Montville
Family Lives its Vision - Children's Theater is the SECRYT
The Montville Times - May 2,
2008
By Suzanne Thompson
Photographs by Debbie Beckwith |
|
 Lee
and Liz Rummel are jugglers. They have to be, between
raising a family of four children (and soon to officially be
five) in Oakdale, and serving as co-directors of the
SouthEastern Connecticut Regional Youth Theater (SECRYT).
Lee also is drama director at Fitch Senior High School in
Groton. Then there is his full-time job as a 911 dispatcher
for the Town of Groton, rotating between 12-hour shifts and
time off.
Professionally, the Rummels
are theater types – Lee on the stage, Liz behind the
scenes. Both grew up in East Lyme. Lee’s mother is
Brenda Kerr Rummel, a driving force behind community theater
in New London and the area in the 1960s and 1970s. She
was involved in efforts that led to the creation of the East
Lyme Arts Council, the East Lyme Children’s Theater and
the Eugene O'Neill Awards.
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| “My mom was smitten with drama when she attended New London
High School in the fifties. When she married my dad,
she gave him an ultimatum and he acquiesced and got
involved, too,” Lee laughed. “As a kid, I started with
the Children’s Theater in East Lyme in 1969.”
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| Brenda Kerr, the actress,
stage manager, mentor and inspiration, died of breast cancer
in 1973. She was barely 33 years old.
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| “I was 12, my brother was 9 when she died,” Lee said.
“You kind of go on autopilot when that happens.”
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| Lee and Liz both attended East
Lyme High School. When they started their own family,
they made sure their son, Logan, now 20, was involved in the
East Lyme Children’s Theater. That led to Lee
volunteering to direct the kids’ productions in 1998.
Liz started producing the shows in 2000. It has
mushroomed from there.
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| As a home-schooling family,
the couple started to put on home-schooling theater
workshops, running a program at a theater in Norwich.
They formed the Brenda Kerr Theater (BKT) in 2002.
Their initial intent was to provide live theater
opportunities for small, local groups. In 2005, Lee
also directed the musical Grease and the comedy Romeo and
Winifred for the Falcon Theater Company at Fitch Senior High
School in Groton. His current position as the
school’s drama director there is part time.
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| In 2006, they reorganized the
BKT to become the SECRYT with the expanded goal of offering
these experiences to all children, youth and young adults in
southern and eastern Connecticut.
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| The SECRYT has a lofty mission
– one based on the recognition that participating in
various aspects of the production of live theater can be an
exhilarating and rewarding experience, inspire confidence,
promote teamwork, bring diverse groups of people together
for a common goal and facilitate the expression of oneself.
Its objective is to provide the environment and
opportunities in which youth can learn, practice and apply
the performing, administrative, operational, technical and
managerial disciplines of the dramatic arts of live theater.
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| “We passionately believe the
SECRYT fills a gap in our region by being a theater that is
totally committed to the development of these skills in
children, youth and young adults, 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week, 12 months a year,” Lee said.
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| The SECRYT assumed all responsibility for the management of
the East Lyme Children’s Theater in 2006, working with the
East Lyme Parks & Recreation Department.
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| Running on 40 years of
productions, the East Lyme Children’s Theatre has become a
community institution. Spring productions are put on
every year at the Niantic Center School on West Main Street
in Niantic. Lee has been directing full-length
ensemble performances there since 1997. Liz came on
board as the program’s producer in 1999.
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| This year’s production ran the first two weekends in April.
Kids from five to eleven years old, from East Lyme,
Montville, Waterford and Stonington, were involved.
Two “cast mothers,” Kris Brookes and Barbara Heaney,
both of Niantic, were co-directors, along with Lee.
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| “The play is a wonderful spoof about The Big Bad Wolf and
The Wicked Witch [Wizard of Oz] going on trial, with
witnesses including Hansel & Gretel, Red Riding Hood,
Three Little Pigs and Dorothy,” Liz explained.
“The production had both humor that only adults would pick
up on, but yet the children also enjoyed it on a different
level. It was fabulous.”
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| There were also a number of
“Lee-ism’s”, she said, that people who had worked with
or had seen Lee’s productions would recognize.
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| Collectively, the couple
claims more than nine years of theatrical experience, more
than 25 public productions and 100 performances and have
conducted approximately 45 theater workshops for youth.
In all, they have worked with close to 1300 students or cast
members. A full listing of the couple’s theatrical
productions is listed on the SECRYT website.
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| Liz and Lee work together on
managing administrative, operational, production and
workshop-related activities. Lee teaches all of
the SECRYT workshops and directs all of the public ensemble
drama, comedy and musical productions. Additional
instructions, musical directors and choreographers are
contracted to fill the production staff.
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| “I’m a very good delegator,”
said Liz. “I like to find the scripts, make the schedules
and arrange everything that needs to be taken care of for
the students so Lee can focus on directing.”
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| Or pulling my hair out,”
interjected Lee.
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| “The Rummels’ children are all involved in the theater one
way or the other. In addition to Logan, Audrey is 17,
Claire is 10 and Tessa is 7. The family is in the
process of adopting Codie, 2 ½, who they have cared for as
a foster family.
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| Last year Montville’s Parks
and Recreation program engaged the SECRYT to put on a series
of age-appropriate workshops for children. Logan
worked with the kids on one-act skits. Rehearsals and
performances were put on at Tyl Middle School, giving the
students to perform and work with lighting and learn how to
project on-stage.
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| The SECRYT also established
theater workshops with annual acting programs at the First
Step Child Care Centers in Uncasville and Colchester.
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| “We do little rhyming things that preschoolers are familiar
with,” Liz said. “After eight weeks, the parents get to
come in and see their children perform the nursery rhythms
and fairytales.”
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| The Rummels currently run the
SECRYT as a business from their home. Longer-term,
they envision having their own or leasing theater production
facilities, and possibly establishing a non-profit
organization committed to youth theater in the region.
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| Meanwhile, the SECYRT website
includes a description of the ideal production space:
a proscenium or black box stage for rehearsals and
performances; two changing areas to keep boys and girls
separated during costume changes; a large enough area to
accommodate an audience to enjoy snacks and beverages during
show intermissions and ample parking for audience members,
SECRYT staff and adult volunteers.
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| To
see some area high school thespians directed by Lee Rummel,
catch the upcoming Fitch High School production of The Rose
and The Ring in Groton. Rummel likens the musical folktale
based on the novella by William Makepeace Thackery to the
humor of the Monty Python Broadway play Spamalot. |
| Performance times are the
first two weekends in Friday, May 2, 7:30 pm, Saturday May
3, 2 p.m. and 7:30 pm and the same times on Friday, May 9
and Saturday, May 10.
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