The Little High School That Could

Thank heaven for little schools. . . 

For the last few years while my son Christian attended Mater Dei Prep, my wife and I enjoyed seeing him perform with the Seraph Players, the school’s award winning performing arts group. During that timeframe, the Seraph Players had gone on to win numerous awards, as well as perform their productions for local grammar schools and for students whose schools were affected by Superstorm Sandy. 

Mater Dei Prep is a Catholic high school located in the New Monmouth section of Middletown whose population is roughly 400 students. When it comes to the performing arts, the entertainment is top-notch.  

Every year, the Seraph Players put on three productions. . .a play in the fall, a small musical production in the winter, and a full-scale musical production in the spring. Each and every one of them is comparable in entertainment value to any high school in the area, some of whom have a student population three times the size as Mater Dei Prep and that also work with production budgets that range in the mid-five figures. 

Cindy Dwyer is the performing arts teacher at the school, and she’s been there for twenty-two years. She does everything from play selection to casting to musical direction to fundraising. Her hard work and dedication pay off with each and every production. Over the years, the Seraph Players have won numerous Basie Awards, which are held at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank and are the equivalent of the Tony Awards but at the high school level for Monmouth and Ocean County. Her productions and actors have also won awards at other high school performing arts competitions as well. 

Her assistant director, Gary Alan Powell, has been acting on and off Broadway for nearly 40 years as well as in theaters throughout the east coast in a variety of shows, and he provides lighting design for all the Seraph Player productions. Samantha Amaral is a dancer/choreographer who has choreographed over 30 shows for high schools, community theater, and her alma mater, Hofstra University. She’s also a two-time Basie Award winner for best choreography for the Seraph Players’ productions of “The Drowsy Chaperone” and “All Shook Up”. 

Coupled with a motivated parent volunteer base and a school administration that fully supports the arts, the Seraph Players continue to bring quality theatre to the area year after year. No state-of-the-art auditorium, no special effects. . .just good, quality award-winning theatre at the high school level.

This spring, the group’s musical production will be “The Addams Family”, and Mater Dei Prep will be the first high school in New Jersey to put on this production. The show will be held in the auditorium at Memorial Hall on the campus of St. Mary’s Parish on April 4 and 5, as well as April 11 and 12. All shows will start at 8PM. For tickets, call 732-671-9100, extension 49. 

(The entire Jersey Shore Retro Blogography can be found at http://longbranch.patch.com/blogs/kevin-cieris-blog .You can also follow Kevin Cieri's blog on his Facebook page, "Jersey Shore Retro" as well as on Twitter @jsretro).