When Herricks High School teacher Laura Latham was considering which show to direct for the school’s spring musical, “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” came to mind because she thought the students and their audience needed some light comic entertainment after the trying times in recent months.
“We wanted to do something that’s fun for fun sake,” said Latham, who is a special education teacher at the high school.
“How to Succeed…” is certainly that, as a send-up about the business world with its main character, young New York City window cleaner J. Pierrepont Finch, schmoozing his way from the mailroom up the ranks at World Wide Wicket Company by following tips from the best-selling Shepherd Mead satire from which the musical takes its hilarious cues.
Sophomore Scott Ruben LaMarca, who plays the ambitious Finch, said he’s getting a kick out of playing the show for its very obvious humor.
“It is over the top. It’s so over the top you don’t have to bottle it in,” said LaMarca, calling it “kind of timeless.”
The history of “How to Succeed…” attests to its timelessness. Originally produced on Broadway featuring Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee, it was revived on the Great White Way in 1995 with Matthew Broderick as Finch, and again in 2011.
“It’s still relevant,” Latham said.
The female leads in the show are secretaries and they’re working to find some depth in their apparently shallow characters.
Herricks junior Sarah Fernandez, who plays Rosemary said there are many layers to her character, who instantly decides she’s going to marry Finch as soon as she meets him.
“She independent, but she wants to live her life dependently,” Fernandez said. “She’s strange to figure out.”
Herricks junior Sabrina Calman, who plays Heddy LaRue, makes a successful play for her boss, company president J.B. Biggely, without too much trouble.
“She wiggles her way in and marries this rich guy,” Calman said. “The best thing about the show is you don’t have to worry about anything. You can just ham it up. You just have to have a lot of fun.”
Junior Mollie Teitelbaum, who plays Heddy’s friend and fellow secretary Smitty, said “How To Succeed..” succeeds without conveying any enduring message like the other plays she’s done.
“This is the first play I’ve done that doesn’t have a morale,” Teitelbaum said.
Sophomore Andrew Greiche, who plays Biggely, enjoys the contrast’s of his character’s loud, hard-nose corporate side and the spineless side he shows around Heddy.
“It’s a very fun part. I like characters that have two personalities,” said Greiche, who added that he also loves his fellow cast members. “We all share a bunch of laughs. It doesn’t seem like work.”
Sophomore Danny Magaldi, who plays Finch’s corporate arch-nemesis Bud Frump, enjoys playing a character whose behavior is foreign to his own nature.
“He’s kind of a nasty guy. I get to act like I have a big ego. I get to be something I’m not,” Magaldi said.
The cast universally enjoys the campy acting that the show demands – and the place they hope it will take their audience.
“You can escape for two hours. It’s magical,” Sarah Fernandez said. “To bring that kind of comic relief is magical.”
Helping Latham to make it all happen, Jessica Zivny is choreographer and costume designer; Russell Brown is set designer and lighting director, and Barbara Brand is the vocal director.
The cast and musicians will do their best to spin some magic in performances of “How To Succeed…” in the Herrick High School auditorium on Friday, March 8 and Saturday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m., and in a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, March 10. Tickets are $10; $5 for seniors.
