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BY ABBY FOX
The dramatic arts in the elementary schools are being re-energized, thanks to the after-school work of contractor Valerie Myette, who this weekend is directing the biggest theatrical production the younger grades have seen in years.
The past few weeks, you could find Myette, megaphone in hand, as she guides more than 100 Meadowbrook Farms Elementary students (kindergarten through third grade) through the musical of “101 Dalmations.”
Friday and Saturday, the 110-member show goes on at the East Greenwich High School auditorium.
“110 kids in this show, and they all listen to her,” observed Lori DeCesaris, mother of Lauren DeCesaris, playing Cruella De Vil. “She’s a miracle worker,” she said. “She rocks. She’s got it under control.”
Myette is a theater arts graduate from Wheaton College, who’s acted in Off-Off Broadway in New York City and worked in arts management, most notably for Grammy award winner Bill Harley. She’s relatively still new in town, having just moved a month ago from Providence to North Kingstown, to concentrate her teaching in this area. She’s taught theater classes for the town Parks and Recreation Department for five years and for the three years, she’s received a stipend for after-school theater classes, at Eldredge School, Meadowbrook Farms, and Frenchtown School.
It’s at Meadowbrook Farms where Myette has made the most impact, thanks to the advocacy of enthusiastic moms in the PTG like Katrina Timperly and Heather Cianciolo, who have invited her to get beyond the annual talent show and reach for something bigger. Myette took them up on their offer last year, with “The Jungle Book,” and again this spring, with a giant “101 Dalmations.”
Myette immediately comes across as immensely capable for this job. She’s in the middle of moving her family and life from the city to South County, she’s pregnant with her second child, a girl, due in June, but she’s not frazzled, at least not on the surface. She calmly, firmly holds the attention of a hundred kids, as they’re running around the stage, dancing, singing, and making a lot of noise.
“We thought 52 was a huge number,” Myette said, referring to last year’s cast. “Of course, this year, we have twice that.”
Luckily, Myette appears to have a lot of support. At last week’s rehearsals a horde of young parents were seen at the high school auditorium, watching and acting as a volunteer stage crew: moving the kids around, stitching the costumes, putting on makeup.
“She’s very organized; you’d have to be,” said mom Alexandra Vassilopoulos, the show’s make-up artist, who put her fashion design skills developed in a former career in New York City, to good use here, stitching more than 100 costumes.
After a recent rehearsal, Myette explained her background. “I’ve been doing theater since I was 14,” she said: high school, college, community theater. When she informed her dad, an accountant, that she wanted to major in theater arts in college, his reply was: “You want to go to school and major in what?” But she did, and she loved it.
Myette worked in New York for three years: singing, as a production manager at New York University, and acting in showcases in Off-Off Broadway.
“I started read a lot of Stanislavsky,” she said, and was attracted by his point that “it’s the responsibility of the artist to have the fullest and richest life possible, because how else are you going to feed your work?” Myette realized, “I couldn’t see myself building my whole life – not just my career - in New York,” and she left.
Working with Bill Harley, as his production assistant and office manager, she met her husband, who’s also a musically passionate business-minded person. They’ve been married five years, he busy with his music education company he founded, Jazz Kids, and she with her teaching and directing work.
“We’ve managed to have all the things we want; it’s really great,” she said. “My husband and I acknowledge every day how lucky we are. It’s so nice I went to school to major in theater. I’m still paying those crazy student loans, but I’m working in my field.”
Working in East Greenwich, “The parent support has been amazing,” she said. “Anytime we need anything, we send out an email and we get it. Parents are really excited about doing it, and helping out their kids. The energy in that community is really tremendous, the way they support each other.”
Parents have realized, Myette said, that theater is not only a growth opportunity for their kids, but for the adults to get to know one other. “I had parents telling me, weeks after ‘The Jungle Book,’ that ‘I had a chance to talk to people, and get to know people,’” she said.
“You get to see all of these people come together for this common goal, and that’s really cool,” she said. “It’s been a really positive experience.”
And as for the kids’ enthusiasm, “I’m really impressed by how well they’ve kept it together,” Myette said. “They’re good kids: they care about this, they’re eager. They want to do well, which is great for me as a teacher. They want to be there, and working, and that’s a testament to them as well as their parents.”
The show is Friday, April 3, at 7 p.m., and Saturday, April 4 at 2:30 p.m., at the East Greenwich High School auditorium. Tickets are $5 and a maximum of $20 for a large family. The PTG accepts cash or checks payable to Meadowbrook Farms School PTG. Cianciolo can be reached for questions at
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Some of the key cast members:
Anita – Petranea Smith
Roger – Peter Zubiago
Cruella De Vil – Lauren DeCesaris
Horace – Kathryn Healy
Jasper – Emma Fleming
Nanny – Madeline Morin
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