The actors playhouse is heading down the yellow brick road for their most ambitious production yet. Wizard of Oz is the second actors playhouse musical in the new auditorium, and they’re returning with more shows and a big goal: to sell out all 1,000 seats.
“You walk out onto that stage and you see a full house, and it changes your performance from what is usually an eight to a ten to a 12,” says BJ Peckins-Muszynski, director and founder of the program. She acted on Broadway, and knows the feeling of a sold out show. “I want them to look out in the audience and really see that they made an impact, that there are people out in the community that can come and see them, and they aren’t just doing it for their moms and their dads and their grandparents.”
BJ uses her knowledge from acting to build these shows up. Now her mission is to give Davison kids the Broadway experience.
“When I was on tour, the girl who played Dorothy, she had a baby. And that baby sat in our dressing room all day long while we performed. I thought, ‘I don’t want that, I want a family’. I did what I wanted to do and now I wanted to come home and do that for somebody else,” says BJ.
Even more important than crowds and standing ovations is building a community. Assistant director Nicole Ferguson works hard with the staff to foster a safe environment for students.
“We want to create a nice social space where people can feel really comfortable, and feel like they could come to us with any issues that they might have. Have eyes on what’s going on in their lives and really lean into the things that they love,” says Nicole.
For students like Rylee Ferguson, Actors Playhouse has inspired them to follow a career in acting. “I’ve tried to do sports and, like, dance and stuff like that, but I never really liked it. Theater was the one thing that I felt like I was really good at.”
For others like Arianna Bolin and Syd Hamilton, it’s a place to meet people and get out of your comfort zone.
“Actors Playhouse has helped me connect with other kids in the high school that were my age, as well as having just opportunities to be out in public doing stuff,” says Arianna.
“I was pretty sheltered, I guess, and I didn’t really talk to anybody. And then I started doing more stuff like this, and I made a lot of friends,” says Syd.
BJ knows when to be tough and when to be soft to help all kinds of actors succeed. “I am that person that will go, you’re not very coachable. You better fix it. Stop telling me what to do and fix your attitude. And I’m also the person. When they’re crying, they know they can come to.”
This direction has brought kids back time and time again to help the program.
“We had a long time theater student, Micah Rodin. And she worked with Rachel and BJ, to actually do this mural where it transitions from black and white into color for the Wizard of Oz. She started working on this her senior year. She’ll be helping with a lot of the props and, building, paintings of things. So, this is kind of like a nod to her hard work on this and the love for The Wizard of Oz that we have in our community,” says Nicole.