On December 14, 2024, the Seton Hall Prep Pirate Arts Council held its first annual “Winter Social.” This event aimed to bring together the cast of SHP’s Fall Drama (Puffs) and welcome newcomers interested in joining our cast for the Spring Musical, which was announced that same night. The Prep’s theater director, Mr. Andrew Martinez ’11, had set up a poster board with three pictures pasted on it. These pictures were playbills of three musicals. Mr. Martinez tore away two of the photos and announced that our Spring Musical was the last photo remaining: The Wedding Singer.
When we returned from Christmas break, auditions were held in room 137. Many talented performers auditioned, and a week later, the cast list was sent out. The first few rehearsals focused on music. To quote our Music Director and Prep History Teacher, Mr. Joseph Neglia Jr. ’03, “The root word of musical is music.” As the weeks went by, we began making our way to the stage, where Mr. Martinez, along with our assistant director and choreographer, Mrs. Leigh Connelly and Mrs. Sandra Zucchoni, began staging the show. There were many songs in this show-22 to be exact-and many of these songs featured dance breaks.
I personally am not a dancer, but I had an incredible time trying to dance and learning all the steps we were taught for this production. We had elaborate sequences with rolling office chairs and children being lifted on chairs at a bar mitzvah, as well as fun little moments, such as during the song “A Note From Linda,” in which the classical tone shifts to an up-tempo rock tune and all the ensemble members attending the wedding stand up from their seats and act the same way they would at an ’80s rock concert.
As the months passed, we came closer and closer to our May 8th opening date. Sunday, May 4, was our “sitzprobe.” In musical theater, a sitzprobe is the day when the orchestra comes in for the first time to play through the show while the cast sits on stage and sings through the music to coordinate all the vocals with the orchestra. Our orchestra for The Wedding Singer was conducted by The Prep’s band director, Mr. Michael Neglia ’05, and consisted of a piano, two keyboards, a trumpet, two reed players, two guitars, a bass, a drum kit, auxiliary percussion, and mallets.
The day after the sitzprobe began “tech week.” This is the week when all the moving parts of the show are put together. The orchestra is in the pit playing all the music. There are students upstairs in the lighting booth and at the soundboard on the balcony, making sure all the microphones, sound, and lighting cues are picked up. The actors are all in costume and working through their various costume and hair changes while running back and forth between the dressing rooms and backstage, and the crew is backstage helping with everything from moving furniture on and off stage to assist actors with quick changes so they can get in and out of their costumes and get right back on stage for the next scene.
On Thursday, May 8, 2025, the opening riff of the show’s opening number, “It’s Your Wedding Day,” began around 7 PM, and the curtains opened to start our opening night performance. The show went extraordinarily well and was very well received by the audience, and the same could be said for the following two shows on May 9 and May 10. The closing night performance is always very emotional. It is hard to say goodbye to something that took so much time, effort, and love to create. Nonetheless, the cast and crew still put on the final performance with large smiles of joy on their faces, giving their full 100%, and the closing night was just as amazing as the other two.
The Wedding Singer was an incredible experience, as were the rest of the shows put on at Seton Hall Prep. I am so grateful that I got to be a part of it. It is an understatement to say I am extremely excited for the announcement of the Fall Drama and to see what comes to the stage next.