I directed The Secret Garden at All Saints Middle School in Bay City, Michigan, from May 4-6, 2012. This was an enormous undertaking! The Secret Garden was a very sophisticated story for all concerned: cast, crew, and audience.
The biggest challenge was telling the story! How do you communicate to the audience that most of our cast (21 out of 35) are dead (referred to in the libretto as Dreamers)? I had seen it on Broadway with Daisy Eagen, Mandy Patinkin, and Rebecca Luker, as well as at The Bay City Players (our local community theatre); this gave me inspiration. I decided that the Dreamers would reveal red handkerchiefs at certain times during the production ("The Opening" and "The Girl I Mean To Be" being the main numbers.) to signify that they were dead/ghosts. This accompanied by a somber facial expression did the trick; most of the audience got it.
Another challenge was the score with its ballads and dialect pieces. Since The Secret Garden is heavy on singing, we had to make sure we had the talent to pull this off. Please do not think this is boastful, but we were blessed to have many excellent singers at the middle school level when we did this. Our males could handle the tenor parts quite well since their voices had not yet changed. Our females were equally up to the challenge.
My wife, Marlene, and I traveled to NYC's Central Park to see The Secret Garden (in honor of Frances Hodgson Burnett) that is there. We took many photographs of the garden and statuary there that we used in our set pieces and lobby displays.
We also partnered with the CAN (Child Abuse and Neglect) Council of The Great Lakes Region; this organization promotes awareness of abused and neglected children. We had a pre-curtain talk from council representatives, students, and myself about this important issue. It was a perfect tie-in to Mary and Colin's situation in the story.
Our Dickon used a live dog during "Wick" and handled it well. We had to have the owner sit backstage to care for Summer Wheat (dog's real name; got a program credit, too.) and keep him quiet the entire evening.
We partnered with local nurseries and put all of the trees, plants, flowers, etc. on wheels so we could reveal our Secret Garden at the end of Act I. That meant that we had to check daily to make sure they had enough moisture. We supplemented with artificial flowers, as well.
One of our on-going challenges is to provide quality sound and acting in our venue since we use a gym/stage. However, this worked to our advantage. We used 21 (4 x 8) pieces of luan and gaff taped them over the court to create another acting area in front of the proscenium stage. We also painted flowers and stone pathways on the luan floor. We covered the painted flowers with burlap, which was easily pulled away to reveal the Secret Garden. Many of our performers wore body mics.
Another challenge was to get our performers to act to all three sides of the audience (ala Stratford) since we have seating on all three sides of the luan floor. It was a learning experience for our young performers. We also formed a human maze that moved as Mary sang "House Upon A Hill" to help the audience see, as well.
We also used the maze idea on the back of our t-shirts, placing the cast and crew names throughout the maze.
We used student choreographers since many of them attend local dance studios.
We made giant light weight picture frames for the Dreamers to stand in for the "I Heard Someone Crying" number. They moved very slightly for effect.
Being a period piece the costuming was quite challenging. Some obvious things to help the audience; Lily wore white, Rose wore red.
The rewards were tremendous. Our middle school performers pulled off a very difficult serious piece and told the story (the most important thing), and we helped to raise awareness of neglected and abused children. I'm very proud of them and our production of The Secret Garden.
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Thomas Cole
Bay City MI
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-24-2015 14:33
From: Julie Coppens
Subject: Secret Garden musical
September Dramatics spoiler alert! Sorry to give away the subject of an upcoming article, but I'm on deadline and looking for comments from directors and students who've staged the Lucy Simon/Marsha Norman "Secret Garden" musical at their schools recently, or who might be planning it for the upcoming season. Drop a line if you're willing to share some thoughts about the unique challenges and rewards of producing this show in an educational setting. Thanks!
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Julie Coppens
Juneau AK
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