We all need to laugh a lot so why not hit the spot where you’ve got your funny bone with something like Monty Python’s Spamalot?
That was the main reason behind the selection of the play as the annual spring production for Chemainus Secondary School’s drama class.
“I feel like it was a perfect choice for this year,” said teacher Siobhan Anderson. “After COVID, we needed something that was light-hearted and fun. Come and have a good time.”
The play was originally going to be presented in 2020 before COVID changed the schedule along with everything else.
“This one has been on hold for a few years,” noted Anderson.
She said the students have been working hard in rehearsals to perfect their parts, with most of them doing multiple roles. Students in the class range from Grade 9-12.
Spamalot is a stage musical with the score by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, with lyrics and book by Idle. It’s based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail that came out long before any of the students were born and the musical satirizes the legend of King Arthur.
Cathy Schmidt, who just happens to be the chair of Cowichan Valley School District’s board of education, lent her expertise to the production. “It was so great to work on the choreography there and the kids are amazing,” she noted.
Performance dates are Wednesday, June 7 and Thursday, June 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the Chemainus Secondary School multi-purpose room. Tickets are $10 and can either be purchased at the door or through schoolcashonline.
“Everybody’s involved in some way,” Anderson said of the class. “Everybody other than two students have at least one part where they’re on stage.”
The group collectively has done set design and handling all the backstage work such as lighting.
Ninety per cent of the classic scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail are in the show, Anderson pointed out.
With the incomparable Kody Price, a Grade 12 student, in the lead role as King Arthur, this show promises to be a rollicking good time. Price has a commanding stage presence with his booming voice, reminiscent of his papa Roy Price’s strike calls during his heyday as an umpire.
“I think it’s very interesting,” said Kody. “It’s nice to be in a role where I don’t die. I’ve died a lot in my roles. I actually get to have the entire play where I don’t get a scratch on me.”
And that’s saying something since he gets into some sword fighting.
“I did want to be King Arthur,” said Price. “Since this is going to be my last play here, I wanted to go out with a bang.”
It is going to be a lot of work, though, he conceded, to get through his numerous lines and songs.
“There’s maybe eight scenes I’m not in.”
Price said being an idiot is right up his alley. “The best part is people think I’m acting,” he quipped.
There was still a lot of work to be done to get ready, Price said, in the last week.
There are many Grade 9 students in the group getting their first taste of actual stage and performing experience.
“I’m a little nervous, but mostly excited,” said Emma Elley.
The Monty Python era subject material is also mostly foreign to the students, but they’re picking it up quickly.
“This is the first time I’ve ever heard about it,” conceded Elley, who portrays the Black Knight and Sir Bors and other ensemble characters.
Naomi Bowden said before she moved to Chemainus five years ago at the age of 10 she’d done quite a few plays. She’ll be doing a lot of extra parts in this play.
“It’s pretty good, there’s some funny parts,” she said. “There’s a lot of famous scenes and there’s some new ones, too.
“This is one of those where there’s so many people. We make do with what we have.”
Tyawna Kerridge has previously lived in Alberta and Mill Bay before coming to Crofton. This is her first year at Chemainus after attending Queen of Angels in Grades 5-8 and she was in The Wizard Of Oz and Polar Express while at George Bonner School in Grade 4.
As for Monty Python, “I had no idea,” she conceded. “I thought it was very weird at first until I started getting used to it.”
Sir Bedevere is the important knight Kerridge portrays and there’s other characters in her repertoire, like the others.
“I sing a lot as Bedevere,” she said. “I sing for two of my other small parts.”
That’s on top of several costume changes along the way.
Kelsey Allenby is Patsy and has a unique role that you’ll have to see in the play to understand.
“I have to hold coconuts a lot,” she grinned. “I smack them together.”
Allenby has been a munchkin in The Wizard Of Oz at Chemainus Elementary School; otherwise, this is new territory.
It’s stressful and a lot of work, she conceded, to get ready for the play.
The biggest thing for the audience to remember is to expect the unexpected and this group of talented high school students might just throw a few curve balls into the production along the way.
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don.bodger@chemainusvalleycourier.ca
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