SUN CITY – They say you’re only young once, but age is a relative thing, no? You’re only as old as you feel? What about saying it this way: You’re only as old as you act.
Fourteen-year-old Sun City granddaughter Julia Slomski practices walking on stilts for her role as Agnes Smith in The Theatre Company of Sun City’s November production Meet Me in St. Louis. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
Well, when The Theatre Company of Sun City performers take the stage for their November production of Meet Me in St. Louis, the majority are going to get their chance to be young again. And hopefully, they’ll bring audiences back there with them.
“Ninety-five percent of the cast [characters] are teenagers,” said Meet Me in St. Louis director Rob Kaye. “I told [the cast] from the first read-through, ‘You need to start watching your grandkids. You need to start watching the kids at the mall.’”
Also for inspiration, Kaye advised his cast to watch how kids walk, talk, move, and altogether interact with each other to achieve an attitude or ambiance that, measuring strictly by age and years, is long past for these performers.
“So far, from what I’ve seen,” Kaye said, “they’re pulling it off.”
Theatre Company member and N.7 resident Jim Rice plays the teenage character Lon.
By: The Theatre Company of Sun City
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, November 17, Friday, November 18, and Saturday, November 19 and 1:30 p.m. Sunday, November 20.
Where: Drendel Ballroom
Tickets: $15 adults, $10 children 12 & under.
Ticket Sales: 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Monday, October 10 in Drendel Breakout Room and 9 a.m. – Noon Wednesdays, October 12 and 19 outside the reading room.
Rice, 66, joked, “I shaved 50 years off my life. I’m trying to be real happy and bubbly. I’m kind of a kid at heart, so hopefully it will come easy to me. I’m trying to think back about what I did in those crazy days.”
And to keep this senior acting troupe on their toes, Theatre Company performers will share the Meet Me in St. Louis stage with select Sun City grandchildren who play the younger of the characters, like fourteen-year-old Julia Slomski (whose grandfather lives in Sun City). Slomski plays the role of Agnes Smith.
Kaye, a Schaumberg resident, too, is a fresh and lively addition to production. Although a seasoned director and the regular stage tech (lighting and sound) for The Theatre Company of Sun City productions, Meet Me in St. Louis is his first time directing a show for The Theatre Company.
Director Rob Kaye rehearses a scene with cast members. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
“The cast is excited, they’re energized. They’re working hard,” said Kaye. “Right from the beginning, they [The Theatre Company] have wrapped me up and accepted me. They love having me here, and I love being a part of it.”
Throughout Kaye’s longstanding affiliation with The Theatre Company of Sun City, he said he’s watched the theatre group evolve over the years.
“[This] theater group matches up with any theater group that exists in the northwest suburbs,” he said, dispelling that The Theatre Company of Sun City is a “senior” group or a “senior” club. “[They’re] a bunch of people who are experienced and know what they’re doing. And I think when you watch it on stage, it shows every time.”
Whether it’s acting like a teenager, being young at heart, having a fresh director, or growing into the company they are today, The Theatre Company of Sun City has developed into an ensemble that defies age and opens the imagination, which a turn-of-the-century show like Meet Me in St. Louis, that in itself stirs the energy of youth with its love and despair and confidence and nostalgic music, calls for.
“If we stay on course with what we’ve done so far in four weeks and carry that through for the next seven weeks,” Kaye said, “This show is going to be phenomenal. People are going to love it.”
