"School of Rock" by ENCORE South Bay
June 23, 2023
There’s a moment in the 2nd Act of School of Rock where Dewey Finn’s students must sneak out in order to illegally perform at a local Battle of the Bands— it’s the singular make-or-break goal for Finn and his ragtag group of rockers and they’re so close. All they have to do is evade the watchful eye of Principal Mullins, and then they’re home free. In tonight’s performance, our principal children take to this moment with broad, transgressive glee. They mime-search for “the coast to be clear” and proudly motion, “Let’s go!” Then off they run— from one end of stage to the other in classic skitter-scamper choreo, sprinting like they’ve just received the first-ever hall pass to run with scissors.
Then there’s a beat.
Then an entirely new group of students appear. Students we’ve barely seen before. Students who are not in the student band, but yet here they are. Are they lost? No. Are they gonna tell on the first students? Also no. Instead, they chase in the same “can’t catch me!” spirit because it’s fun to run. Because it’s NOT fun to be off-stage. Because they deserve to have a moment, too. Because.
This is the spirit that permeates through the ENCORE South Bay performance of School of Rock. If community theatre is humble and charming, then child-centric community theatre is a holy land of egalitarianism. Even the theatre lobby reflects this fine-pointed fairness: walls are covered with floor-to-ceiling displays of performers’ computer-printed headshots and accompanying bios organized cleanly and alphabetically: Isabella Mataalil is very excited to be playing Tomika. Elsa Schmunk is happy to be in her fourth show, but sad it’s her final Encore production. Loïe Wireman is excited to join the Encore team with her mom, Sarah. There’s so many familial cast members that Melissa Schmunk’s headshot gets lost in the shuffle, forming the bizarre visual coupling of a 12-year old declaring she, “got involved [with School of Rock] because of her daughter!”. I adore child theatre bios and think we should all be using them: Julia Prescott loves to read, sing, and swim. She hopes you enjoy this article!!!
ENCORE South Bay is a non-profit organization that runs community theatre productions and summer camps for kids 4 to 17. Not to spoil my own series, but their upcoming production of Chicago: Teen Edition has me ticking down my own Barbenheimer clock of buzzy anticipation because what — and I can not stress this enough — even is that. At the time of this writing, ENCORE doesn’t yet have a stage to call their own, so tonight’s performance has been outsourced to the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, a lovely venue unfortunately sandwiched between the busy Aviation Blvd, the expansive Aviation Park and confusingly adrift within the asphalt sea of the Northrop Grumman space park. She, like Redondo Beach herself, is having a bit of an identity crisis. The night of this performance, I found myself lost in the parking lot so many times, I sincerely question if I’m cognitive enough to have a license. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon a too-big city truck with the True North of a “DSNYDGS” novelty plate that I find myself feet from the lobby with 10 minutes to showtime. Minnie, I’m home.
When I was an indiscernible age in Middle School (my memory has been fogged from years of childhood anxiety and Diet Dr. Pepper), my single Mother took my sister and I to our “first big Broadway show”. It was a lie, but not on purpose. Los Angeles, despite inventing the title, “Best Actor” is no more a Broadway town than Cleveland, Ohio. We’re a tributary for touring companies, an eager receptacle for impersonators— fake is in our family crest.
The show that night was Julie Taymor’s The Lion King and while other millennial children were jazzed out of their minds to hear lyrics once sung by JTT, I was obsessed with witnessing Tony Award-winning greatness from the eye-squinting height of our balcony-on-the-balcony seats. Back then, I was always cranky to stray from my tomboy uniform of a dirty tee and Wayne’s World cap, but that night I gave no guffs to excitedly slide my tween angles into thick black tights, a scratchy dryclean-only church dress, and those classic Picture Day too-snug patent leather Mary-janes bought on sale from Macy’s that when donning them curtsies out, “I mean fancy business.” Dressing up for theatre was my first lesson of theatre, a way to show respect and belonging.
Tonight, I’m face-to-face with more toe rings anyone has ever seen outside of 2002. I shouldn’t be surprised, Redondo is a beach town. I shouldn’t be surprised further, this is a family show. What does leave me stunned is this fellow theatergoer’s ensemble:
A pair of silver Birkenstock’s.
An intentionally torn-to-shit pair of “Fashion Jeans”.
A loose peach-hued blouse under an asymmetrical chrome-colored half-blazer.
Formatted as such because every bit of it a poem. I marvel at her ambition of singlehandedly carrying 4 separate outfits just as I marvel at her clearly not giving any two fucks about it. She is cringe, but she is free. I, meanwhile, am a 30-something over thinker who changed thrice over the sweaty journey of seeming, “low-key but cute but casual”. I know I’m an interloper and I don’t wanna draw attention, but I already fucked that up by wearing closed-toed shoes.
“Who here remembers their first rock concert?” The crowd woos, but doesn’t technically answer. “I said— WHO HERE REMEMBERS THE FIRST TIME THEY ROCKED??” I half-expect a light cue. An explosion. A something. I don’t think I’m the only one. Calling for concert energy is Carla Rojo, ENCORE’s Executive Director who seems gleeful to bust out her band tees while her partner Sharona Krinsky has opted for something a bit more professional. I’m accidentally here on opening night, which means there’s just as many butts in seats as there are Whole Foods flower bouquets. Carla and Sharona thank everyone’s support, emphasizing “how hard these kids have worked,” how “proud they are of them,” before doing the customary pivot of Funding Talk.
It’s no secret the Arts have been starving. Growing up doing school theatre, I remember talk of Sondheim just as much as pleas to save the stage like a Muppet movie that never ends. And for a while in the late 2010’s, winds seemed to have finally somewhat shifted: In June 2019, Governor Newsom signed a historic arts budget of an ongoing $10 million increase in the general funding to the California Arts Council. In 2022, Proposition 28 promised to take $1 billion to replenish resources for k-12 arts programs such as dance, theater and graphic design, usually the first to be slashed. The voters passed it with flying colors, but it, like so many somewhat-murky distribution laws are reliant on the user, not the voter— ultimately, it didn’t guarantee shit. It also bears stating that Prop. 28’s $1 billion amounts to less-than-half of 1% of the state’s total general fund budget. Say it with me on three: “Rich people are bad.”
As I write this, Los Angeles’s Mark Taper Forum has just made the unprecedented move to cancel their 2023-24 season, blaming covid and general lack of interest (the most “That’s it! I’m turning this car around!” reasoning I’ve ever read in a newspaper). 20 months dark during 2020-21 reportedly cost Taper’s parent company Center Theatre Group a whopping $50 million in lost sales. Before the Taper temporarily shuttered, onstage was A Transparent Musical, based on the musical episode of the Amazon show, which is now rumored to be trying for Broadway. I wish it well, but quietly worry.
Perhaps it’s telling that ENCORE’s website boasts support from government agencies like the LA County Department of Arts and Culture, yet they’re still singing for their supper. They, like so many of us in this Spicy Strikey Summer™️ are realizing the institutions and corporations promising to shelter us are actually letting in the rain. Only our fellow patron can protect us, and that patron is beaming in now…
“Before we begin, we have a special guest.” On-stage are three 15-foot tall screens that have become ubiquitous in modern theatre to fill the gaps physical set dressing leaves bare (and yes, I’m wondering how much they cost given the speech we just heard). Suddenly, in pops a vertical video of Jack Black, reading pure Cameo, but still heartfelt congratulatory. The crowd “ahh’s” with excitement, but my mind is immediately on the star of tonight’s show, Craig Benson. It’s bad enough to embody a role tailored specifically to another man’s “Shimineeeyaa-hah!”, even worse to follow That Man when your night’s task is the already-difficult triple-threat of acting/singing/and believably playing guitar with children.
But then the show officially begins and Craig seems unshaken. Or perhaps that’s just his character choice of ego. He sings and strums and rocks confidently in front of a screaming “crowd” of 7 children extras. He bounces from stage to stage to bedroom set — until his choreo requires him to fling back on said bed and immediately discover THE CREW DID NOT ANCHOR DOWN THE WHEELS COMPLETELY. He rolls and I gasp. He keeps singing, and I exhale. Craig spends the rest of the first act visually untrusting of any sets. I spiritually join him.
Community theatre is a safe space forged in forgiveness, we’re here to see you try not here to see you believably fly. This becomes especially true for Lisa Khechoom. Not long after The Rolling, Lisa takes the stage as Principal Mullins. Lisa’s a fantastic casting choice, all authority and toughness with glimmers of vulnerability that make her the perfect (all considered) “Villain Role”. I want to be her friend. I want this even more when — while singing her first big song — she FULLY FORGETS AN ENTIRE CHUNK OF THE LYRICS. The music continues vocal-less for what feels like forever. She bobs her head, desperate to re-find the thread. She looks to Craig/Dewey for a lifeline. He stands there dutifully, supportively, but silently (probably busy incanting a quiet curse to wheels). Lisa breaks the 4th wall and mouths, “Sorry!” as she waits, panic mounting, chorus now re-starting and her eyes finally register safety as she triumphantly makes the jump, like the longest intermission in a playground game of Double Dutch, like the longest guitar solo in all of rock’n’roll history, like a helicopter lifting her away as she stares back pensively at the Dino-ravaged Jurassic Park. The audience cheers. I cheer. I’m on the edge of my fucking seat. Lisa, you fucking did it!!
The rest of the show is not without error, but now the seal’s been broken. Adults miss cues, children talk over each other, the mics don’t always work. None of it matters because we’re too focused on the heartfelt try, which this production has in spades, especially with its child cast. There’s Noelle Petitfils as Summer, the clear “lead kid” of the junior rockers (not the Li’l Rockers, that’s something entirely else). Any under 12 actor would relish a role requiring them to boss their fellow cast around (see: Pepper in Annie, Miss Hannigan in Annie, a child nazi in The Sound of Music), but Noelle pumps an added pizazz to her type-A goodie-goodie that proves natural comedic timing. Then there’s Noah Nguyen as Billy, a character whose sexuality is coded through ruffles and sparkles. He seems to be the only actor on stage content to be in a show of his own, for our great benefit. It truly doesn’t matter that the mic rarely picks up his actual lines because Noah’s performance is all physical. I eagerly surrender to his somewhat-silent sassy commedia delle’arte. Thank you for your service, Noah!
Finally, Isabella Mataalii as Tomika will absolutely break your heart. Sure, it may be an easy task to be “the shy one” in the most anxiety-inducing of all after-school activities that is musical-effing-theatre, but when Tomika blossoms in the second act, it doesn’t matter that Isabella’s voice is still shaky and imperfect. Doesn’t matter that she almost misses her cue due to deep-dive shoe gazing. Doesn’t matter that within the context of the show’s story, adding Tomika’s soulful song to their Battle of the Bands finale is a premise ripped entirely from the movie Sister Act 2 (this series isn’t supposed to criticize source material, but come on, who wore it best). All that matters is that Isabella fucking does it. Like Lisa Khechoom fucking did it. Like Craig Benson fucking did it. Like those erroneous Li’l Rockers fucking ran because one of them asked the director if they could and they wheezed out a fatigued, “Yeah, sure.”
I leave in the middle of bows because the familial celebration feels too intimate. Outside, Aviation Blvd still churns with traffic. A soccer game at the nearby park is on its presumed 4th hour. And nobody knows what happened in these walls and only a small population ever will.
And that is why.
And that is why.
And that is why. See you next week where we cruise out to Neverland at an Irvine industrial park at the ungodly hour of a Saturday at 11am.