Printer Friendly Version - Saybrook Summer Stock Continues, But in a New Home

Old Saybrook Youth & Family Services (YFS) and Park & Recreation collaborated on this year’s summer stock production of Frozen Jr. Here, Elizabeth Pamment receives final touch ups to her make-up from her mother Donna Pamment for her role of Elsa. Next year, it will move completely from YFS to the Rec Department. Photo by Wendy Mill

Next summer, Old Saybrook’s summer stock will be 18, and it will have a new home.

The Youth & Family Services (YFS) program, which debuted in 2003, began its transition this summer to the Parks & Recreation Department. The program this year, in which 28 kids performed in Frozen Jr., was a hybrid, with Parks & Recreation Assistant Director Jonathan Paradis handling the administration and YFS staff continuing to run it.

Summer stock is beloved in the community, with kids participating every summer from 6th to 9th grades and returning in high school to work behind the scenes and mentor the younger kids, helping with lines and working on character development.

Summer stock “started with an initiative called Healthy Community Healthy Youth (HCHY),” explained YFS Director Heather McNeil. YFS received a grant for the program through HCHY “to work on positive youth development and bring in adult role models together with kids in a way that’s going to foster creativity, enrichment, and fun.

“The grant came to an end after 10 years,” she continued. “And since that time we’ve taken from here and there to try and keep [the program] alive. But our main legislative mandate for the agency is prevention education, positive youth development, and clinical services.”

When Paradis, secretary of the Youth & Family Services Commission, heard that the agency might have to cut the program, he offered to bring it into the Parks & Recreation fold. His department had already adopted the Movies on the Beach program.

“Both of those things—the movies and [summer stock]—they’re recreation programs,” Paradis said. “A ton of other parks and recreation departments across the state and the nation do those types of things.”

Paradis had to make a few administrative changes to the program to offer it under the auspices of Parks & Recreation. It was shortened a few days to two weeks and, instead of three performances over a weekend, the children performed only once.

When the show is performed more than once, “licensing and rights cost a lot more money,” Paradis said. “Unfortunately, one of the toughest decisions we had to make this year was to go to one show...to bring the overall costs of the program down.”

The kids “would have loved one show to get the jitters out, make a mistake, and then one show to kill it and just knock it out,” he said.

But the choice to stage the play in the middle school auditorium, rather than at the high school, gave the children the chance to perform to a full house.

“[B]ecause it was one show and it was in a smaller venue, we sold 310 tickets,” he said. “There were only six empty seats. So they performed to what felt like a packed theater. When they applaud, it’s loud.”

Next summer, Paradis plans to have all the Parks & Recreation camps come to a dress rehearsal the day before the performance.

“If we get that rehearsal in with the campers, they can make those errors, not care about it, and then have a solid performance,” he said.

Another change was to the program for 9th to 12th graders. This year, the program was formalized and listed along with Park & Recreation’s other summer offerings, and at a charge. Most kids decided not to do it.

“We were taking on the responsibility of chaperoning youth, so therefore they have to paid and enrolled in our program to have staff to supervise them while they’re under our watch. With that being dramatically new, I just think families that might have been accustomed to ‘Hey, this is a volunteer, free program that I just sign up for and go to.’”

Just three high school kids signed up, but all were able to do behind-the-scenes work like lighting, sets, and costumes. Paradis hopes parents and kids will understand why those changes had to be made and enroll next summer.

“This was a transition year,” he said. “Day one, I said, ‘I know nothing about this program...As long as we have people to...transition the program and kind of educate me on it [for] year one, Parks & Recreation can fully operate it in year two. Or thereabout.”