OSWEGO, NY – The Oswego City School District Music Department presents Oliver on Feb. 11-12, at the Oswego High School Ralph M. Faust Theatre for the Performing Arts.
The curtain will go up on this year’s performances at 7:30 p.m. each day.
Oliver is one of the most beloved British musicals, vividly bringing to life Dickens’s timeless characters with its ever-popular story of the boy who asked for more.
With a cast, crew and orchestra of more than 100, the sensational score is full of Lionel Bart’s irresistible songs including Food Glorious Food, Consider Yourself, You’ve Got to Pick-a-Pocket or Two, I’d Do Anything, Oom Pah Pah, As Long As He Needs Me and many more.
The lead role of Oliver Twist will be performed by Will Bandla.
The other lead players are Mr. Bumble (Cameron Caruso), Mrs. Corney (Erin McIntosh), Mr. Sowerberry (Zemiah Phrance), Mrs. Sowerberry (Jane Coty), Charlotte (Jessica Krauss), Noah Claypole (Alex Todd), Frgin (Josh Ewig), the Artful Dodger (Erin Chetney), Nancy (Emily Hurlbutt), Bet (Eve Simmonds), Bill Sikes (Cody Crouse), Mr. Brownlow (Joe Ruggio), Dr. Grimwig (Nick Cocks), Mrs. Bedwin (Rebecca Smith) and Old Sally (Tara Fresch).
The pickpockets are Hannah Allan, Cassy Crisafaulli, Samantha Davis, Julie Knight, Maddie Neuland, Liz Richmond and Tara Stacy.
Workhouse boys and assistants include Duane Crasper, Tiffany Green, Adrienn MacDougall, Kaela Shafer, Cali Spedding and Catherine Wells.
The chorus includes Justin Abbott, Abby Allen, Kaylie Allen, Logan Angelina, Tina Buckingham, Rebecca Chatterton, Saughnessy Darrow, Matthew McLaughlin, Khalil Rivera and Liz Westcott.
Under the musical direction of Veronica Shaver and stage direction of Eve Phillips, the cast has been in rehearsal since November.
Costumes are being beautifully authenticated by the costumers Jeanette Reyner and Pat VanWie.
Laural Artz, the choreographer, uses her talent to help the cast move and dance effortlessly through the Dicken scenes of long ago.
Stephen F. Braun is the show’s set designer. The lighting design will be by college student and OHS alumna Jamie Ruggio. T.J. Bandla is designing the sound.
Gruel, the barely-palatable meal composed of water, oats and milk, plus an onion, the meal for hard times, of which Oliver Twist famously wanted more, is being prepared again by the Oswego High School Music Department.
Charles Dickens, in his second novel, wrote that the workhouse board: “established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it. With this view they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays.”
Tickets can be reserved by calling 342-2432 and ticket prices are $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens and $7 for students.
Tickets should be available on show nights.
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