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Idora park carousel is part of BHS musical
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
BOARDMAN
Boardman High School’s production of “Carousel” will include a scene straight out of Mahoning Valley history.
The opening segment of the musical will be a video shot at the former Idora Park carousel, which has been restored and is now a tourist attraction in New York City.
Boardman High drama students traveled to New York recently to shoot the 8-minute scene. It will be shown on a 30-by-15-foot screen on stage as the show begins, and the carnival comes to town. When the scene ends, the screen will drop out of place, revealing a smaller carousel behind it, and a live carnival scene with actors.
The school’s production of the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical will be presented at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Boardman Performing Arts Center, 7777 Glenwood Ave.
Nick Opritza, supervisor of the BHS drama guild and director and choreographer of “Carousel,” said a group of 45 students traveled by bus to New York to shoot the segment. They spent the night in the Big Apple, where they also took in the Broadway production of “Something Rotten!”
The 1922 carousel was a fixture at Youngstown’s Idora Park for decades. Jane Walentas, a New York artist, purchased it in 1984 after it was damaged in a fire at the park, and spent years restoring it. It reopened to the public in 2011 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
“Jane gave us access to the carousel,” said Opritza. “She was so good with the kids.”
Opritza said he has clear memories of the carousel as a child, when he would visit Idora Park.
The opening-scene video was shot by the Boardmann High television crew. “It was all done in-house,” said Opritza.