Old News: RFH Musical Show Times Bow — Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect

Well, it’s closing weekend of the RFH spring musical Mamma Mia! Curtain up and take a bow, Tower Players!

The spring musical has always been a celebrated rite of passage at the high school. RFH productions have been hailed with standing ovations and awards for decades.

Some things never do change. They still are. While these days, the casts and competition have waned a bit, the high quality of RFH shows has always remained. Now, there are the Basie Awards, for which RFH shows have picked up awards in more recent years. There was a lot more press coverage back in the day, though, and we found examples of some of the hit RFH shows widely publicized in the Red Bank Register and Asbury Park Press (above). Accolades. Lots of accolades always for RFH shows. And there were those awards.

Back in the day, as in the 70s, or earlier, there was the Garden State Arts Center award, which RFH won from a narrowed down list of six high schools in Monmouth County for its mammoth production of Li’l Abner in 1970. Everyone heard about this. Most saw it. And it was quite the show.

Directed by Ed Varian with musical direction by Paul Grammer (Remember those two? The Varian story is for another day.), the cast was comprised of 125 RFHers and 50 in the tech crew. That’s how they did it back in the day.

The cast performed in the Arts Center (Now PNC) open arena in the cold rainy weather in May of that year and got an ovation and the highest honor.

A decade or so later, in 1981, RFH produced The Sound of Music with a cast of 60 and a real challenge and kudos in costuming the VonTrapp children and all. That show starred none other than Nan Hughes, who was this editor’s daughter in the 1978 production of Fiddler on the Roof. Yes, I was Golde. Hughes has gone on to sing professionally and continues to grace audiences in Canada. Many remember her stellar voice and family full of show folk. Hughes also starred in My Fair Lady and Finian’s Rainbow at RFH.

Fiddler had a cast of more than 100 as well. Among those we found publicized, was also Guys and Dolls, which also had a cast of, well, about 100 or more.

And while all the RFH shows have always been considered of stellar quality, there have always been those classic bloopers and mishaps in performances and/or rehearsals. After all, what’s a show without a little challenge and faux pas to laugh about years later.

With Li’l Abner a Register story told of how during a performance, the 15-year-old star, Maura Fitzgerald, had a curtain nearly wipe her out mid-scene. It came down on her, obscured the audience’s view of her while giving her a bit of a whack, and she proceeded to walk around to the front of the curtain and continue with her lines. She got kudos for no wincing and going on with the show, especially for an unusually young star of an RFH show. It was almost unheard of for a freshman to get cast, as the competition was so stiff, much less in a leading role.

During a Fiddler show, the dream scene was being set. The bed, made of plywood and tilted to the audience for staging purposes, was on wheels. Golde and Tevye hopped in and proceeded to get rolled out to the edge of the stage, lights up and scene commences, as dreamy characters sing and scream and fill the stage with a dream. All was always just right … until one night when Golde and Tevye hopped in the bed, the props people started rolling it and it didn’t stop. Those dream screams were real! We almost ended up in the orchestra pit!

But I digress … There are so many show bloopers to tell. Tell us your RFH show blooper. Fess up.

In the meantime, hats off, curtain up and take a bow for the cast of Mamma Mia! in its final weekend! Break a leg! Or not.

Click on one of the above screen shots of RFH show articles to enlarge and scroll and remember!