Act I: The Co-Director

At age two, while Sesame Street’s bright colors mesmerize most of us in front of the television, the lights, cameras, and action of the live stage entranced Ms. Andrea Roney.  

With her parents as the founders of the Dutch Country Playhouse, Roney grew up surrounded by people equally interested in her passion for theatre. At age 16, Roney secured her first major role in the Crucible. Aside from performing at the Dutch Country Playhouse, Roney involved herself in the Pumpernickel Players and in the productions of Upper Perkiomen High School during her junior and senior years.

“I just always knew I wanted to be in theatre,” said Roney, who went to major in the subject at DeSales University, then Allentown College, and finally Penn State University, where she earned her Master’s Degree in Fine Arts and Acting.

Before launching her teaching career at North Penn High School, Roney worked at various colleges, including Lehigh University and Gwynedd Mercy College. Meanwhile, Roney’s two sons attended North Penn, the elder serving as the drum major for the Marching Knights and the younger involving himself in the theatre program.

 “I worked professionally in administrative theater, acted, directed, lots different things, sort of putting together an eclectic career while I was raising my boys around their schedules,” said Roney.

In her younger son’s senior year, 2004, North Penn Theatre took their production of Zombie Prom to Internationals. Having formerly served as the manager of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, a professional theater company worth $1.2 million, Roney assisted founder and then director of NP theatre, Ms. Cindy Louden,  in raising the $70,000 needed to send North Penn Theatre to Nebraska for Internationals.

After the success of Zombie Prom, Louden encouraged Roney to look into taking over her position once she retired in the Spring of 2006. Retirement came early for Louden, ending her career at North Penn in the spring of 2005, leaving Roney juggling multiple responsibilities to prepare for filling Louden’s shoes in the fall of 2005. At one point, Roney balanced taking course at Gwynedd Mercy, teaching at Gwynedd Mercy, student teaching with Louden, and co-directing North Penn’s Once Upon a Mattress.

For the past seven years, Roney has taught courses and served as producer and director of the theatre at North Penn. Currently, she teaches English 10, 5.0, three sections of Intro to Acting, one section of Advanced Acting, one section of Stage Crew, and Drama Major. 

“I’m very happy I’m here and it was the right route. There were all sorts of things that should’ve stood in the way of me moving into this position. It wasn’t an easy process, but all the potential bumps in the road just kind of went away. It was amazing. I feel very lucky being here, and I really love the job,” said Roney.

Act II: Setting the Scene

Although audience members may sit in awe of the talent presented on the stage, few realize just how much effort goes into the production, and just how complex the process can be.

With the audition process beginning January 3 for The Music Man, no time is wasted after winter break before work begins on the spring show. After a full week of auditioning, callbacks are listed for acting and singing roles and for dancing roles. For the roles of the children in Music Man, 85 elementary school students from North Penn School District participated in a special audition process, which ended in the selection of six students, two of whom received speaking roles, four of whom received parts in the chorus.

Following auditions, rehearsals are held Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights from 6-9pm and increase in intensity as the show nears. Saturday rehearsals start from 9am-12pm, leading up until the final Saturday rehearsals of 12 hours. Simultaneously, Mr. Michael Britcher holds rehearsals for the selected student orchestra after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning in March.

With such a demanding rehearsal schedule, balancing academics and extracurricular activities becomes a challenge for the cast and the staff.

“I usually tell my students that you have to start getting yourself on a schedule. Work comes first, academic eligibility is always an issue with us, in that we stress that you need to maintain your eligibility and academics come first. It always amazes me every year how many students we have taking high level courses, taking very full schedules… It amazes me how most everyone figures out how to juggle, how to maintain their academics… It’s very impressive for our staff, many of whom have jobs outside of the school district who come in at night or on weekends to work with our students, who give up their time for that,” said Roney.

Making sure the production runs smoothly involves preparing the cast, and also involves preparing the stage. Set pieces are a combination of used materials gathered from storage and new pieces built from scratch, and much the same goes for costume pieces. In The Music Man Marian Paroo (Jessica Arnold), at one point wore a green suit Roney’s mother made for her when she was in high school, vintage clothes in its true form. Many of the outfits worn during The Music Man were modified forms of those worn during Pride and Prejudice or stock pieces recycled from North Penn’s presentation of The Music Man in 1994.

Technical Director Mr. John Buckner and Co-director and Choreographer Ms. Deb Buckner have worked with North Penn Theatre for 35 years, and along with former North Penn students who return to keep the tradition of excellence alive, North Penn theatre produces impressive shows each year.

Act III: The Final Bow

Seeing all the hard work that goes into a production come to an end is a gratifying moment on levels that go beyond those of achievement as defined by the success of the performance for everyone involved. Theatre for the staff and students goes beyond the finished product that the audience sees.

For Ms. Roney, it’s about, “Watching the students grow, from the time their sophomores to their seniors… not just in maturity of performance, but as people; realizing by their senior year and by the spring musical that they’re ready to go out and take on the world, and that hopefully the experiences learning about teamwork , leadership, commitment,  time management and support and respect for other people and their work are skills they’re going to take out and use not just in theatre, but in anything they choose to do. And that’s really the hope,-that we’re giving them experiences that you can’t always have in the classroom or you’re applying things that you’ve learned in the classroom to real life experiences.”

Roney encourages incoming sophomores interested in taking part in North Penn’s theatre program to “get involved,” despite the competition that a large pool of talent inevitably presents.

“Sometimes you don’t get cast in your sophomore year.  We had seniors in Pride and Prejudice  and The Music Man that made it for their first time senior year. They kept trying and kept working and took the classes and they kept involved, or they worked backstage and they just kept learning and learning and learning until their time came… If you don’t get cast, get involved backstage. There’s wonderful, fun things to get involved in. Every year there’s people who come in and think, “I’m going to be an actress,” and they don’t make it, and they get involved in stage crew and never stop doing stage crew. They fall in love with doing stage crew and they never look back. They find a community and they find skills that they never knew they had, and they find it more satisfying than being on stage,” said Roney.

Next year’s fall play has been announced to be William Shakepear’s Twelfth Night. Although breaking from the cycle of classical production, original production, and contemporary piece that Roney has followed in selecting the fall play in the past seven years, the selection of the Twelfth Night was inspired by the cast’s strong performance in Pride and Prejudice and is hoped to be interesting for both the cast and the audience. Auditions will begin the week of September 10, with tentative performance dates of November 15, 16, and 17.