Magic, Music & Mirth, As Whitney Players Pull Off A Cinderella Double Feature

Top: Ellie Canavan and Jonah Cacopardo in the youth edition of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. Bottom: Some of the mice, who deserve a Tony Award for most adorable performance ever. Lucy Gellman Photos. 

In an auditorium just off Dixwell Avenue, Cinderella closed her eyes, and imagined every square inch of a royal ballroom, her feet gliding across the floor. She held her hands to her chest, a broom propped up against the fireplace behind her. Several mice scurried around her feet, looking out wide-eyed into the rows of seats in front of them.

Overhead, a disco ball began to spin, sending fractals of light across the room. At the center of the stage, a Fairy Godmother waved her wand. Strains of harp came flowing out of a speaker. It felt, for a moment, as though magic was entirely possible.

Fairy godparents, high-heeled silver slippers, big-haired evil stepsisters and pumpkins-turned-carriages are all par for the course this week at Hamden Middle School, as the Whitney Players mount two parallel productions of Cinderella in a single five-day stretch. Both directed by Cindy Simell-Devoe, the shows offer two mellifluous takes on the same timeless fairytale, teaching actors a lesson in intergenerational collaboration in the process.

The first, a youth edition of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1957 classic Cinderella (which many actors may know through the iconic 1997 television adaptation with Brandy Norwood and Whitney Houston), runs Wednesday and Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. The second, the Prince Street Players’ Cinderella, runs Thursday and Saturday at 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets and more information are available here.

Over both productions, cast members range from five to 94 years old, meaning that a younger actor may learn from their older counterpart in the other performance, and vice versa. In addition to direction from Simell-Devoe, both shows are choreographed by Amber Richetelli, with music direction from David Harris and a small but mighty run crew and design team.

Lyla Banks, Jocelyn Gambardella and Chloe Barjas in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella.

“Because everything is magical!” said Simell-Devoe at a rehearsal Monday night, when asked why she chose two Cinderellas. She pointed to the state of the world outside, where the news, both domestically and internationally, can feel paralyzing. “It’s what we need to wake up in the morning. We need joy and beauty and laughter.”

When the company performed Mystic Pizza last year, she added, nine women in that cast played oyster shuckers (“I called them mother shuckers,” she said with a wry smile), dressed in grubby maritime gear for the entirety of the show. Simell-Devoe loved the idea of putting them in ballgowns, while also being riotously funny in the process. The Prince Street Players' take on Cinderella, which calls for over-the-top acting and embraces the camp and ridiculousness of the story, fit the bill.  

Around her, those words sprang to life again and again throughout the evening, from run-throughs of Rodgers & Hammerstein songs like “Impossible” and “A Lovely Night” to the moment where a young Cinderella (Ellie Canavan) fled, like clockwork, and a glitter-clad high heel flew off her foot and found its way back to Prince Charming (Jonah Cacopardo as Christopher). As emerald-colored curtains opened, the cast was no longer in Hamden but in a fairytale kingdom, where enchantment was entirely possible. For an hour, nothing outside the auditorium seemed to matter.

Kindergarten-aged mice, dressed in furry grey and white costumes, knelt by the lip of the stage and sang their hearts out. Elementary schoolers, transformed into fine chefs, paraded out trays of frosted donuts, giant fish and crustaceans, bright platters of fruit and all manner of cakes that caught in the light and gleamed. Canavan-as-Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother (Jocelyn Gambardella) dared to dream out loud, and in honeyed, rising voices, as two evil stepsisters (Chloe Barajas as Joy and Lyla Banks as Portia) departed for the prince’s ball, their conniving mother (Ella Blair) in tow.

From the audience, it was easy to see a whole other kind of magic at work: the Whitney Players’ broad, all-ages approach means that five year olds are looking up to their tweenage castmates, and 12 and 13 year olds are already agog at what high schoolers can do. Sometimes, several of the young actors stay to watch the older cast perform their show, making mental notes that they bring with them into the performance. Even in scullery garb and layers of gem-toned satin and tulle, they learn along the way: to share space, to step in and out of the spotlight, and to work together.

When Cinderella came gliding out onto the stage, for instance, it was not her evil stepsisters, Joy and Portia, who first took note, but the friendly mice, who knelt beside the fireplace with their hands at their chests. One, strands of brown hair framing her face, kept her eyes glued to Canavan as she lifted her face to the ceiling, and began to sweetly sing. Another, who is in his first performance with the company, rubbed his eyes in a reminder that rehearsal was running up against bedtime. For a moment, all of them belonged to Canavan, who fussed over them as they looked on adoringly.

“I like being able to play someone so elegant,” said Canavan, an eighth grader from North Haven who has been acting with the Whitney Players since she was five, after rehearsal.

Through theater, she’s learned how to empathize with other people, and put things into perspective for herself.

“It [the role] really teaches me to be grateful,” including for a safe home, loving family and friends that Cinderella doesn’t have until the end of the show, she said.

Those lessons also ring true for Blair, a junior at North Haven High School who plays the Evil Stepmother in the Rodgers and Hammerstein version of the play. When she landed the role, she looked to Jackie Downing—her Price Street Players’ performance counterpart—for advice on how to perfect the character.

“She’s definitely taught me how to be mean,” Blair said with a smile (that’s pretend mean, she clarified: Downing radiates an even-keeled, extremely-in-charge, warm mom energy in nearly everything she does, including stage managing the youth show).

“It’s definitely fun, and it’s something I haven’t done before,” she added. Four years ago, Blair started acting after daydreaming about theater in elementary and middle school. Now, she’s a self-described musical theater kid, with a love for shows like SIX and Hadestown that is contagious. Monday, she rocked a SIX hoodie that she’d bought after seeing the original cast on Broadway. “I just love getting to be a part of a fun show.”

Top: Jocelyn Gambardella, Ellie Canavan, Jonah Cacopardo, Chloe Barajas and Ella Blair. Bottom: The ensemble. 

Monday, she and Downing chatted excitedly in the hallway, as Downing tried on a hot pink, corseted gown strung with faux pearls, and debated how to do her hair for opening night. Just as Blair learns from her, she learns from Blair: she’d been keeping one eye on Blair’s coiffure, a thick mess of auburn curls, for inspiration. By the end of the evening, she was thinking aloud through styles, planning to clip back her cropped, salt-and-pepper crown of curls and sweep some to the side.

As actors bustled about Monday, some trying their costumes for the first time, many pointed to the importance of learning from each other, which they do on and off the stage. Fourth grader Caroline Sheehan, an ensemble member in the youth show who started acting four years ago, has been able to watch both her friends and members of her family onstage, taking bits from each of their performances. Her sister, Lucia Sheehan, is playing Cinderella in the other musical—where her grandmother and uncle also have roles.

“I just love the community and how they never shut anyone out,” she said. “I’ve learned to always have respect for everyone … and I love the magic of it.”

In just over two decades, that has become a central and foundational part of the company’s work. When it launched in 2003 with a summer performance of George Abbott and Doug Wallop’s Damn Yankees, the Whitney Players was a group of friends and actors that wanted to bring affordable, accessible theater into their community. No one knew then that the idea, which foregrounds multigenerational interaction, would have such legs.

Caroline Sheehan, for whom the Whitney Players is a family affair. “I just love the community and how they never shut anyone out,” she said. 

In the 22 years since, members have watched once-young actors grow up, and go on to teach drama, soar on Broadway and Off-Broadway stages, and run their own corners of the world. Before she was Bad Cinderella in the eponymous Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, or Myrtle Wilson in a musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby, Linedy Genao was a Whitney Player. Isaiah Bostic, now touring with The Book of Mormon, and North Havener Taya Diggs, who toured with Broadway’s Anastasia, started their careers in the group (Diggs still acts with the Whitney Players when she’s able).

Meanwhile, once-middle-aged actors have become elders in the company, and some already-seniors have achieved legendary status. Between the two casts, there are school kids, doctors, lawyers, bartenders, semi-professional actors, educators, retirees, and high schoolers anxiously awaiting admissions news from college. They all learn from each other, Simell-Devoe said.

“My favorite thing about the Whitney Players concept is young people working with older actors,” she said. As a veteran arts educator—Simell-Devoe teaches theater at Hamden Middle School—she sees firsthand how young students hold themselves back more when they are around an audience of only their peers, suddenly afraid to be too silly or outlandish. When they get to take the stage with actors of different ages, something changes. They give themselves permission to loosen up.

Top: Jonah Cacopardo and Andre Conner. Bottom: Persephone Delaney, Talia Salzo, and Peyton Fox, all part of the Prince Street Players' Cinderella. 

Persephone Delaney, now a sophomore at Sacred Heart Academy (SHA) who plays the evil stepsister Henrietta in the Prince Street Players’ Cinderella, has seen that in real time. While she’s been onstage for years, it was this Cinderella that encouraged her to lean into the humor that she’s been good at for years. Her timing is so sharp, Simell-Devoe said, that it’s like watching a young Lucille Ball on stage.

“I love the show,” she said Monday, before ducking into the bathroom to try her costume on for the first time. “It’s different from any role I’ve done before. I get to be really silly and let loose.”

“There’s a lot of room to make our own choices,” added Peyton Fox, who is also a sophomore at SHA and plays the evil stepsister Gertrude.

Keith Calloway, who plays King Darling the Third in the Prince Street Players’ Cinderella.

There are new faces, too, and the company is always excited to have them. Keith Calloway, who plays King Darling the Third in the Prince Street Players’ Cinderella, smiled as he remembered the warm welcome he received from the group when he joined last year. After moving to New Haven from Washington, D.C. and Florida, he was excited to find the company.

While he’s been acting since he was just a kid, he’s already in awe of the tight-knit community that he has found with the Whitney Players, and certain that he’ll be back for upcoming performances with the group. So he was extra delighted to hear from a castmate that Andre Conner, who plays the King in the youth show, had stayed to watch Calloway rehearse one night.

“It’s exciting to be back on stage,” he said, adding that he can feel the day’s stress melt away when he gets the chance to act. “It really is a community … and I get to be a little silly, a little ridiculous, and step outside my comfort zone.”

A youth edition of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella runs Wednesday and Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. The second, the Prince Street Players’ Cinderella, runs Thursday and Saturday at 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets and more information are available here. Hamden Middle School is located on 2623 Dixwell Ave. in Hamden.