'Meet Me in St. Louis' launches Schaumburg groups 15th season
Rehearsals with a Schaumburg-based theater group kicked into high gear Saturday, as cast members sang and danced with the orchestra for the first time, days away from their opening at the Prairie Center for the Arts.
Underlying their sense of urgency was a realization that the production company had come of age.
"Meet Me in St. Louis" launches the 15th-anniversary season of HOTT Productions, or Helping Others Through Theater. The productions opens Saturday, Nov. 7, with a cast of more than 70 actors - from 15 communities - and 16 in its pit orchestra.
Performers range from 7-year old Eleanor Ekovich of Schaumburg, who plays Tootie and has 70 lines in the play, to Schaumburg dentist Jack Keehan, an ensemble member who just discovered his love of performing on stage.
"This is my fourth show and I'm having a blast," says Keehan of Hoffman Estates. "Being part of a community activity, especially when it's a fundraiser; what could be better?"
A pair of Schaumburg sisters, Chris Seminaro and Donica Seminaro Luzwick, launched the company initially to raise money for the Evenstart Family Literacy Program, which was at risk of losing its funding.
"I kept telling Donica that we needed to do something to support these families," says Seminaro, an early-childhood teacher with Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54. "The rest is history."
Over the years, the theater group has donated more than $100,000 to organizations that include the Prevention Initiative Program, District 54's Run to Read and the American Cancer Society, among others.
HOTT's productions have included all of the popular musicals, starting with their first, "42nd Street," to their most recent, "Anything Goes," mounted last spring. All of have taken place at the Prairie Center.
This year, proceeds have been earmarked for the Northwest suburban chapter of the Autism Society of America. That comes as good news to dancer Vicki Mikos, a Palatine resident and speech therapist in one of District 54's eight early-childhood centers.
"I teach in one of only two self-contained classrooms for children with autism in the district," Mikos says. "I work with 10 students, and when you count children from our blended classrooms, there are at least five more on the autism spectrum. And that's just in my center."
Luzwick, who is the costumer for the show whose husband David and two of their sons also perform in it, points to all the families performing on stage together.
"There really is a sense of family here," Luzwick says, "and that comes across on stage."