Thirteen actors move across a blackbox theater stage — some walk, others shuffle, one rolls her wheelchair.
Arms above her head and hands raised — think high jazz hands — choreographer Dena DiGiacinto moves in front of the group.
“Can you twinkle out on stage?” DiGiacinto, the Saguaro City Music Theatre managing director asks the actors. “Every star is completely different.”
In various stages of twinkle, the actors move stage right and try again.
It’s week 2 of Saguaro City Music Theatre’s camp. And rehearsals for “The Addams Family Musical” are underway.
This year’s three-week camp features 63 students from ages 7 to 17. Just under half the campers are acting, dancing and singing with special needs, including mobility, auditory and visual impairments. That inclusivity is a hallmark of this camp, said Drew Humphrey, Saguaro’s CEO and producing artistic director.
“The Addams Family Musical”
June 26, 27, 28
The Berger Center
Ticket info
Kennedy Kay, age 11, grips a broom as she twirls across the stage. As the moon, she soon trades the vertical broom handle for an umbrella, which she now holds horizontally. Kay spins off to stage left.
A fourth-year camper, Kay will attend Orange Grove Middle School next school year.
“I do the camp because I love spending time here. I love seeing my friends. I just love performing,” Kay said. “This camp gives me encouragement and makes me less nervous and stuff. Because performing in front of an audience can be sometimes hard. We somehow always pull a show together in three weeks.”
This week, the production moved from the University of Arizona’s Tornabene Theatre to The Berger Center on the campus of The Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind. That transition is key, Humphrey said, because The Berger Center is structured to accommodate all the actors.
“We can have children with mobility issues that are able here to get from front of house to backstage without having to go through an elevator or navigate stairs, so that’s crucial,” he said. If the camp had to find another venue, it would have had to shift down to about 20 or 30 kids.
“Twinkle with joy!” DiGiacinto says. “You’re going through molasses. Your fingers are an expression.”
Three things to know about Saguaro City camp as it culminates this weekend:
— We all have stories inside us. “Everyone has a different story. And when we can share in each other’s stories, we grow empathy,” Humphrey said. “And when you put children from great diverse backgrounds and challenges, you put them in the same room, you say, ‘We’re all going to tell the story together in whatever way we can.’ It breaks down whatever those differences are immediately because they have a common goal.”
— Repetition pays off. “Our goal is to adapt to the environment in order to make every child feel as successful as possible. There’s also a little bit of tough love sometimes. We know if they aren’t feeling confident with what they’re learning, then getting to the theater and being in the show won’t be fun because it’s more scary,” DiGiacinto said. “And so sometimes it’s about ‘you got to stand up. You got to do it again.’ It’s just part of theater so helping the campers understand that a lot of work goes into it. And then it will be fun later. We have to put this work in. You have to keep doing it over and over, because then you don’t have to think about it and you can go out and just perform and enjoy it instead of trying to remember what comes next or where is my spot and things like that. So, it’s just like helping them along in that journey like encouraging them when they’re feeling discouraged.”
— Camp is free and was full in four minutes this year — and there’s a waitlist. “The community is telling us we need a second camp. Each student costs us about $1,700 to support their camp experience,” Humphrey said. “So we’d love to expand camp. We can grow our program with community support.”
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