News release
Public Information Office   SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061
publicinfo@selu.edu     www.selu.edu/news
Contact: Christina Chapple
Date: 2/18/03
 
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"SHE LOVES ME" AT SLU – Southeastern Louisiana University students Amanda Tarver of Gonzales, left, and Cameron Bishop of Oak Grove, right, who portray "Ilona Ritter" and "Ladislav Sipos" in the Southeastern Opera-Music Theatre Program's production of the musical "She Love Me," rehearse a scene as their fellow cast members watch from the wings. The show runs February 26-28 at Southeastern's Pottle Music Building Auditorium. 

GEORG AND AMALIA -- Matthew Packard of Arabi, left, has the lead role of "Georg," the manager of a perfume shop, who is feuding with co-worker "Amalia," Sarah Osterberger of Baton Rouge, right, who, unbeknownst to them both, is his anonymous sweetheart penpal. That's the plot of "She Loves Me," the Southeastern Louisiana University Opera-Music Theatre Program's spring production, February 26-28, at Pottle Music Building Auditorium.

SOUTHEASTERN STAGES "CHARMING" MUSICAL, "SHE LOVES ME"
      HAMMOND -- Charles Effler had never heard of the musical "She Loves Me."
      But when the interim director of Southeastern Louisiana University's Opera-Music Theatre Program listened to a recording, "By the second song, I was totally captivated," he said. "I just wanted to do it."
      He is confident that the audiences who see the show, which critics universally describe as a "charming," will be just as hooked.
      Southeastern's Opera-Music Theatre Program will stage "She Loves Me" February 26-28 at Pottle Music Building Auditorium.
      Artist-in-residence Larry Gray, who is directing "She Loves Me," is just as sold as Effler.
      "She Loves Me," he said, is based on a play that in turn inspired a 1940s movie, "Shop Around the Corner," starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan. The premise of the musical is not new — it's one that has been explored in a number of different versions, including in the recent hit film, "You've Got Mail."
      "She Loves Me," which debuted in 1963 and was revived on Broadway to rave reviews and Tony nominations 30 years later, tells the story of Georg and Amalia, two feuding clerks in a European parfumerie in the 1930s. Both secretly find solace in their anonymous romantic pen pals, little knowing that their respective correspondents are none other than each other.
      Also populating the perfume shop are a slick womanizer, his worldly-wise girlfriend, a jealous proprietor, and customers bustling about because there are only "Twelve Days to Christmas." Rounding out the score are "Tonight at Eight," "Vanilla Ice Cream," and the title song, "She Loves Me." 
      "It's charming," said Gray. "That's the word that everybody uses. It's not hilarious, farcical fall-on-the-floor funny, and it's not full of big production numbers. The word is just ‘charming.' People just love it. You leave the theater really feeling good."
      One critic described "She Loves Me" as being "so charming, so deft, so light and so right that it makes all the other music shows in the big Broadway shops look like clodhoppers." Said another, "‘She Loves Me' is that rare theatrical jewel, an intimate musical that affectionately enfolds an audience instead of shouting it down."
      "The show opens with a song, but it's not a big production number to get people in the mood," said Gray. "It's just people saying ‘Good Morning....Why don't we take the day off?...Well, but we would lose our jobs...' It's normal conversation among the people who work there while they're waiting for the boss to come open the door."
      "It's not typical," he explained. "In most musicals, somebody sings because the script isn't good enough for what's going on at that moment. They want to say ‘I love you' or ‘I'm in despair.' The songs in ‘She Loves Me' are in the show not because they are high-point emotional moments, they are just part of the story."
      Adds Effler, "The music is wonderful, so well composed. It adapts itself very well to the classical music techniques our students are learning." 
      Gray has been working with a young cast of Southeastern singers, including freshman 
Matthew Packard of Arabi as Georg and Jacquie Brecheen of Ponchatoula and Sarah Osterberger of Baton Rouge, who have been double-cast as Amalia.
      Because the show calls for only two female performers, Gray and Effler made room for more Southeastern women by also double-casting Patricia Ramirez of Hammond and Amanda Tarver of Gonzales as "Ilona Ritter," and changing a delivery boy into a delivery girl, a role that is being shared by Wendy Kinchen and Marsha M. Scott, both of Ponchatoula. 
      Rounding out the cast are James Flick of South Charleston, W.Va., as Georg's fellow perfume shop employee "Steven Kodaly"; Bradley Barrios of Larose as store owner "Mr.
Maraczek"; and Cameron Bishop of Oak Grove as obsequious ladies man "Ladislav Sipos"; Christopher Siren of Lighthouse Point, Fla., as the"Head Waiter"; and Dimitri Trush of Hammond as an on stage violinist.
      Chorus members are Christina Babin, Prairieville; Darell Haynes, Luling; Michelle LeBlanc, Gonzales; Clifford Moore, Opelousas; Betty Turner, Hammond; Terrence Ennis, Baton Rouge; and Ben Oliveria, Slidell.
      Gray said set and lighting designer Steve Schepker has designed what may well be a first for the Pottle Auditorium stage — a rotating set. Cast members turn the rectangular set to reveal the shop's exterior and interior. The devise also helps the director fit a total of five different scenes, including a cafe, a hospital room and Amalia's bedroom, onto the small stage.
      "It's been difficult to figure out how to do all five scenes. Steve's done a great job," Gray said.
      Many set elements, Effler added, will be two-dimensional. For instance, the shop's inventory of perfume bottles will be painted on three-dimensional shelves. "Otherwise props would have cost a fortune, it would have taken forever, and we would have had all these little bottles shaking when you turned the set," he said, laughing.
      Effler had given up on finding one key prop — a vintage bicycle for the delivery girl -- and had actually purchased a new model, when a chance conversation with a friend turned up the hard-to-find item.
      "Carlo Giacone (a Southeastern music alumnus who has appeared in a number of Pottle Music Building Auditorium shows) mentioned that he has an uncle in Independence who reconditions used bikes," Effler said. "So, I rode up there and, sure enough, he had a  a 1939 bicycle."
      Such realistic props will nicely counterbalance the two-dimensional, painted elements of Schepker's set design, and the brightly-colored "a little bit over the top" costumes, many of which are being specially constructed for Southeastern's show. 
      "I think people will walk out thinking this is the best musical they've ever seen," said Effler. "The material — both the music and the script -- is so strong."
        Curtain time for "She Loves Me" is 7:30 p.m. Tickets, available only at the door, are $12 for adults; and $8 for Southeastern, faculty, staff, and non-Southeastern students. Admission is free for Southeastern students with their university I.D.
      For additional information about "She Loves Me," contact Charles Effler at 985-549-2249 or ceffler@selu.edu.
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