Voorheesville Dionysians swing into spring production of Tarzan
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Hold on, you’ve got something in your hair: Tarzan, played by Lucas Wilson, checks Jane, played by Sophia Gulotty, for fleas. The Dionysians, Voorheesville’s drama club, will be performing “Tarzan” at the high school’s performing arts center this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
VOORHEESVILLE — When members of Voorheeville’s high-school drama club, the Dionysians, met at the end of last year, they were brainstorming a shortlist of plays to perform for this year. Toward the end of the meeting, someone mentioned “Tarzan.”
“Some of the kids looked around and asked, ‘Wait a minute; that’s not a musical, is it? It’s a movie,’” recalled Robert Whiteman, the play’s director.
Whiteman had seen the Broadway production of the play, and went home that night and took another look is it. “I loved, loved, loved Phil Collins’s music and thought, ‘This is going to suit us well,” he said.
The play is based on the eponymous film from Disney.
In the mid-1860s, an English couple and their infant son are shipwrecked off the coast of Africa. The couple is killed by a leopard, but before the infant is killed, a female gorilla, whose own baby was killed by the same leopard, hears the infant’s cries, encounters the leopard, and escapes with the infant.
A group of humans show up 18 years later looking to study gorillas. Included in the group are Professor Porter and his daughter, Jane, who becomes separated from the group and is then chased by baboons, only to be saved by Tarzan. Love ensues.
The production is very different from last year’s play, “Mary Poppins,” Whiteman said. “Although they are both Disney titles, ‘Tarzan’ is a 180 from ‘Mary Poppins,’” he said. The music — pop-rock — is completely different and a good challenge for the students, he said. The approach they must take to acting is different — because 90 percent of the cast is playing gorillas.
Lucas Wilson will be playing the title role of Tarzan.
Whiteman said that Wilson is doing a spectacular job in a role that is both physically and vocally demanding. Wilson has years of performance experience, Whiteman said, not only on stage as an actor but also with his band.
Sophia Gulotty will be playing Jane.
Catching a ride: Cian Connolly will be playing Young Tarzan in the upcoming musical, “Tarzan,” put on by Voorheeville’s high-school drama club, the Dionysians. Connolly is riding on the back of Fallon Zell, who portrays Terk, Tarzan’s best friend.
Julia Conroy and Liam Foley play Tarzan’s shipwrecked parents in “Tarzan.”
In addition to taking part in school productions, Gulotty is active in theaters around the Capital Region, Whiteman said.
Gulotty is hardworking and talented, Whiteman said. She showed up on the first day with her lines memorized — an approach, Whiteman said, that allows her to ask a lot of informed questions, which then allows her to develop the character.
This is Whiteman’s third production at Voorheesville. Both of his daughters attend Clayton A. Bouton High School and are in the play’s ensemble. He is a fifth-grade teacher at Altamont Elementary School, where he also directs the school’s musical.
“I think there is going to be surprise that this production is as entertaining as it is, while being as different and challenging as possible for the performers,” he said. “If you think you know what to expect and how we do things, you’re a little bit wrong — so come and find out in person.”
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“Tarzan” plays in the performing arts center at Voorheesville’s high school on Friday, March 23, at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 24, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 25, at 2 p.m.