Final curtain: Choral director leads her last musical - Dalian HorizonSure Technologies Group

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BEVERLY — When you’ve directed 30 musicals, it's tough to name a favorite. Instead, longtime Beverly High School choral director Carolyn Pilanen-Kudlik remembers moments.

Like the year they performed "West Side Story." The cast included a mix of students — the captain of the football team, exchange students from Spain and South America, students from the special needs Accomplish program.

When the lights came up for the dream sequence, a rainbow appeared on the white backdrop. The cast members, all wearing yellow and pink T-shirts and white pants, held hands and stepped forward to do a ballet.

"Different groups of kids were actually coming together in our musical," Pilanen-Kudlik recalled. "Every night when we did that scene I would tear up."

Pilanen-Kudlik will have one more chance at creating such memories this weekend when she directs her 31st — and final — spring musical at Beverly High School. After 38 years as a music teacher in Beverly, she will retire at the end of the school year.

"I’m thrilled for her and I want to cry at the same time," said Deb Debski, who has volunteered to sew costumes for the muscials for the last 15 years. "’Bittersweet’ would be the word. She gives her heart and soul. Watching her with these kids is absolutely amazing."

Pilanen-Kudlik, 60, said teaching music and directing choirs and spring musicals has been "my dream job."

"The kids in the arts are the kindest kids. They always have been," she said. "They sometimes tend to be the kids who are a little different, and I think that's why they’re so kind to each other because they bond with their differences. I think that's why I’ve been teaching so long, because I enjoy the kids so much."

Along with touching memories like the one from "West Side Story," Pilanen-Kudlik has accumulated lots of funny stories as well. During a production of "Beauty and the Beast," a student in a catwalk above the stage was pulling up an effigy of the beast with a fishing pole, only to have it slip and crash to the stage. One year during "Sweeney Todd," a stomach bug went through the cast, forcing the crew to set up buckets back stage, just in case.

"They say the show must go on, and it went on," Pilanen-Kudlik said.

Pilanen-Kudlik said the musicals became almost an extension of her home when her two sons, Peter and Josh, were young. Her husband had passed away, so Pilanen-Kudlik would bring the boys to rehearsals. They were around so much she decided to put them in the shows. They played everything from cowboys to village people to the mice that turned into footmen in "Cinderella."

When her sons reached high school, both became involved in the musicals on the tech side, one on lights, the other on sound.

"I can remember the closing show of ‘Beauty and the Beast’, I had one son on my right hand and one son on my left hand," Pilanen-Kudlik said. "If I could have frozen time, that would be it."

"The community of Beverly has been amazing to me," she said. "The community helped me raise my kids. When I was here with their children, they were taking my kids to soccer practice. They became my friends and my community — my family."

Pilanen-Kudlik — "Ms. P.K." to her students — said she could not have made it through so many years and so many shows without the volunteers who helped out when their kids were in school and remained for years after. Lee Nadeau started building sets when his daughter was a freshman. Twenty-three years later, he's still doing it. One year he and Pilanen-Kudlik teamed up on a contraption for "Singin’ in the Rain" that directed water through an overhead PVC pipe to make it rain on stage, then funneled the water off-stage into sink.

"It got a little messy," Nadeau said.

"She's really dedicated to the kids," Nadeau said of Pilanen-Kudlik. "To her, everybody's equal. She's like a second mother to them. They respect her. They would not do anything to upset Ms. P.K."

Debski also mentioned how much students respect Pilanen-Kudlik. "When she raises her hand and gives the signal, there is dead silence," Debski said. "She has their attention. It's simply magical, it really is."

Zoe Richard, a senior who is playing the lead role in this year's production of "Funny Girl," said Pilanen-Kudlik is "genuinely the best teacher I’ve ever had."

"She's very understanding if things go wrong," Richard said. "That's rare. Everyone can tell she just loves her job."

Pilanen-Kudlik said the job has gotten more difficult since the pandemic. Three years ago "Cinderella" got cancelled after the first dress rehearsal. Two years ago, when singing was not allowed in the building due to COVID, Pilanen-Kudlik produced a show by recording students as they sang at home, videotaping them as they danced with masks on at school, and using green-screen technology to create scenery. Parents and students were invited to an opening night to watch the show on the big screen in the auditorium.

To make matters worse, Pilanen-Kudlik contracted long COVID. She said she can't put in the long hours that she used to, so this year she has a co-director for the first time, Aaron Swiniuch, who directs the musicals at Beverly Middle School (and was a piano student of hers in second grade).

Pilanen-Kudlik said the numbers in her choral program are way down since the pandemic. Attendance at the spring musicals, which used to attract people from the wider community, not just parents of the performers, has also been down. She's hoping a new choral director can revive interest.

But for her, the show is about to come to an end. Peter and Josh, the former Cinderella footmen, are starting their families and she wants to spend time with them, including a grandaughter.

Sitting on stage before rehearsal earlier this week, she said, "I want to have time to be with my kids because they were here with me so much."

"Funny Girl" will be held Friday and Saturday at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Beverly High School auditorium. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. Tickets are available at https://bhs.beverlyschools.org or at the door.

Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at [email protected], or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.

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