in theater. He came to the stage more or less by chance — neither of his parents, Steve and Kerry, are performers, though his dad loves music, Jake says. After singing in the Beachland Shark Singers under the direction of longtime Vero music teacher Suzy Reiser, Jake joined the St. Ed’s music program in seventh grade. His teacher was Daniel Koh, then St. Ed’s choral director and artistic director of the Vero Beach Choral Society. While teaching, Koh earned his PhD from Yale. He is now teaching in California.
Koh left a profound impression on Corvino. “He was a very great guy, one of the best guys I’ve ever met,” says Jake. “He was very nice and also very, very dedicated to music.”
Today, Jake himself is considering Yale University. Two weeks ago, he missed a few rehearsals for “The Mikado” to tour Ivy League schools; he intends to major in theater, inspired not only by Koh but by seeing the hit musical “The Book of Mormon” in London while on a Model U.N. trip in March.
“Just the energy of the show was enough to convince me I want to do theater for the rest of my life,” he says. “Why not pursue a thing you really enjoy?”
Not that there aren’t challenges ahead. “I need to learn how to dance first.”
“The Mikado” runs from July 17 through 27. The Vero Beach Theatre Guild is at 2020 San Juan Ave., just west of the county administration complex off Airport Road. Call 772-562-8300 for information.