The bell lobby is filled with almost 600 people standing shoulder to shoulder, eagerly waiting for the doors of the Performing Arts Center (PAC) to open. Decorations and photos of past performances line the walls and tables in the lobby. As time creeps closer to five o’clock, anticipation rises in smiling parents, students, and staff waiting to see 25 years of performers return to the stage.
Westford Academy Theater Arts (WATA) celebrated their 25th anniversary of the program’s creation on the evening of Nov. 22 by inviting alumni from every show since their first production to perform in the PAC, displaying the growth and success of the program.
Almost 30 alumni who played leading roles in their WATA productions performed songs from their musicals. The show was ordered from the earliest productions to the most recent ones, sharing the story of WATA’s origin and development throughout.
The idea for an anniversary celebration began with WATA’s 15th Anniversary Show ten years ago. However, theater arts teacher Michael Towers explained that the planning for the 25th Anniversary show only began about a year ago and the organization of the event took place in the weeks just before the anniversary.
“The 25th snuck up on me because I feel like we just did the 15th […] we only started advertising about a week out and we only really contacted the artists about two or three weeks out,” Towers said. “In my mind, I had more time but we knew we were going to do [the show] for quite some time.”
(Srivas Arun)
One major factor which added to the time crunch was this year’s Little Shop of Horrors which was set to close the night before the anniversary. According to junior technician Ethan Mandile, although the day of the show was a half-day celebrating Thanksgiving break, it was still a rush to get everything set up in time. After being dismissed from school, WATA members prepared the performers and rehearsed until 5:00 p.m. in the lead up to the show.
“The biggest difficulty was that day […] we all started at 11 a.m. and then we cranked until 10 p.m., we chilled for an hour and then we just broke everything down in two hours before we went home, so it was a big push,” Mandile said.
Despite opening the PAC doors a few minutes late, WATA was able to switch from performing Little Shop of Horrors to showcasing a performance with alumni seamlessly in under 19 hours.
Towers credits much of the leadership to associate artistic director of the show and alumni herself, Maggie Sulka.
“Maggie was managing what we call a cue to cue, which is a technical element run through sound and lights,” Towers said. “I actually was so emotional, she just picked up the ball and just started running and I literally stepped out. I let her do it because she’s obviously a brilliant person and very, very, very capable.”
Towers’ emotions toward the event were in large part due to the connections he has formed and maintained with the majority of the alumni. In many cases, students work with Towers for much longer than just their four years of high school through the workshops WATA holds for elementary and middle schoolers.
As a result of the impact Towers often has on his students’ lives, they often keep in close contact with him. Towers sometimes has such a large impact that students invite him to the most significant events of their lives long after graduating high school.
“I just spoke at [a student’s] wedding a couple of months ago. It’s not like I have a kid in a class and that’s the extent of my relationship with him or her,” Towers said. “I’ve seen these kids grow up from eight years old and so unsurprisingly, those are good, healthy, real relationships that are carried on.”
The strong bonds between Towers and the alumni allowed him to make and contact a list of local graduates living in New York and Boston fairly easily. Another factor in the smooth execution of the show was the experience of the performers, many of whom played leading roles in their student productions and have gone into the field of theater arts since then.
“I really liked how easily [the performances] meshed because I basically had no interaction with any performers, until literally the day of,” Mandile said. “It was just a constant flood of people who knew what they were doing, and it was really cool because it was just very smooth, very well put together.”
After audience members streamed into the PAC just after five o’clock and took their seats, the lights dimmed and a slideshow of images from WATA productions through the years played on the PAC screen.
After the slideshow, Towers welcomed the audience and described the origins of the program and his dreams for what it could become. He also thanked the people who helped to make the program an integral part of WA.
Then the emcees for the night and early alumni of the program, Dennis Canty and Lauren Cantos, came out to introduce the first two performances of songs from the initial handful of WATA productions.
Canty and Cantos then returned and told the audience how the program grew in the first few years. They emphasized that these first shows in the 2000s were performed in venues like gymnasiums and cafeterias which taught them they could make productions anywhere.
The emcees continued to come out every few performances to introduce the next alumni and share a significant moment in WATA’s history, including their first state championship victory in 2008 which has now grown into a total of eight first place wins.
They also acknowledged unseen contributors such as the technicians and others to the development of the program. As the founder of WATA, Towers’ contributions were acknowledged and appreciated throughout the show. The alumni shared lessons Towers taught them about being good people both inside and outside of WA that they have carried with them throughout their lives.
“I want to believe that one of the most important things that I teach and reinforce would be the care and respect for the people that you’re in the room with,” Towers said. “So I am happy to know that they received that as mutual because my life is built on these moments, my life is built on shared experience.”
The improvisational skills of the performers were displayed as well, with senior Joshua Lawrence deciding to fill in for an alumni who had fallen sick just four hours before the show. Later, Bri Ryder’s single performance of “Think of Me” from The Phantom of the Opera became a duet when another alumni got off work early and was able to perform.
Another notable performance was “One Day More” from Les Miserables performed by the same 8-part ensemble of alumni who performed the song in the 15th Anniversary Show.
From the lighting to the performances, the event was well run and conducted with a level of professionalism that demonstrates the collective work all the participants put into it.
“The show was great and the acting was like if you went into Boston to see a show,” sophomore Jason Ledell said.
Throughout the show, the bond between all of the performers, both alumni and current students, was clearly visible and stemmed from their shared commitment to WATA. Even after the show concluded, almost all the alumni gathered to honor the after-show traditions that Towers began in 1998.
“I think WATA has probably had the biggest impact of any of my activities because I’m there so often and the community is so great. A ton of my life has shaped around it [and] it’s changed my career path,” Mandile said. “It’s a really tight community and it’s not like a lot of other things at the school. It’s just a completely different atmosphere. It’s super professional and super high excellence.”
