The Beacon Players, With Anthony Scarrone

Image credit: Tony Cenicola

Subscribe to Beaconites! on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Over the last seven years, Anthony Scarrone has helped grow the Beacon Players into a regionally famous high school theater program.

The Players put on two or three plays a year, and have staged ambitious productions of Peter Pan, A Christmas Carol, Tommy, The Wiz, A Chorus Line and many others. Most, but not all, have been musicals.

In October, with almost all extra-curricular student activities suspended due to the COVID outbreak, the Players somehow eeked out a real live show – an outdoor, socially distanced production of “Godspell.” It was a complicated effort requiring months of planning (transparent face masks, Zoom voice rehearsals, reduced audiences). But it worked.

“What looked like something that developed in the fall was actually proposals that started around April or May,” Anthony says on the Beaconites podcast.

Asked why the Players chose Godspell, he adds, “It’s just a beautiful show that embraces love. And it also made a statement that even in the worst of times if you seek a way to do something, nothing is impossible.”

Anthony grew up in the Bronx and attended the local Catholic school St Helena’s, where he was first exposed to theater.

“Every year there was a school play. Every class would go down and sing and dance with Ms. Maywood, who was a retired Rockette,” he recalls. “The Dominican sisters felt that every student was a Rockette.”

In this episode, he shares his journey in performing arts, including his second act as a high school theater director. And he describes future plans for the Beacon Players.