Going Out for Arsenic and Old Lace
New director, Eric Shovah, leads Dionysians in classic romp



VOORHEESVILLE — With a favorite director gone, the school’s drama club is turning to a classic.

The popular and successful director, John Lopez, moved at the end of last school year to be closer to New York City to pursue his own professional aspirations as a performer. Portia Hubert, who has been a producer of Voorheesville high school’s theater program, is this year’s advisor; she chose the classic Arsenic and Old Lace as the fall play.
"It’s always been a favorite of mine," she said. It’s a well-known play that is appropriate for any age, and people are familiar and comfortable with it, Hubert said.

Arsenic and Old Lace, written by Joseph Kesselring in 1939, is about a drama critic, Mortimer Brewster, who is engaged to be married, but has a crazy family that includes two elderly aunts whose way of showing compassion is by poisoning lonely old men with arsenic-laced elderberry wine and then burying them in the basement.

While the high-school drama club produces a musical in the spring, it traditionally tries to do a play in the fall to give students who might not sing a chance to highlight their acting ability, Hubert said.

With a cast of 15, which includes dead-body extras, Arsenic and Old Lace has comedic flare that depends on good timing, Hubert said.

This year’s director, Eric Shovah, came highly recommended from Lopez. The two had performed together locally and Shovah’s girlfriend, Heather D’Arcy, had been the choreographer for last spring’s musical production of Beauty and the Beast.

Laid back

Shovah who has a full beard and curly dark hair like Lopez, grew up in Green Island, where he spent his high school years on the school stage; he has just recently moved to Guilderland.

A graduate of the University at Albany, Shovah majored in English and had two minors, in theater and education. He is currently a middle-school English and social-studies teacher at the Bethlehem Children’s School in Slingerlands.
"There is so much theater in teaching," Shovah said. He performs every day, trying to keep students’ interest, he said.

Hubert said she saw a play Shovah was in last year, and, over the summer, watched a show he helped direct. This is when she decided he should be Voorheesville’s new director, she said.
"It’s been going well — he’s well liked; the students take direction from him and listen to him very well," Hubert said.
"Things have been more laid back," said Danielle McCune, who plays the role of Klein in the play. She said she enjoys the more relaxed atmosphere. Lopez was strict about talking or having food, she said.
Shovah "takes a lot of what we think into consideration," McCune said. "I feel more comfortable talking to him...less frightened to approach him if I have problem or a suggestion."
One actor sprinted down the school corridor dressed in a purple basketball jersey with a duffel bag swung over his shoulder; he ran into a costume closet with a bright red face, dripping with sweat, and completely out of breath. He said with a worried tone, "I’m so sorry Mr. Shovah!"

It was 6:40 p.m. and students were supposed to be ready at 6:30.
"It’s okay," Shovah said calmly, looking just as worried about the boy. "Take a breather."

It is difficult to work around everyone’s schedule, Shovah said as he turned back around to talk to The Enterprise. But with a small school everyone is involved in so much, and theater is something he wants to encourage.

McCune said Shovah has helped her gain more confidence as an actress, as she prepares for taking on one of the largest roles she has ever had.
With a cast of 15, everyone is very close, McCune said, "So you can take more chances without feeling more alienated."

Understanding roles
Arsenic and Old Lace "is so funny even with the older references," McCune said. At first, it was hard to relate to the jokes of a generation before her time, but, after watching a Boris Karloff movie, it all came together for her, she said.

One of the characters in the play is supposed to look like Karloff, who was a popular horror-film actor of the time.

McCune plays a policeman. She said that it hadn’t really sunk in until she got into the costume that she was playing the part of a man.
She used her own stereotypes and generalizations she has made about policemen in her life to structure her character’s personality, including a "dopey ambiance," she said.
High school senior Casey Sheridan plays the role of Aunt Martha, a homicidal woman in her eighties. In order for a teenager to take on the persona of an elderly woman, Casey said, "I think about it a lot."
Sheridan purposely makes her voice slightly more high-pitched to reflect the "sweet little old lady" that she is playing. "And she really is sweet...If the insanity plea was made for anyone it was made for these two," Sheridan said.
Her character is the kind of lady that children love to visit for trick-or-treating because she gives out the best candy and money, Sheridan said. "They really don’t realize what they are doing is wrong...They are the sweetest little old ladies which kind of happened to kill people," Sheridan said.

Transition

While Shovah has a firm grasp on the directing reins, Mr. Lopez’s influence doesn’t linger far. Strewn across the tables in the costume and make-up room are piles of make up plots, sketches, and diagrams of each character and their make up design drawn by Sheridan. She said she took a theater-arts class with Lopez two years ago where she learned how to draw make up plots; the class also designed model sets, she said.

Sheridan demonstrated how dark pencil or paint lines, with the correct shadowing, can create the illusion of wrinkles.

Hubert said that, this year, she got a lot of help from parents constructing the set. About 10 students on the technical crew helped with set construction and also do lighting and sound, Hubert said.
"This year has been one of transition and everyone misses our former director, Mr. Lopez, greatly, but we are continuing the tradition he started of having a strong, teaching theater program," Hubert wrote in an e-mail to The Enterprise.
"It’s learning by doing," Shovah told The Enterprise before a dress rehearsal this week. He said it’s about trying things out, and being ready to adapt as needed.
"Timing and delivery are big things in this show," he said, which require the actors to know the other characters and the way to interact with different character’s personalities.
"The kids are excellent at characterization," Shovah said. He has also been impressed with the students’ professionalism; they listen not only to their notes, but the notes for all the other actors, and support each other, he said.
In a short amount of time, a spectator can see the mutual respect that is shared between Shovah and the students — he repeatedly addressed the teens with "please" and "thank you" as he gave them direction.
"Great energy"

For the fall play, seniors and juniors are given preference for parts, although all grade levels are allowed to try out.

About 30 people tried out for the play, Shovah said, and he whittled that down to 15 by looking at the young actors’ and actresses’ abilty to interact with other charactors. For callbacks, he said, he paired different students up and scored them on their interaction to tell which actors had a good dynamic together.

This is not Shovah’s first time working with teenagers. He directed Peter Pan at Green Island’s high school, and he was assistant director for the Second Star Players’ Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, a family production that had actors of all ages.
He likes working with high school students because they have "such great energy," Shovah said. "They have so much interest and there is much room to teach and learn."

Professionally, Shovah has performed in C.R. Productions in Cohoes and with the Schenectady Light Opera.

Shovah has also acted for the Family Players that used to perform at Tawasentha Park in Guilderland.

Shovah is rehearsing now for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged, a three-person show, to run at the Little Theater at Russell Sage College in January.
Arsenic and Old Lace is a play that he always has enjoyed, he said. "I like the appeal of making people laugh," he said. Comedies are always close to his heart because the first real show he was in was a high school comedy.

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Arsenic and Old Lace plays this weekend, Nov. 18 to 20. Showtimes are at 7:15 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 2:15 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $10 at the door and $8 for senior citizens and students.