'The King and I' Opens at Blessed Sacrament

Photos of the School Cast by John Elliott

Waterbury, CT - Students in grades pre-k through 8 from 25 schools in 20 towns have come together to present a truly beautiful production of the quite adult Rogers and Hammerstein musical ‘The King and I’ with Blessed Sacrament Children’s Theatre. The driving force behind the program is Bob Tansley, who came out of retirement to direct this year’s production and is marking his 26th year of directing this age group.

Mr. Tansley has avoided choosing an R&H musical because he felt that “although their music is incredibly beautiful, it is also incredibly difficult for the age of our actors. So, wanting to do a classic this year, I probably picked the R&H musical with the most difficult vocals of all.” Luckily, he assembled a cast of elementary school singers that truly possess some of the finest voices on any stage. I had chills during rehearsal and they were back on opening night with a different cast; the show is almost completely double cast, with some of the smaller roles even triple cast. This year the casts were chosen by size, with a tall cast and a not so tall cast.

This year Mr. T had the wonderful help of some dedicated local talent. Patrick Hearn returned to serve as co-director and work the spotlight and Ben Orlando came back to provide the choreography. Lucia Dressel graciously served as vocal coach and blocked the musical numbers and her husband John Dressel came on board to be the musical director and conductor of the pit orchestra. With just seven other musicians, the sound of this glorious score was most impressive.

Father McCarthy is the Blessed Sacrament pastor who supported the continuation of this long-time program. John O’Donnell is the long-time producer with Melissa Kunkel as the production manager. Shout outs to the stage manager CJ McNellis and his assistants Galvin Brayton and Travis Karas on a job well done. Terri Thompson designed the truly magnificent set that brought us into the palace built by some dedicated dads and painted by another team of angels. Ann Calabro is credited as lead costumer; she and her team did an amazing job with the lush look of this production.

So opening night on Thursday was performed by the members of the School Cast. Jordan Elliott (Beast in last year’s production) led this cast as the King of Siam, not truly bald but commanding the stage and singing very well. Julia Mehlin, who sang “Beauty and the Beast” last year as Mrs. Potts, was a beautifully wise Mrs. Anna; the young actress also brought out well the comic elements of the role. Alexandra Jannetty, who played Babette the maid last year, was a tall and regal Lady Thiang, the king’s head wife. She sang “Something Wonderful” with passionate grace.

The young Tuptim was played by Gabrielle Saucier, who sang beautifully as the tortured slave. Nicholas Santovasi did well as her beloved Lun Tha. Christian Welcome played The Kralahome and Jake Liquindoli shares the role of the interpreter with Joseph Breton. Isabel Garcia had a speaking role of Princess Ying. Anthony Marchetti was the captain of the ship, Capt. Orton and Kalman Zold played Anna’s son Louis on opening night. Robbie Altamirano played crown prince Chulalongkorn at this performance and Tyler White was the very English Sir Edward Ramsey. The chorus included many young ladies as the king’s wives and many younger children as just some of the children of the king in fabulous costumes.

The ballet of ‘The Small House of Uncle Thomas’ was performed on opening night by one of the two young casts of ballet dancers with Christina Leary and her dance troupe Pointe 2 Perfection Dance Studio. The ballet included the tiniest of dancers with a couple of taller young ladies to lead the way and it was adorable to watch.

There were just a few tiny snafus on opening night that only added to the charm of the production. The dry ice from Southington Ice House, LLC worked perfectly for the entrance of the ship when Anna arrives in Bangkok. And that ship...just wow! I loved the paper birds on long sticks held by the wives during the overture.

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All performances of ‘The King and I’ are dedicated to Mr. William (Bill) Black, a custodian at Blessed Sacrament School who was a long time friend of the children’s theater and recently passed away. I highly recommend a trip to Blessed Sacrament School in Waterbury to catch a performance of this show. The show ran just a little over three hours with the longish intermission, so a matinee would work well for the very young patron.Tickets are available for the five remaining performance. Popcorn, pretzels and candy are sold before the show and during the intermission and the winning raffle tickets for gift baskets are pulled during the intermission.