OJAI, California  (March 15th, 2008) - Following nine months of collaborative work with several professional guest artists, students of Besant Hill School will launch their spring production of CHANTECLER, an adaptation of Edmond Rostand's 100 year-old comedy about a rooster in search of his song.  The play will run Thursday through Saturday for two weeks beginning April 23rd.  Show times are at 8pm, except for Saturday April 25th, when the curtain is an hour earlier at 7pm, as part of the school's annual Spring Arts Festival.  Reservations are required for the Spring Arts Festival, and highly recommended for the other five nights of performance.

CHANTECLER was written by Edmond Rostand, author most famous for his play, Cyrano de Bergerac. Director Scott Campbell selected the piece for the Besant Hill Guest Artist Program, where students work together with a team of distinguished professional guest artists throughout the year to rewrite, design and produce the spring production.  The Besant Hill guest artist program began three years ago and has grown quickly.  Each year the school invites guest artists to work directly with students on projects designed to not only educate students with knowledge of the arts, but also give them the opportunity to experience the process of making art firsthand.  

"Most artists will tell you that it is all about the process," said Campbell. "I think that's because the process is where the real creativity is.  That's where we discover our way of working."

Beginning with Caroline Thompson, writer of such films as "City of Embers", "Edward Scissorhands" and "Nightmare Before Christmas," and Steve Nicolaides, producer on films like "Boyz N The Hood", "School of Rock", and "Nacho Libre,"  the play was adapted and rewritten, updated into a more urgent piece for today's audience.  Production Designer Matthew C. Jacobs, an Emmy-award winning designer and recently art director of the television hit series, "Heroes," came up with a concept for modernizing this tale, taking it from a bucolic French farm and placing it in a modern industrial chicken factory, where conditions are less than ideal for the group of hens and rooster that reside there. 

"That's when things started getting fun," said Campbell."We wanted students to participate in a process of adaptation and collaboration, where the material, at first glance, may seem unrelated to our current world, but could be the basis for a compelling story about our life and times, and specifically what high school students are experiencing in their lives."

As the production grew, so did the team.  Musical director Jaye Hersh,  choreographer Brook Masters, and aerial choreographer Rebekah Leach all added their unique talents to the production,  providing show-stopping creative elements including song, dance, aerial dance and a five-piece rock-n-roll band.

"The beauty of theatre is that it is a collaborative process that can be joined at all levels.  Having students pair up with experienced professionals gives the students practical experience in helping to create a piece that ultimately is bigger than the sum of its parts.  It's incredibly rewarding, both for the students and the instructors."
 
And it provides an important message to all of us during these turbulent times: We can do so much more when we work together.  Audiences will no doubt see the results of this collaboration when they enter the transformed Zalk theater and witness the spectacular effects on stage in CHANTECLER. 

"CHANTECLER", written by Edmond Rostand, adapted by Scott Campbell, Steve Nicolaides and Caroline Thompson, directed by Scott Campbell, produced by Sandi Mikkelson and Sashi Peterson.  April 23, 24, 30 May 1, 2 @ 8pm.  April 25th @ 7pm. Reservations required for the 25th, recommended for other dates.  Zalk Theater, Besant Hill School 8585 Santa Paula/Ojai Rd, Upper Ojai. Reservations 805-646-4343. Tickets: $10 suggested donation.

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Besant Hill School (formerly Happy Valley) is a co-educational boarding/day school, founded in 1946 by Aldous Huxley, J. Krishnamurti, Guido Ferrando and Rosalind Rajagopal and offers a vigorous college preparatory curriculum with a cornerstone on creative expression and divergent thinking. Besant Hill offers 33 art electives, competitive athletics, travel and experiential education programs, small classes and a 4:1 student teacher ratio.