New Players Company

As an old thespian from my Dickinson College days (Mermaid Players), and as one who helped at GW with props, I couldn't help but add the RHS New Players Company web site to the list on the right of this blog.

The New Players perform at the Little Theatre, a place where my early love of theatrical performances was cemented for life. I vividly remember the first day of school in the 10th grade when they sat us down for a performance of The Fantastics. The performers were, as I recall, from the class of 1974. They were appearing just before they were scheduled to go off to college. Looking back this probably added quite a bit to the inevitable stress behind the performance. All I can think is that it must have been because they loved the material. For most actors this sort of performance would have been asking too much. In any event, The Fantastics has been my favorite musical of all time ever since.

Here is clip of the most memorable song in the show. It was sung by the original El Gallo, Jerry Orbach, with Marvin Hamlisch on the piano.

It's funny to think that some people at the Utube site commented that they didn't know Jerry Orbach could sing. I guess they only thought of him as Baby's Dad from "Dirty Dancing" or from all those episodes he did with "Law and Order" on TV.

Here is the song as they were asked to performed it by Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1988:



Here is some history of The New Players Company from their web site:

In 1972, Jack Boyle, a member of the RHS English Department, founded the New Players Company as a co-curricular activity involving 30 to 40 students who produced two or three plays during the year and another two in the summer. By 1979, the program had expanded to four to six plays during the school year plus a summer program and a special production for children, introduced by Brian Aschinger, who was then the Artistic Director of the Company. In 1986, Rachael Daum and Dennis Carroll, both faculty members at RHS, were appointed co-Artistic Directors. Two more resident directors, both English teachers at RHS, joined the company during the next two years: Lori Barnett in 1987 and Meg Schaefer in 1988. During the 1990’s student participation in the New Players Company steadily increased, until it comprised over 10% of the student body. Also during this period, numerous alumni began to return to the New Players Company to serve as directors and designers, most notably Laurie Sales, who assumed responsibility for running the Junior Company Program, as well as directing one or two senior productions each year. In 2005, Meg Schaefer was appointed Artistic Director of the Company.