The cast of Staged By The Bell goes back to Bayside
They're so excited. They're so excited. They're so scared.
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Millions of people born in the '80s had their expectations for high school warped by NBC's Saved By The Bell. The show's Bayside High existed in a world without cliques, where a principal could truly be a principal, and a multi-ethnic, socially diverse group of friends could learn important lessons about tolerance, responsibility, and the "dangers" of caffeine-pill abuse. Such is the power of "Jessie's Song"—the show's "very special episode" detailing the ambitious Jessie Spano's struggle with generic-brand NoDoz—which has now been adapted for the stage by The Institution Theatre. Directed by local comedy luminary Tom Booker, whose experience in turning yesterday's TV cheese into today's onstage laughs includes a stint as Bobby Brady in The Real Live Brady Bunch, Staged By The Bell stays true to its source material while making a few tweaks (like casting a male in the role of Lisa Turtle). The A.V. Club spoke with Booker and Staged's Spano (Ellana Kelter), Kelly Kapowski (Lauren Forman), and A.C. Slater (Bryan Cruz) about the show's fortunate timing, the legacy of the episode's most infamous line, and whether there's life after high school for Staged By The Bell.
The A.V. Club: Why put Saved By The Bell onstage? And why now?
Lauren Forman: It's iconic for my generation.
Tom Booker: Notice she looked at me and left out the word "our" generation.
LF: Tom's really old, so I had to explain it to him. He didn't know about TV.
Ellana Kelter: No one could have known that Jimmy Fallon was going to have the Zack Morris character on his show, or that they were going to do this big People Magazine 20-year reunion. That just helps our P.R.
AVC: What makes it so iconic?
Bryan Cruz: When I watched it as a kid, I thought high school was going to be just like it, and that if I was the cool guy who made jokes in the class everyone will like me, which is the way it's supposed to be. And it's not.
AVC: There are a lot of parallels between Staged By The Bell and The Real Live Brady Bunch: The source material is awful, but remembered with affection; both came roughly 20 years after the TV shows premièred; and there's a lot of humor in the wardrobe and outmoded dialogue.
TB: Real Live Brady Bunch was basically the same thing—someone at a party said, "Hey, let's do The Brady Bunch onstage." We didn't think anybody would come. I think Saved By The Bell is The Brady Bunch of their generation. Which just makes me feel older.
LF: [Soothingly] No…
BC: I'm sure whoever produced The Real Live Brady Bunch was older than you.
TB: No, they were my age.
BC: Oh man. [All laugh.] Tried to help.
EK: [Cast member] Ted [Merideth] was saying something really interesting—there isn't a show like [Saved By The Bell] now. The next big, iconic thing might be Friends, but that's prime time. This was a Saturday-morning or after-school sort of show, but there hasn't been something since then that's represented your age group like this.
TB: And it's such a fantasy. As a kid, you have no reference, so that's what you think the real world is going to be like. Then when you grow up, you're like, "I want to go back to Bayside." I want to be a Tiger.
BC: It's so silly. I don't even think Mario Lopez was acting. He's still just as much of a cheeseball.
TB: It was fun to watch them in the first performance in front of people—to watch their characters grow, to watch the actors make the characters their own and find the things that work and the audience can identify with and discover.
EK: I wasn't allowed to watch the show when I was younger. I still haven't watched enough episodes—which I need to do—so my approach was totally different. I really went off of Tom's coaching or what I came up with. In this episode, Jessie's not the one to get a lot of the laughs, but that "I'm so excited, I'm so scared" line needs to be dead on.
AVC: Did you know how many peoples' memories of the show are tied to that line?
EK: Yes, because everyone kept telling me, which made me super nervous. I was more nervous about that than anything else. My theater training taught me to go for the response, to get the laugh, but then I wanted it to be real, because I can identify with being an overachiever and being involved a lot in high school. Then I thought I did it way too seriously, and I was going to have a real emotional breakdown onstage.
AVC: How did you approach the episode's musical numbers? The real things are kind of cringe-worthy.
EK: We were super excited. Originally, we were going to lip-sync, and I was like, "No, let's really sing it like we can really do it!" But now I know it's probably smarter that we're lip-syncing
LF: And they lip-synced on the show. There are parts where I don't even say the words.
TB: But it's an artistic choice, not out of laziness, right?
LF: Yeah, it's because I want to flip my hair. [Laughs.]
TB: These ladies worked on their cartwheels for weeks.
AVC: "Jessie's Song" is told from an obviously alarmist perspective, but do you feel like you're making light of the episode's anti-drug message?
BC: We're mocking the fact that caffeine pills could do something that ridiculous, not all drug use.
TB: All it takes is a little counseling, and then she'll get over her habit.
BC: I took caffeine pills. I'm going to say it.
AVC: Any chance Staged By The Bell will venture outside Bayside? Perhaps the Malibu Sands episodes, or the Wedding In Las Vegas movie?
LF: I don't know. Right now we're sticking with seasons one and two. Are we going to go past high school? I guess it depends on the audience response.
AVC: You'd have to cut Ellana and Espie if you did Saved By The Bell: The College Years. That wouldn't be in the inclusive spirit of the show.
BC: The College Years isn't as nostalgic.
TB: But then, after the show, we'll just have to do a staged version of Showgirls.
