On the last day of the last academic year, Pinetree secondary drama teacher Natalee Fera announced the next Musical Theatre 11/12 class would delve into the world of Monty Python.
Spamalot, specifically. The school edition.
So, like many acting students at the Coquitlam high school, Grade 12er Jacob Angeles spent his summer trying to figure out what the British comedy group from the 1970s and ‘80s — and their sketches — were all about.
Angeles watched the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, from which Spamalot is adapted, as well as a version of the 2005 Broadway musical that won 14 Tony Award nominations.
Still, Angeles wondered how the adult parody would translate for Pinetree audiences.
When school returned in September, Fera held auditions on the second day back and picked Angeles as her lead: King Arthur, the role he had sought.
Soon, others in Angeles’ graduating class plus grade 10 and 11 students were cast as well: Devon Chung as Prince Herbert; Melody Stump and Roya Abdi as Laker Girls (the Lady of the Lake’s cheerleaders); and Klayna Veloso as Patsy, King Arthur’s constant companion, to name a few.
And, since then, the cast of 30 has rehearsed nearly every school day to polish the lines, learn the tunes (as performed by the school orchestra led by Marcia Carmichael) and understand the steps (choreographed by Pinetree graduate Marley Jordan).
“We’ve worked really hard on this,” said Veloso, who appeared as a pregnant lady in last year’s Cry-Baby and a postulant in the 2017 edition of The Sound of Music.
Rated PG, Fera selected Spamalot School Edition “because nobody has done it in our district yet,” she said. “I love Monty Python and I had the students to pull the comedy off. It’s really funny and they do awesome.”
Based on the original screenplay by Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, the musical was written by Idle and John Du Prez, with edits for the school stage allowed by the director.
Act 1 starts with King Arthur trying to recruit Knights of the Round Table to join him in Camelot, with the aim to get the Holy Grail. Act 2 includes the famous song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life and sees both King Arthur and Lancelot marry after a series of unfortunate incidents.
For Abdi, it will be her first time in a school musical.
She was inspired to sign up for Musical Theatre 11/12 last year after watching Cry-Baby last winter. “I loved how everybody was connected and it was a family. You could really feel the love on stage,” she said. “I wanted to be a part of that in my last school year, too.”
• Tickets for Treehouse Theatre’s Spamalot School Edition are $13 in advance through Pinetree secondary school office (3000 Pinewood Ave., Coquitlam) or $15 at the door on show nights. It runs Jan. 30 to Feb. 1 and Feb. 6 to 8, at 7:30 p.m.
