Are you ready to cut loose? Director tells all

Mt. Hood theatre students are slipping on their dancing shoes and warming up their vocals, preparing to hit the stage for the department’s production of “Footloose” in less than a month.

The actors are now in their second rehearsal phase. The first part involves learning all the aspects: the songs, the dances. Then comes getting comfortable with them.

The performers are starting “to take ownership and then we clean it up,” said Mace Archer, theatre artistic director and “Footloose” director.

“Right now, we’re beginning to make sure that everyone really gets and understands the whole story and sort of the flow of everything,” Archer said.

The cast, which consists mostly of Mt. Hood students, has spent many hours polishing its choreography and vocals. Members rehearse four hours a night, five nights a week, with many big numbers that take a lot of practice on their own time, too.

“We actually contract with a professional (choreographer Krista Loveless) to come in to work with students,” Archer said. “They get the opportunity to work with someone who is top-notch.”

Mt. Hood’s adaptation of  “Footloose” will “run very parallel with the original movie,” Archer said.

“The original Kevin Bacon movie is what this stage version is based on. Really, if you love that story, it’s that same story of redemption,” he said.

This version will add a new flair the audience may not be expecting.

“There’s a whole bunch of new songs that were written for it… to sort of underscore the characters,” Archer said. “So, that’s the thing that I think people will really enjoy about this, if they love the original movie, to see how much more music and dance and that sort of expression gets out.”

Archer says Kevin Lambert, MHCC choral director, has been collaborating on the musical.

“He’s got these 30 actors sounding like a top-notch choir… The level of music that people are going to be hearing from our stage will really be surprising and awesome,” Archer said.

The focus of the Mt. Hood musical is trying to bring out the generation gap that is so prominent within the original production.

“What we’re trying to encourage the students to do is see the story through their own perspective, because every student at Mt. Hood is in the place of the kids in ‘Footloose,’ ” Archer said.

The play will have just a touch of the ’80s theme, he said. The theatre department decided it didn’t want to go all-out 80s because there’s “something that’s kind of goofy about that,” and the things that are really important might get missed, he said.

Archer said viewers will see some leg warmers and a side ponytail here and there, but not enough to overwhelm anybody.

He hopes to bring his own experience as an actor to help his students growth. “I was making a living doing musical theatre across the country prior to coming (here),” he said. He wants to share that knowledge with students “so they can sort of thrill and excite people,” he said.

“Footloose” opens on Feb. 21 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $12 at the door for students, $10 if bought in advance, and are $12 for nonstudents if purchased early, $15 if bought at the door.