Connections: Onstage at Ross
It’s not often that The Star reviews student productions, but having seen — and having highly praised — East Hampton High School’s recent staging of “In the Heights,” I decided to follow suit with “Thoroughly Modern Millie” at the Ross Upper School last weekend.
The original “Thoroughly Modern Millie” was a 1967 film that went onto the stage much later. The movie starred Julie Andrews, Carol Channing, and Mary Tyler Moore. At Ross, six of the seven leading actors were boarding students from Asia and the seventh a young woman from Russia. Their English was accented, but it didn’t matter. They pulled it all together beautifully with good acting and singing and lots of choreographed stage business. The production was terrific.
The story of “Millie” takes place in the 1920s. She is among young women seeking to make their way in New York City who rent rooms at the Priscilla Hotel, where the evil (but hilarious) concierge schemes to sell any she can into “white slavery.” Millie is determined to find a good job and marry the boss; love won’t have anything to do with it, she says. Suffice it to say love intrudes, and it all ends happily except for two women who disappear, apparently into slavery.
Though every lead carried the day, the concierge, played by Maria Chernovisova, from Russia, almost stole the show. I was particularly impressed with Natsumi Nakamura’s lovely singing voice and by the acting and singing of two young male leads, Sung-Wook (Jadon) Han, who is 18, and Yuqing (Bill) Wang, who is 17.
As for the adults at the top of the bill, longtime talented professionals were there, including Gerard Doyle, the school’s drama teacher, Sheryl Hastalis, choreographer, Adam Judd, music director, Janet Fensterer, accompanist, Sebastian Paczinsky, lighting, and Jon Mulhern and Bill Stewart, who did the sets.
Enrollment at Ross is big enough for a large number of students to have taken part in various aspects of the show, from stage managing and sound to the pit band. Given that 200 students in 9th through 12th grade are boarders, the cast did not have families nearby to invite to performances so the audience was made up largely of fellow students.
The play has roles for two men who are supposed to be Chinese and do the concierge’s bidding. They are called Ching Ho and Bun Foo and, in the original, they speak Cantonese. Guess what? At Ross, the actors spoke their native Mandarin, and brought down the house when Chinese students were in the audience. They were funny enough for me, too, even though I didn’t recognize a word. Talent has no borders.