By Denis J. Kelly
“She Loves Me,” this year’s Spring Musical
at Watchung Hills Regional High School
(WHRHS) will be presented at 7 p.m.,
Thursday, March 17,
Friday, March 18,
and Saturday, March 19,
and at 2 p.m., March 19,
in the WHRHS Performing Arts Center
(PAC), Stirling Road.
A free dress rehearsal performance for Senior Citizens and 8th grade students in Green Brook Township, Long Hill Township, Warren Township, and Watchung will be presented at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 16, in the WHRHS PAC.
Tickets for all other performances are $15 orchestra, $10 rear orchestra and balcony, and $5 for students, are available for purchase at the box office on the day of the performance or online at www. Booktix.com. All are invited.
The musical is a performance of the WHRHS Drama Department’s Script and Cue Student program, directed by Drama teacher Douglas Eaton, with musical direction from Choral Music teacher Angela DiIorio Bird.
Eaton and DiIorio Bird said that the WHRHS production of She Loves Me involves the participation of some 45 students in the cast, another 20 in the orchestra, 20 among the crew, and countless others in set design and ancillary assistance.
Student leads in the play include Jackie Romankow as Amalia Balash, Sam Sinnott as Georg Nowak, Ryan Prestera as Seven Kodaly, Julia Sluyter as Ilona Ritter, Judy Tounsi as Arpad Lazio, Anthony Speros as Ladislav Sipos, Alex Bird as Mr. Maraczek, and Charles Buscarino as Waiter.
Book, music and lyrics for She Loves Me are by Joe Masteroff, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, respectively. It was originally directed and produced on Broadway by Harold Prince in association with Lawrence N. Kasha and Philip C. McKenna. Original orchestrations are by Don Walker adapted by Frank Matosich.
The legendary New York City theatre troupe, the Roundabout Theatre Company, is currently planning a revival of She Loves Me for Broadway, starring Laura Benanti, Zachary Levi and Jane Krakowski, among others. The revival, along with a current revival of “Fiddler on the Roof,” another of Harnick’s creations, was mentioned in a full-page feature story about Harnick in the Sunday, Nov. 22, 2015 edition of The New York Times. The story is written by Michael Paulson, and an online version of the story can be found at nytimes.com.
The story line for She Loves Me has been adapted for film three times in the past: For the 1940 film, titled “The Shop Around The Corner,” starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan; for the 1949 film, titled “In The Good Old Summertime,” starring Judy Garland and Van Johnson; and for the 1998 film, titled, “You’ve Got Mail,” starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
