New London sings ‘She Loves Me’ this weekend

NEW LONDON - Brittany Collia has been a musical person all her life, and it's her love of musicals she feels has made it a joy to direct New London High School's musical.

On Friday, March 29, at 7 p.m., New London High School will be debuting their performance of the classic musical 'She Loves Me.”

'Usually as the director, I have sort of a long process,” said Collia, the show's director and the school's music teacher. 'I need to look at who I've got coming in, what dancing abilities they'll have and then what acting chops do (the students) have on top of that.”

From there she makes a list of musicals the school could potentially do based on resources. She determined that, with the kids she was going to have for the performance, 'She Loves Me” would be their best option.

'I knew we were going to have some really strong male singers, which is new this year, so we really wanted to showcase that,” said Collia. 'We have a couple of young men who are able to sing some really nice falsetto notes, so I wanted to showcase that with the parts of Steven Kodaly and the Waiter.”

Collia and her students have been working on nailing the music since December, minding meter changes and catching challenging shifts in tempo; and becoming accustomed to instrumental accompaniment in their final rehearsals this week will be 'the final touch before they're ready to go,” according to Collia.

A first for this year will be a 3:30 p.m., Sunday matinee performance in addition to the Friday and Saturday 7 p.m. shows. Given the 2 1/2 hour run time of the performance, Collia said the matinee is to test the waters and see if there would be interest in an afternoon time slot.

Collia describes herself as a lifelong musical theater person, making it easy for her to be passionate about the material she's working with. She feels her excitement for the material has made it easier for both her and the students to put the show together.

'It's fun to see these kids find different things about themselves,” she said.'(They get) to play a character who's nothing like them and seeing that transformation from the beginning where they don't know what to do, all the way to the end where it's smooth and effortless.”