“There are well-heeled shooters everywhere, everywhere.
There are well-heeled shooters everywhere.”

Well-heeled shooters converge on Woodlands High School this weekend, when the school’s drama club presents Frank Loesser’s “Guys & Dolls.”

At a recent rehearsal, high-schoolers in sharp suits and ties made nice when the lieutenant came sniffing around, but it was clear these guys were itching to throw dice.

There were guys.

There were dolls.

And there were great songs – “Adelaide’s Lament,” “Fugue for Tinhorns,” “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” and “If I Were a Bell” – that prove the genius of the musical’s composer and lyricist.

Greg Colica, a Woodlands senior, plays Nathan Detroit, proprietor of “the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York.”

His Detroit is all New York, he says.

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It’s not often that high-school students can present a musical set in their hometown, but that’s the case this week when New Rochelle High School’s Theater Works presents “Ragtime,” the Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens musical based on E.L. Doctorow’s book.

“Ragtime” weaves three seemingly unrelated stories into one tapestry of a specific time in American history, roughly 1904-06.

There’s Coalhouse Walker Jr., an accomplished musician, fighting prejudice and hoping to build a life with Sarah and their child.

There’s Tateh, a Latvian immigrant whose dreams of America’s possibilities are dashed and then reborn.

And there’s Mother, a New Rochelle housewife whose explorer husband’s absence prompts her to develop her own voice and become her own person.

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The way Nick Piacente sees it, if he does his job right, people will want him dead.

Not Nick, really, but the character he plays: Mr. Boddy, the owner of Boddy Manor, the mansion in which “Clue: The Musical” is set.

Iona Prep’s Prep Players present “Clue” – based on the whodunnit-with-which-weapon-in-which-room board game – in three performances this week: one on Thursday and two on Saturday.

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When he was planning this year’s musical, Port Chester High School director Mark Zizolfo gave Principal Mitchell Combs choices.

“We presented three options, that were either historical or based on literature: ‘Jekyll & Hyde,’ ‘Pippin’ and ‘Cabaret,’” Zizolfo says.
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“He took some time to think about it and he chose ‘Cabaret’ for its historical content – and that’s where we’re putting the theme of the show, its historical content.”

Still, shows come with their own reputations, as David Muto learned when he went home and told his mother he’d been cast as the Emcee, the role Joel Grey played in the 1972 film.

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There’s a lot going on in “Hello, Dolly,” this weekend’s spring musical at Walter Panas High School in Cortlandt.

There’s Dolly, of course, a widow who’s ready to settle down with successful Yonkers businessman Horace Vandergelder.

There’s Vandergelder’s niece, Ermengarde, who wants to take up with a man of whom Vandergelder does not approve.

And there’s a hat-shop owner and her assistant – Irene Molloy and Minnie Fay – who go on a memorable date with Vandergelder’s workers, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker.

Love is certainly in the air, along with Jerry Herman’s wonderful music and lyrics.

Theresa Egan, 16, a junior, plays Irene Molloy.

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Jack W. Batman had a tough act to follow: His own.

In the first year of Batman’s reimagined White Plains Performing Arts Center, the producer presented “Man of la Mancha,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Ragtime” and, tonight, finishes the season with “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”

Season 2 will begin with a “spotlight musical” – a small-scale presentation of a big musical, similar to this season’s “Ragtime.”

The show is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Evita,” with a two-weekend, eight performance run beginning Sept. 26. “Evita” is separate from the mainstage season and gives Batman and team the opportunity to branch out from classic Broadway to anything that strikes their fancy.

“If we want to do something that’s not a classic musical or something that’s Off-Broadway that we like, or an operetta, we can do it as a spotlight musical, a smaller-scale production,” he says.

On the mainstage, the producer is giving his growing audience a taste of everything:—A family friendly show for the holidays “Oliver!” in a four-week run from Nov. 20 through Dec. 14;—The more sophisticated “A Little Night Music” from March 5 through 22;—And the blockbuster “Hello, Dolly!” April 30 through May 17.

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You can’t blame Matt Wilson if he’s hearing voices these days.

As J. Pierrepont Finch, the lead character in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” – which begins a three-week run tonight at the White Plains Performing Arts Center – Wilson hears the “voice” of the book offering tips on how to achieve what the title suggests.

The voice is provided by Tony Award winner David Hyde Pierce (“Curtains”).

In the musical – which won six Tonys, including best musical, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1962 – Finch, a window washer who dreams of climbing the corporate ladder, begins doing just that, when he follows the book’s advice.

But there are other voices, too.

There’s J.B. Biggley, the big boss of World Wide Wickets, a pompous and impervious character played by Nick Wyman, a Broadway veteran of “Les Miserables” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”

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Director Frank Portanova knew there’d be technical challenges when he, producer Keith Sunderland and choreographer Charlotte Newman chose “Singin’ in the Rain” as the spring musical at Archbishop Stepinac High School.
The stage musical – directed on Broadway by Twyla Tharp in a production that opened July 2, 1985, and ran for 367 performances – is a faithful adaptation of the classic 1952 MGM musical that starred Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor. It runs this weekend and next at the White Plains school.

“Singin’ in the Rain” has all the famous song-and-dance numbers – “Fit as a Fiddle,” “Make ‘Em Laugh,” “You Are My Lucky Star,” “Moses Supposes” and “Good Mornin’” – but song and dance didn’t worry Portanova. Stepinac had done song and dance before.

Portanova wasn’t concerned about finding actresses to come to the all-boys Catholic school. In a Stepinac tradition, he enlisted the help of several Catholic girls schools: Maria Regina, Our Lady of Victory, Good Counsel Academy and The Ursuline School. Actresses they’d have.

No. There were two big challenges: Movies and rain.

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OK, so you’ve let your spring-cleaning chores go longer than you’d have liked.

Put off that chore a few more days – there’s always the weekend — and take in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” at Pearl River High School this week.

The running schedule for this Roman comedy of errors is a bit unorthodox – the show runs tonight at 7 and tomorrow night at 8, before the school’s spring break — but it’s just the thing to inspire you to get out and tidy up, or to hire help.

There’s the bouncy opening number where the entire cast of 52 takes to the stage to sing “Comedy Tonight.”

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Agnes de Mille’s dream ballet in “Oklahoma!” – a good-versus-evil showdown that represented a departure from musical-theater norms when it was introduced on Broadway in 1943 – traditionally introduces three new characters.

There’s Dream Laurey, Dream Curly and Dream Jud, three dancers who take over the lead roles for an extended section that advances the story through dance.

But when Rockland Country Day School presents the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic starting tonight, Dream Laurey, Dream Curly and Dream Jud will be played by the same students playing Laurey, Curly and Jud.

Yup. Like Rod Steiger in the 1955 movie version, Jud’s doing his own dancing.

Eliza Simpson, 18, a senior, plays Laurey, “a complex character” she describes as “ingenue, but also an enigma.”

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Scarlett Antonia is building something and the von Trapp Family Singers can help.

Antonia, a Peekskill-based artist, last year began breathing life into a theater program at Peekskill High School with a production of “Grease.”

This year, she’s tackling Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” with performances today and tomorrow at the high school.

Talk about “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.”

And to broaden the scope of theatrical possibilities beyond the high school, she has cast students from the city’s elementary and middle schools as von Trapp kids.

It’s the kind of effort that required help, Antonia says.

“Last year, when we did ‘Grease,’ it was me,” she says with a laugh. “This year, I’ve got a student director, Catie Davis, I’ve got Jennifer Michel co-directing and teachers Phoebe Hamilton on piano and Andrea Moffett on keyboards. I’ve got great people.”

She also has one of the most cherished pieces in the musical theater canon.

“We wanted to bring in younger kids,” she said.” We’re trying to develop a theater arts program for the middle school and high school. Also, the kids chose it, Catie wanted to do it and she said she knew kids who’d like to try out.”

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One week from tonight, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” opens at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater – the first Broadway revival of the musical in 59 years.

But tonight is another opening night of “South Pacific” that also happens to be on Broadway – 103 S. Broadway – at Tarrytown’s Washington Irving Intermediate School. It’s Sleepy Hollow High School’s production, with a cast of 31 and an orchestra of 18.

Director Gail Persad, the head of Sleepy Hollow’s music and fine arts department, says she chose “South Pacific” because she liked the music and the message of tolerance.

“I think the community can relate to the message,” she says.

Based on James Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific,” the musical tells the story of an island full of nurses and an Army construction battalion – the Seabees. There are two love stories: Nurse Nellie Forbush falls for French plantation owner Emile de Becque and Lt. Joe Cable falls in love with the Polynesian girl, Liat.

There is also prejudice, as Nellie’s Arkansas roots won’t allow her to love a man who had been married to a non-Caucasian and Cable worries that his Philadelphia family wouldn’t respond kindly to his bringing a Tonkinese girl home.

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The lyric goes “I got rhythm, I got music, I got my man – Who could ask for anything more?”

At John Jay High School for the past five months, the answer to the question “Who could ask for anything more?” has been “Anne-Marie Galler.”

As in “more steps,” “more speed,” “more synchronized.”

Galler is the choreographer who has turned dozens of John Jay kids into tap-dancing John Jay kids who – starting tonight – present the tap-happy Gershwin musical “Crazy for You,” with Susan Stroman’s original Broadway choreography.

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Marianne Rendon, 17, a senior at The Ursuline School in New Rochelle, is likely unaccustomed to being treated the way her character is treated when she makes her entrance in “Once Upon a Mattress.”

When Princess Winnifred the Wobegone enters, fresh from the swamp – and anything but fresh – she’s also just swam the moat.

“Everyone is like, ‘Get away from me. You’re smelly. You just came out of the swamp,’” Rendon says.

Is Princess Fred discouraged?

Not one bit.

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Director and choreographer Stacey Tirro apparently has a thing for tap musicals. Last year, her students at Spring Valley High School presented “42nd Street.” This year, it’s “Crazy for You,” another tap-heavy show.

So Michael Roberts, a Spring Valley senior who uses a wheelchair, might have figured there’d be no place for him.

Tirro figured otherwise, creating the position of “pit singer” to put Roberts talents to full use. He’ll be there tonight, when “Crazy for You” opens, singing full out.

“We’re not really handicapped-accessible, the way we should be, on the stage,” Tirro says. “If I could get him on the stage, if it were bigger and we had ramps, I would love to get him on the stage some way. We just cannot physically do that. His chair is too heavy and it would put him at risk.”

So it’s pit singer for Roberts, who is genuinely happy to contribute, even putting show posters on his wheelchair to help advertise “Crazy for You” as he wheels around school.

Asked about his role, Roberts says “Tirro kind of invented it, because the stage isn’t accessible. I really wanted to do something on ‘42nd Street,’ so last year she said, ‘OK, you can sing in the pit.’ They always need male voices.”

This year, he sings “all the songs they need male support on, all the choral stuff,” including his favorite, “Bidin’ My Time,” which goes:

“I’m bidin’ my time,

‘Cause that’s the kinda guy I’m.

While other folks grow dizzy

I keep busy

Bidin’ my time”

“It reminds me of me during the summer,” Roberts says. “Not doing anything.”

“Another reason it’s my favorite is it’s the easiest song, too,” he says with a little laugh. “Except when there’s a reprise and it’s in French. French is not my strongest thing. I barely survived Spanish four years.”

As a singer in the pit, he’ll wear what the pit wears, which, in Spring Valley, varies from show to show. Tonight, it’ll be black and white; tomorrow will be T-shirts and black pants; Saturday they’ll be in full-dress blacks, Roberts says.

Being in the musical gives him a feeling of accomplishment, “Like ‘Oh my God! I actually did something.’ A lot of things you do in school aren’t as fulfilling. This is tangible. You’ll have memories of this.”

When he’s not needed vocally, he’ll watch the show – which is wall-to-wall Gershwin songs with plenty of tap-dance numbers.

It’s about a New York banker who really just wants to dance. He falls in love with Polly Baker, the only girl in Deadrock, Nev., and, together, they work to save her father’s theater. It’s escapist stuff, but Roberts can’t get too caught up in it. He’s part of the show.

He says he’s learned that precision and detail go a long way to making musicals work.

Of course, he knew that from his days playing trumpet in the school’s marching band, before the diving accident that left him unable to use his legs and with limited use of his hands.

But he can sing.

His work on the musicals will earn him membership in the International Thespian Society Troupe 721 – another Spring Valley tradition.

Before he graduates, he hopes to finish his work toward becoming an Eagle scout, with just a few badges and one project – to provide access to the garden at his church, St. Boniface in Wesley Hills – between him and that goal.

This weekend, his goal is to sing out, to take part and to make “Crazy for You” a success – from his just-for-him spot in the pit.

Before the show, Tirro tells her cast to “sparkle in your eyes.”

Roberts does that, on stage or not.
“Crazy for You”
Where: Spring Valley High School, 361 Route 59, Spring Valley.
When: 7:30 p.m. today; 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday.
Tickets: $10 in advance, $12 at the door; $5 for seniors and students.
Call: 845-577-6544.
With: Kristen Santos, Lindsay Strasser, Alexander Domini, Christopher Mazis, Jaclyn Henderson, Izra Izzadeen, Ashley Niedleman, Jacqueline Smith, Johnny Nash, Veronica Agard, Melissa Neils, Christopher Smith, Horatio Joey Andrean, Jahmar Davis, Alexa Gibney, Jessica Butler, Michael Roberts, Lorie Ann Tabudlo, Laura Ventura, Elya Shavrova, Simona Drapkin, Emily Littman, Stephanie Lauredent, Julie Ventura, Renee Evans, Eason Hahm, Malaysia Shells, Juliette Collazo, Ozzie Gooen, Mikhael Villegas, Dakendy Benoit, Branden Hunt, Verna Krishnamurthy, Nina Navarro, Gladys Alonzo, Tony Luciano, Charlotte Collazo, Samuel Mesidor, Alton Taylor, Helar Aricaya, Gabriel Felix, Stanley Beauvoir, Sarah Kaufman, Andrew Bronson, Aadesh Boodoosingh, Alex Spiteri, Ian Thomas, Maria Martinez, Atiya Raja, Igo Lashkul, Nikki Cole, Teri Mastronardi, David Bryant, Michael Poli, Brian Leslie, Caylin Acosta, Meghan Poli, Miljana Monic, Paige Berman, Kyle Naugle, Alyse Borkan, Cynthia Lamonthe.