Herricks Community Players director John Hayes was 37 years old when he directed his first production of “Mame” nearly 40 years ago.
The production of “Mame” the Herricks players are presenting next weekend will be the sixth Hayes has put on since then – three of them at Herricks – and he said he hasn’t grown tired of the riches-to-rags-and-back-to-riches story.
“You have to bring it up to date,” the veteran director said of the musical.
Rachel Zampino, who plays the irrepressible Mame in the latest production, has been doing shows with the Herricks Community Players since 2001. She most recently appeared in “Annie” and “Steel Magnolias,” and has also appeared in “follies,” “Pajama Game” and “Guys and Dolls.”
Zampino said she’s enjoys a character who so unabashedly embraces such a broad range of life experiences.
“She’s full of life. She makes the best of a difficult situation and she has a lot of love to give,” Zampino said.
Zampino said she also enjoys all the rousing show tunes, and the people she’s working with, particularly Hayes and his wife, Carol, who is the producer.
“I love John and Carol Hayes with all my heart. There are so many great people here,” she said.
Some of the other key people involved in this production of “Mame” are veteran Herricks musical director Sue Weber, choreographers Barbara Murphy and Kenneth Payne and piano accompanist Glafkos Kontemeniotis.
“It’s really a love story about these people growing up together,” Zampino says of the musical.
The people she’s referring to are Mame and Patrick, the nephew who literally shows up on her doorstep when his father – her brother – dies.
Mame initially tries to induct Patrick into her lavish, unconventional lifestsyle. She’s thwarted when the trustee of her brother’s estate is inadvertently led to the extremely non-traditional high school in which Mame has enrolled Patrick.
She loses custody, and then a fortune in the stock market crash of 1928. Mame works a series of jobs during the Depression before finding a rich southern husband enabling her fortunes to turn around again.
Ian Miller, a fourth grade student at Manorhaven Elementary School, is having fun playing Patrick in his first musical experience.
“I think it’s really exciting. It’s my first experience and I want to do a lot of acting in the future,” Ian said. “I just like singing in general, any kind of song, anywhere.”
The precocious nine-year-old currently sings in a school chorus, plays both piano and baritone horn and, fortunately, said he likes to practice.
Carol Giorgio plays Vera, a theatrical ham and a lush who is Mame’s best friend. She left an indelible impression with her characterization of the cantankerous oddball Ouizer in the Herricks Players’ “Steel Magnolias”
“I play character parts. I just enjoy the process of getting a script and you interpret the lines and they become yours,” she said.
A Glen Cove native, Giorgio said she gravitated to doing plays in Herricks over the past several years as the community theater scene in her home community has floundered.
She’s been doing community a theater for a long time, and the blithe spirit she brings to this role conveys the fun she’s experiencing on stage.
“It’s 32 years I’ve been doing this. If you’re not having fun, you might as well be sticking needles in your eyes,” she said.
The play will be presented on Fridays and Saturdays May 4, 5, 10, 11, 17, 18 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 19 at 3 p.m. Performances are in the auditorium of the Herricks Community Center at 999 Herricks Road in New Hyde Park. Tickets are $23 for adults; $18 for senior citizens children under 12 years old. For more information or to order tickets, call 516-742-1926.
The Herricks Community Players are sponsored by the Herricks Community Fund and the money raised for the fund go to the Alzherimer, Sr. Citizens, Youth Council, Scholarship Fund and various other community funds.
