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Gables High student does it all for children's theater

By ERICA MEYER Staff Writer. Wayne Hosford seems like any high school senior. He's a bit gangly, a bit talkative and simultaneously modest and delighted with his own accomplishments. He should be delighted. Wayne, an experienced actor and a member of the Coral Gables Concert Chorus, just wrote, directed, produced and staged a musical comedy. "Followers of Freedom" was the third annual Gables drama department children's play. When Wayne was chosen to direct it, he had the option of picking a play. He wanted something that would make the Bicentennial appeal to children and couldn't find anything, so he wrote one. He didn't just write the play though, he also wrote the music. "Followers of Freedom" was performed three times last week: Thursday morning for the Caribbean Elementary first and second graders, Friday morning for Leewood fourth, fifth and sixth graders and Friday night for other Gables students and their parents. "They were three totally different audiences," Wayne reported. "The little kids got restless. They were waiting from song to song. "The older kids loved it. They were quick to pick up on the little gags in the script. And the adults and students started giving it a standing ovation before the actors even began taking curtain calls," he recounted with delight. Wayne didn't act in the play, though he acted before Bill Hosford ... voice major in roles as diverse as the boy in Treasure Island with the Atlanta Children's Theater and the Artful Dodger in Oliver and a batboy in Damn Yankees, also in Georgia, where he lived for three years. And at Gables he was the scarecrow in last year's The Wizard of Oz. Wayne, son of Roy and Shirley Hosford, lives on SW 33rd Street and will be a scholarship music student at the University of Miami next fall. And, although he didn't act in Followers of Freedom, he did practically everything else. The plot revolved around the founding fathers from the beginning of the revolution to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Main characters are Ben Franklin (played by Ron Berliner), George Washington (Tom Berry), the narrator (Cecelle Leibmann), Abigail Adams (Heather Bettner), Betsy Ross (Cathy Crook) and Betsy's friend Mary Whitten, played with character-acting flair by Elise Adde. Hosford also speaks with admiration of Jill Ferrara. "She made all the costumes and she did such a good job that people asked where we had rented them. But rented costumes don't fit nearly as well as Jill's did. "She's only a sophomore and she made a beautiful jacket for Ben Franklin out of the old maroon curtains from the first Gables little theater." Wayne played the piano during the show and speaks of the songs he wrote for the play as "hard sell songs with a lot of tempo." He had created other songs before he did the play, but he had never written down the musical scores. "I figured I had to do it," he said, "so I took out literature from chorus and took out some classical music and played it by ear. I'm really a beginnner at it." Wayne explained that he began the songs "knowing how I wanted them to sound," One song, about a sewing bee, goes like this: "Be careful in your pattern, selective in your taste; for she that pricks her finger first, sews her quilt in haste." Looking at career plans, Wayne said he realizes, "I can't choose between music and drama. I can't sacrifice one for the other." "I'd like to be like Jerry Herman or Richard Rodgers. I had to make a decision, head myself in a direction, so I found musical theater," he explained. Wayne will be majoring in voice at the University but says he has found "acting, theater, and music are performance fields with such self expression and self satisfaction. "To me, when you are singing a song, you are acting a role."

Arts League elects new officers

The Theater Arts League has elected its officers for the upcoming year. They are: Rea Venn, president; Mrs. George (Yolly) Buchmann, first vice president; Mrs. Nelson (Georgine) Burt, second vice president; Mrs. Edward (Rose) Kruse, recording secretary; Mrs. Raymond (Poci) Fordham, corresponding secretary and Mrs. Herman (Pat) Cook, treasurer. The League presented $3,000 in Miami Dade Community College scholarships plus scholarship donations to the Players Repertory Theater, FIU's drama department, Ruth Foreman's Playhouse Theater and Women in Communication, for a total of $4,500 in 1975-1976 donations.

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