behind the scenes with the cast and crew of "Oliver!"

All carrying wooden bowls, boys and girls pile onto the stage in time to music coming from a piano off set. They begin to sing, wonderfully in tune, obviously well rehearsed. Though they move as one, their personalities are revealed in the mixed expressions of sadness and anger on their faces. The play begins to come alive as the actors transform into hungry children, simply wanting a bit more food.

“Stop!” The children freeze where they are. The magic disappears, and the boys and girls look at the person to whom the voice belongs.

“Go back. Let’s do it again,” says Michael Tobin, stage director for “Oliver!,” this season’s outdoor production in Prescott Park. The young children remain professional and don’t complain, quietly moving back to their starting positions behind the set, waiting for the music to begin once again. This happens five more times before they move on to the next scene.
It’s late evening and the park is partly shaded by a canopy of tall trees. The air is cooling, aided by the nearby Piscataqua River. Mothers push strollers down the gravel paths, couples lie together on blankets, boys toss a football to one another, and teenage girls laugh loudly, often yelling to one another across the park.

None of it seems to affect the actors one way or another. This is but one of many rehearsals for “Oliver!,” which, weather permitting, will premiere at Prescott Park on Saturday, June 24, and run through Aug. 20. Performances are Thursday and Sunday at 7 p.m., and Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Admission is a $5 suggested donation.

For the cast of 35, rehearsals began on May 14, usually running five days a week. However, planning for the production started long before.

“Oliver!,” adapted from Charles Dickens’ novel “Oliver Twist,” with music and lyrics by Lionel Bart, was chosen in December as the play for the main stage this summer.

Three considerations factored in the final choice. The set must work well visually, as well be fun to perform on. The price to produce the show has to be reasonable. Prescott Park Arts Festival has an annual budget of $350,000, including staffing, festivals and concerts. Therefore, they must consider royalties, principle actors and costume and set design, among the many costs that accompany putting on a season-long performance. Finally, the content has to be family oriented—usually, this means including plenty of children onstage, as children enjoy coming to the park to watch actors their own age.

Once the festival producers choose a production, work doesn’t stop until the summer comes to a close in late August. Things get especially heated during the month prior to opening night, which also kicks off dozens of concerts, festivals and children’s series throughout the season.

“I live two blocks away but I still need a cot to sleep on in my office!” says Deborah Lielasus Tombleson, executive director of the Prescott Park Arts Festival. Tombleson spent her childhood in Portsmouth. She then moved to Alaska, where she worked with a woman’s shelter and other non-profit organizations, then San Francisco, where she continued her work with non-profits. When the opportunity presented itself to return to the Seacoast in 2001, it seemed natural. “I love this community. I just love the energy of it.” In all, Tombelson has worked with 23 non-profit organizations. “It’s a very time consuming job. It’s part and parcel of my life.”

Tombleson isn’t the only one who’s been busy. Costume designer Jeanné McCartin, who also works as an arts and entertainment writer and as an artist, is working full tilt. “Little sleep, no beach, lots and lots of buttons and bows,” she says. “There’s nothing but work and family until this show goes up.” Her job requires time consuming research, as well as shopping and sometimes even destroying fabric before she can begin the long job of pinning together, fitting and sewing the costumes. Despite the workload, McCartin loves the work. She began by designing clothes for her dolls as a child, and was designing for productions by the age of seven. “You know, the kid that wrote, produced, directed and did all the sets and clothes for the neighborhood plays,” she says. At about the age of 20, she was working her first job for summer theater in Salem, followed by work with a community theater in Buies Creek, N.C. She was also the owner of a vintage clothing shop, called Top Drawer, first in Durham, then in Portsmouth, for nine years.

McCartin worked as a costume designer for “The Wizard of Oz” in Prescott Park in 2005, and for “Smokey Joe’s Café” at the Seacoast Repertory Theatre in January and February of 2006. Her first step is research, and lots of it. She studies the era and the general look of its garments. She watches movies and searches for photos and paintings from the time period until she feels she knows the look. Then comes the process of shopping, sometimes at stores like Michaels, sometimes scouring the back rooms of local thrift stores, hunting for the combination of appropriate structure and fabric. When searching for fabric that will become the costume of the lead characters, such as Oliver, Nancy and Mr. Fagin, McCartin will look for fabric that will be used specifically for their costumes. In searching for costumes for characters in the ensembles, she keeps the general look of the time period and social class in mind, and searches for material that can be used for several costumes. Once the fabric is chosen, she pins it on the actors and gets to work sewing, with the help of her seamstress, Jenn McCandlish. Her parents, as well as her daughter, Jennifer Belkus, aid her in the construction of the costumes. Because much of the characters in “Oliver!” are poverty stricken, the costumes then have to be nearly destroyed. She’ll dye her fabric with tea, wipe her car motor with it, pound it with a hammer, rub it into the grass, and more. Sometimes this can be the most challenging part. “It’s proven very hard at times, either because the cloth seems indestructible, or doesn’t distress with the right look, or it’s so lovely that it’s sad to do it,” she says. Overall, each costume, not including research and the time it takes to shop for the materials, takes anywhere from half a day to several days to create.

Some of McCartin’s work is beginning to shine through at rehearsals, as a few cast members are beginning to wear their costumes—a top hat here, a worn dress there, rags clutched tightly around shoulders.

Offstage at rehearsals, it’s all smiles. Some of the younger cast members run around the park together. Footballs fly by, as do tiny legs, running at top speed, while the older children lie on a blanket, talking and laughing with one another. The adults actors spend precious free moments in lawn chairs or standing, chatting with one another and letting the breeze pass over them.

The Artful Dodger walks from behind the stage and around the park, stopping at a group of young actors. He claims that the brace on his left leg can be removed anytime, and won’t affect his performance. Andrew Bridges, 13, of Exeter, works hard at the role, investing additional hours beyond rehearsal each week. “I come here and then when I’m home I look over the script.” At the park, he enjoys the company of his cast mates. The people he has met are his favorite aspect of being in “Oliver!.” “I love making really good friends,” he says.

Onstage, however, it’s all work. The rehearsals run for approximately three hours. After the lines have been learned and the fine-tuning begins, it’s difficult to get through 60 seconds of a scene before Tobin stops the actors to provide direction. Kenny Francoeur, 16, of Biddeford, Maine, plays Charley Bates and is the Artful Dodger’s understudy. He stands with other young actors beside the stage, glancing through a wedding album of a fellow cast mate. Francoeur says he only has time to “occasionally” hang out with his friends from home, as production for “Oliver!” is in full gear. He travels an hour each way for rehearsals, but for him it’s worth it to be able to work with professionals in the business, for he has hopes to someday work professionally in theater himself.

Traveling even farther is Robert Wright, who plays Mr. Fagin. The Keene actor gets in his car after work and drives two hours to rehearsal, then drives another two home at the end of the night. “I keep a box of cookies in my car to eat!” Wright says of the secret to his stamina. Wright played Oliver in the 1985 production of “Oliver!” at the park, but it’s been 10 years since he’s performed, in “The Secret Garden” in Concord. When he learned about this production on the Internet, he couldn’t resist being a part of it once again.

Rehearsals with Tobin are hard work, but not without praise. With each stop in the run of a scene, Tobin delivers direction that’s always coupled with a compliment. For example, he stops rehearsal as Oliver, played by Mark Dunivin, 11, of Eliot, runs to the back of the stage. He’s made a mistake, and Tobin deals out a sentence of “strike two” to the young actor. However, he goes on to tell Dunivin he’s doing a great job and to keep it up.

Tobin grew up in Portsmouth, and even worked onstage alongside Wright, playing Bill Sykes in the 1985 production of “Oliver!.” He went on to work in theater professionally, directing and performing in productions across the country. He recently returned to Portsmouth to work as Prescott Park’s stage director. He, too, begins his job in the dead of winter, starting with designing the set at the end of February, researching the time period and the needs of the set. He has to be sure that the locations in the play can all be represented in one set, and that set changes are able to happen quickly. Space is also a factor—concerts and other events take place on the same stage throughout the summer, so Tobin has to be sure to leave plenty of the space free. After designing the set, Tobin turns it over to his master carpenter. They gather materials from different sources, such as their own stock, from nearby community theaters, and from Ricci Lumber in Portsmouth. The actual construction was supposed to begin the week of May 14, but severe rain delayed the start to May 22. Since then, Tobin and the builders have been working on the set, even in pouring rain. It’s a three-part facade, painted in blues and reds. One partis superimposed with a brick-like pattern. Tobin says the cubbyholes and other parts of the set make it fun to work on. A framework towers over it all to hold the lights and speakers.

Set construction began around the same time as auditions, when Tobin had to whittle a cast of 14 children out of nearly 90 hopefuls. The petite actor who landed the role of Oliver has been involved in school productions, as well as band and chorus, since the third  grade. He stands in the middle of the stage, in black jeans and a blue T-shirt, looking up at his cast mates. His 52-pound frame makes it easy for him to be picked and tossed around by the adult actors. His brown hair has been grown out to look shaggy, overtaking his neck and creeping in on the sides of his face, despite the hesitation of his mother, Donna Dunivin.

Such a large role is taking its toll on the small actor. “He’s exhausted. He lost a pound! I said, ‘Mark, you can’t afford to lose a pound!’” she says with a laugh. Despite the exhausting demands, she says this is the best thing that has happened to Mark. For much of the early rehearsals, Dunivin couldn’t stop smiling. This didn’t fit well with some of the scenes, and Tobin had trouble getting him to keep a straight face.

The sun is beginning to set at rehearsal, and a chilly breeze runs through the park. Mosquitoes have joined the cast and crew, and the children of Fagin’s Academy are back onstage, practicing their songs and lines, with frequent interruptions from Tobin. The children have begun to look worn, as they open their mouths wide in yawns. However, as soon as they return to their starting positions and begin again, they are no longer tired kids, and “Oliver!” comes alive once more.

‘Oliver!’ premieres Saturday, June 24
directed by Michael Tobin, musical direction by Evelyn Mann
Prescott Park Arts Festival, Marcy Street, Portsmouth 
Performances run through Sunday, Aug. 20, with shows on Thursday and Sunday at 7 p.m. and on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.Admission is a $5 suggested donation.
Pre-show entertainment includes concerts and theatrical performances by local musicians and performance artists.
603-436-2848, www.prescottpark.org