A perfect fit

Deirdre Newman

It’s the day before opening night of Kaiser Elementary School’s

production of “Cinderella,” and director Rachel Furman is running around

putting out fires with the actor and the sets.

Rachel handles the crises with a calm poise that belies her 16 years.

The Kaiser alum and student at Orange County High School of the Arts in

Santa Ana stepped in to direct the Costa Mesa school’s show after its

drama director left.

While she had directed a few summer shows, handling a cast of almost

200 youngsters was a new challenge. The school was used to mounting

top-notch productions, and parents did not want the quality of the next

show to suffer.

After four months of rehearsal, Kaiser parents say they are impressed

with the Newport Beach resident’s directorial savvy.

“She has a real gift for finding what [the students] are comfortable

doing and encouraging them in that,” said Jody Sherman, one of the three

producers. “Everyone came together, and the show has to go on.”

For the past seven years, Kaiser’s productions had been directed by

Cindy Branson-Waller, a teacher at the school with theatrical expertise.

When she left at the end of last year, it created a void that parents

weren’t sure how to fill.

Enter Rachel stage left.

The young director, who left Newport Harbor High School after the

first quarter of her junior year to attend the performing arts school,

had built up her director’s resume with two children’s plays over the

last two summers.

As some of the kids in her shows attended Kaiser, her reputation was

already known at the school. Sherman said choosing Rachel as a director

was as perfect a fit as the glass slipper on Cinderella.

“We just thought this could be so wonderful because all the kids love

Rachel,” Sherman said. “She’s so good with the kids. We thought rather

than hire someone else, let’s give this Kaiser alum a chance, and

everyone who knew her agreed.”

Rachel chose to do a musical version of “Cinderella” based on the

movie with Brandi and Whoopi Goldberg. She held auditions in February and

was flooded with hopefuls. She took all the third- through sixth-graders

who wanted to be in the show and ended up splitting the 180 actors into

two casts.

Her dedication as director meant that she had to leave her school

early to oversee the rehearsals. Although she had worked with kids

before, she said there were some new challenges in working with so many

kids at once.

“I have to teach them the basics,” Rachel said, “like don’t turn their

backs to the audience and how to project [their voices]. And for the big

scenes, just keeping them quiet.”

Parents assisted in Rachel’s production efforts with countless hours

of building and painting the sets. Like Ed Wilmes, who spent 30 hours

single-handedly building the colorful carts for the village scene and the

houses for the slipper-trying-on girls.

“Trying to go up against a movie set is really challenging, so I think

the children will be proud and appreciate the love and attention the

parents put into it,” Wilmes said.

And many of the student actors, including some who have never been

onstage before, have high praise for their young director.

“She’s like the coolest director ever,” said Chris Holton, a

sixth-grader who plays one of the prince characters. “She makes a lot of

sense to us.”

FYI

“Cinderella” will run Friday and Saturday nights in Loats Auditorium

at 7 p.m. at Newport Harbor High School, 600 Irvine Ave., Newport Beach.

General admission is $5.50, and reserved seating is $7.50.