Jeannie O'Meara-Polich was a little giddy and a lot relieved last weekend after The Magnolia Theater, which she co-founded, successfully staged a production of the musical "Aladdin Jr." So, she added, were the 10 cast members in the show, which is comprised students from third, fourth and fifth grade.
"They just had a blast," O'Meara-Polich said.
A second production of the same show in December will feature 10 new cast members from the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, she said. One of these actors joined the younger cast in the role of a flying carpet. "She's Jasmin in the other cast," O'Meara-Polich said. The narrator from the younger cast will repay the favor for the older cast.
Forming her own theater troupe was a long time coming for O'Meara-Polich, who said she's has been involved in drama since she was 5 year old. "I was directing plays as a little girl."
She later got a bachelor's degree in theater arts from Notre Dame, following that up with a graduate degree in directing from the University of Minnesota. O'Meara-Polich also started a theater department at a college in Reno, Nev.
But her local connection is at Our Lady of Fatima school in Magnolia, where she taught for 13 years and put together musicals and shows starring the students. "And I quit so I could start my own (theater) company," O'Meara-Polich said.
It wasn't easy.
But Jane Oaksmith, who volunteered as choreographer for shows at Fatima, joined forces with her, and they ponied up $5,000 in seed money to start the effort, O'Meara-Polich said.
But finding a venue for the troupe proved to be difficult. "We looked for a rental space or a place to buy," she said of a search that went on for a couple of years. That included the possibility of buying one of two churches in Ballard.
One space cost $650,000 but proved too big. "The other was $500,000, and it was prefect," O'Meara-Polich lamented. She said she changed her mind because of zoning restrictions, business licensing and the need to retrofit the churches.
O'Meara-Polich and Oaksmith also looked around Magnolia, and had settled on an old brick building near the Village Pub. But the owner pulled the rug out from under the women on the day of signing the contract for the building, announcing he'd just sold it, O'Meara-Polich said. "I was so mad at him."
But the pair ended up renting space at the United Church of Christ on West McGraw Street for $10 an hour. "They are so nice and generous, they really are," O'Meara-Polich said.
She said she'd talked to the church about staging Fatima shows there in the past, but her timing was good for the Magnolia Theater; the adult day care that operated in the church space had pulled up stakes and left.
The space includes a small stage and room for around 200 audience members. "We rented the spotlights, some props and the drapes," O'Meara-Polich said.
Both casts individually spent two months rehearsing and studying acting, singing and dancing two times a week for two hours each time, she said. "We're doing a workshop situation." It costs each cast member $450 for the program, and that includes costumes, makeup, photos and sometimes multiple roles in the shows.
Most of the young cast members are girls, and they play male roles in both shows, O'Meara-Polich said. Boys that age are uncomfortable studying drama, she said. "In all my years teaching, it was like that."
Community volunteers also helped out with costumes and sets. The Nov. 19 show sold out, she said of a crowd that included friends and relatives of the cast members, as well as nearby neighbors and one family that drove in from Mill Creek.
"I think we'll break even this first time," O'Meara-Polich said. But making money off the venture will probably take awhile. "I don't expect to make salaries for a very long time," she said.
Nonetheless, some of the young audience members at the three shows last week said they were interested in joining the troupe, she said. The two sets of cast members also want to return for the next show, a musical production of the Cinderella story, O'Meara-Polich added.
She said she wants to keep the number of cast members in each age group to around 15. At Fatima, O'Meara-Polich remembered, she dealt with casts of around 50. "It was more like a traffic cop."
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.[[In-content Ad]]
