Roundabout Theatre Company Gives Acting Workshops at High School

In preparation for the Fort Lee Film Commission and ’s upcoming production of “Mack & Mabel,” student actors were recently treated to a two-day acting workshop led by Ted Sod of New York City’s Roundabout Theatre Company.

The film commission worked with Fort Lee High School graduate and executive director of The Artists Collective for Social Change Alexis Marnel to make the workshops a reality.

“[Marnel] does work in New York City with a number of theater groups, one being the Roundabout Theatre,” said executive director Tom Meyers of the Fort Lee Film Commission. “She wanted to see if she could do anything to help the kids, and I mentioned the ‘Mack & Mabel’ production so we decided to work on that.”

As a result, Marnel brought in Sod to conduct the acting workshops with the students, but her involvement didn’t end there.

“She’s offsetting some of our costs with the production by getting the music director for us at no cost to us,” Meyers said.

He also said the students seemed to enjoy working with Sod.

“The kids were excellent with him,” Meyers said. “It was a lot of good give and take, and he really had the students up and working on their acting.”

The next step for the film commission is getting the necessary technical people and lots of equipment into the high school auditorium for the high-tech production, which Meyers said would be happening in about a week-and-a-half.

“In order to do this production, and certainly to integrate film with it, we have to bring in a tech, and that’s where our biggest cost is coming from,” he said. “We have to bring in equipment, and that’ll be there for a week so the kids can do dress rehearsal and then the three performances.”

He added, “That’s the biggest chunk of change that we’re spending is on the tech person, but it’s necessary. Without it we couldn’t do this production.”

“Mack & Mabel” is a musical written by Jerry Herman that depicts the founding of Keystone Movie Studio in Fort Lee in 1912 and the romance between the studio’s founder, Mack Sennett, and his comedienne, Mabel Normand.

The musical, directed by Fort Lee High School drama department teacher Jodi Etra, will incorporate rare film footage thanks to film preservationist and historian Paul Gierucki, who made available to the Fort Lee Film Commission the un-restored 1912 Keystone film A Grocery Clerk's Romance.  

“This film, shot outside Rambo's Saloon on First Street in the Coytesville section of Fort Lee, has not been seen publicly since 1912, and it represents one of the first films produced by Keystone,” according to Meyers.

The Fort Lee High School performances of “Mack & Mabel” are May 18 at 7:30 p.m. and May 19 at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Admission is $10 at the door. For advance sales, call the Fort Lee Film Commission at 201-693-2763 or visit the film commission’s website.