Durban High School (DHS) will be bringing you its biggest stage production ever when it puts on one of the world’s most loved musicals next week.
Grease, made famous by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, is a DHS school project, but because it’s a boys only school, the production includes girls from 12 other schools in Durban.
DHS drama teacher, actor and singer Liesl Coppin said she wanted to put on a show that would be “relatable for the kids” while also taking the demographics of the cast of about 55 pupils into account.
Grease, written by playwrights Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, is based on characters at the fictional Rydell High School in north-west Chicago in the 1950s. The name is apparently derived from greasers, a working-class youth subculture in the US.
The lead roles of Danny and Sandy are played by DHS grade 11 pupil Unaye Mndau and Gabby Aromin from Crawford La Lucia.
Coppin said the cast came together mainly by word of mouth because DHS pupils got onto social media and spread the word that they needed female actors. Nearly 60 turned up to audition for the various roles.
“Social media is quite an amazing thing. In the old day we would have had to email all the schools in Durban,” said Coppin.
The cast has been rehearsing for four months and Coppin said getting a role in the musical was not only limited to those who did drama as a subject: she made it clear that it was open to anyone. Getting all the pupils together at the same time had been difficult.
“Something like this, professionally, we could rehearse in four weeks but when you are dealing with teenagers and all their extra murals, curricula and rugby tours, to get all these teenagers in one place, has been my biggest problem so far. We open next Tuesday and I have yet to have a full cast at a rehearsal,” said Coppin earlier this week.
She said her lead performers were also “highly functioning over achievers” which made it even harder to rehearse.
Unaye, who portrays Danny, plays rugby for the Sharks under-17s team and went on a rugby tour. He is also a musician and attended the National Arts Festival in Makhanda and was not available to rehearse for two weeks. Gabby, who plays Sandy, is a competitive swimmer who does lifesaving for KZN and all these other activities played a huge role in the time available to prepare for the musical. Then the June exams also limited their time together.
“It’s wonderful that these kids are so busy and so active but it’s been a real challenge for me to get everyone together. But they’ve been incredibly committed,” said Coppin.
The choreography for the show was done by dance instructor and East Coast radio presenter Danny Guselli.
“Probably for me the biggest drawcard to this whole production is the choreography. What he’s managed to do with these kids is truly mind-blowing.
“He’s got them doing lifts and the girls are being thrown around by the guys and the audience is not going to believe what these guys are capable of doing,” she said.
The show at the DC Thompson school hall runs from Tuesday July 25 to Sunday July 30 at 7pm.
Tickets range from R60 to R120 and can be bought at www.webtickets.co.za. Coppin said the R120 ticket gets you a seat at a table and you can bring along your own snacks.
The Independent on Saturday