Staples Players have shown consistently that they can shine at the high school theater level, and now the time has come for them to show off their talent to the world outside of Staples.
Next stop for Players: New York City.
On Monday, June 3, the cast of Staples Player’s A Chorus Line will perform at a benefit for the American Cancer Society in a birthday celebration for the late Marvin Hamlisch, who wrote the music for the orginal A Chorus Line production The event is called One Centennial Sensation and will be held at the Hudson Theater in New York City.
Hamlisch’s wife, Terre Blair Hamlisch, attended the last two performances of A Chorus Line at Staples and loved the show so much that, after the last performance, she went on stage and invited the cast to perform at this special event.
Players will perform a large section of “Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen,” “What I Did for Love,” and another song that is not from A Chorus Line.
However, Players will not be the only stars attending the celebration in June. Celebrities like Idina Menzel, Matthew Morrison, Kelli O’Hara, Bernadette Peters, Michael Douglas, Lucie Arnaz, and Klea Blackhurst will also be present.
“There will be stars at this event that many Players students look up to and aspire to be like, so the fact that we are performing at the same show as them, and possibly on stage with some of them, is surreal to most of us,” Danielle Frost ’13 said.
To ensure that they will give their best performance in front of these big names, the cast has been staying in shape and preparing for the event by rehearsing once or twice a week. They even had a rehearsal with Ernest Green, the music director for A Chorus Line in New York City.
Players are ecstatic and genuinely thankful to be able to perform at this event.
“I feel extremely privileged to be given this opportunity,” Clay Singer ’13 said. “It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I can’t begin to explain how excited I am.”
This opportunity says a lot about the hard work that Staples Players puts in throughout the year. Players are proud that their six-day-a-week rehearsal schedule for A Chorus Line paid off in a way they never could have thought possible.
“Because Marvin played such a crucial role in the original creation of the show, this is essentially the highest form of recognition we can get,” Frost said.
Although everyone is grateful for this rare opportunity, it especially influences senior Players. Many seniors agreed that it was the perfect end to their time in Players.
“This will be so memorable because I will be sharing this night with my closest friends who are really my family,” Tyler Jent ’13 said. “To share this memory with these wonderful people is a dream come true.”
