Craig Wilderman sits in North Posey High School’s auditorium watching the teenaged actors on stage. Behind him, his stage manager runs lines for the actors who have not yet made it to play practice. Some of them show up after cheerleading or academic bowl practice. They silently enter the auditorium; carefully closing the doors behind them, drop their books and jackets in a free chair and hurry on stage. Some of them quietly take their place in whatever scene is onstage, some stand in the wings awaiting their cues; others report backstage with a crew. Wilderman stops the actors mid-scene and instructs them on delivery and pacing. “You need to slow down, you’re rushing it,” he says.
Wilderman, who graduated from North Posey High School in 1998, has treaded the same boards as the young actors now on stage. He sang, danced and performed in three productions: The Music Man, West-side Story and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. You may remember him; he was the one in the wheelchair. Wilderman can’t remember ever not being in a chair. He was born with spinal muscular atrophy, which is a motor neuron disease that affects the muscles of the body, most specifically, the shoulders, hips, and back.
But he was also born with determination, a spark of creativity and a close-knit family. All three of those things propelled him to work toward an associates in graphic design at Ivy Tech and then transfer to Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in University Studies with an emphasis in fine and performing arts in 2005. While at SIU, he found his way back onstage, acting and singing in a variety of college productions. “ There is such an immediate gratification when you are onstage. You really feed off the audience,” said Wilderman.
When he returned home, it seemed a natural that Wilderman would gravitate back to where it all began for him, his alma mater. “North Posey doesn’t have a funded theatre arts program like other high schools have, they really depend on volunteers, or the arts die right there. I thought the kids deserved to have an experience like I had,” he said. But he knew he couldn’t do it alone. He turned to his close-knit extended family of parents, siblings, cousins and aunts and uncles to assist in the scene building, prop making, choreography, fundraising and costume making the theatre requires. “I have a rather extensive network,” Wilderman says smiling. “And I have very good powers of persuasion.”
It didn’t take too much persuasion for his cousin Jared Hipp to agree to be Wilderman’s co-director. Hipp thought it sounded like fun and it was a good chance for family to spend some time together. “ The best part about working with family members is that you know you can really count on them. The most fun part is that you actually get to hang around with them before the world pulls you apart in different directions. It is neat to spend time with people you really like,” said Hipp. He recalls with a smile that directing seemed a natural step for the two of them to take together. As youngsters, they would spend a lot of time writing little scenes together. Then they would recruit other cousins to act in their scenes. They would tape the scenes on Wilderman’s parent’s enormous, old, side-loading VHS videocassette recorder. Wilderman remembers making his young cousins rehearse and rehearse until he thought they got the scene just right. “I was kind of an uptight director back then,” he says with a smile. “ The poor kids probably felt like crying after they got done.” Interestingly enough, two of those little actors, Wilderman’s sister, Jill Wilderman ended up in Hollywood as a news producer for television and host for YoungHollywood.com and cousin Chad Seib ended up on Broadway in Mary Poppins.
Both Wilderman and Hipp concede that directing young adults, who are not much older than they are, can be a challenge. “It is like being a parent, only you are a parent of 33 kids. Sometimes it is hard to get everyone focused and on the same page. These are busy kids. They work part-time jobs; they have lots of other activities they are involved in. Most of the time it is controlled chaos in here,” said Wilderman.
Most rehearsals find Wilderman pacing in his wheel chair. He is constantly in motion. He calls out cues to the light and sound booth, he interrupts scenes to give instructions, and he confers with a crew person who has come from back stage with questions. “From where Jared and I are, you get a different perspective of how a show really comes together. You see it at the beginning when it is raw and new and then it magically comes together. These kids are the real deal. You have to tip your hat to them for getting the show together so quick. It has been really trying sometimes with all those snow days and sickness,” says Wilderman. “These kids are really motivated.”
Wilderman had some doubts about mounting a musical production. Last year, the duo co-directed a comedy, Pirates of the Midwest. We were exhausted. But the kids here are so talented we wanted to come back another year. “I knew we had it in us to do a musical. Last year was so terrific, I thought the kids deserved one,” said Hipp. “We just had to find one that spoke to us.” They looked through the traditional musicals and came up uninspired. So they decided to give something nontraditional a shot. When they happened upon the synopsis for Back to the 80’s-The Totally Awesome Musical, they were intrigued. “The logo had us hooked. It looked just like the logo for the movie Back to the Future. I was certain we had a winner. So we ordered the script, 
read it and laughed all the way through it,” remembers Hipp. “We love 80’s music and it is written around all those great classic 80’s pop songs. We knew it was the one for us.”
Like a combination of a John Hughes film and the television show, The Wonder Years, Back to the 80’s is told through a flashback of the narrator’s high school years of angst, unrequited love and hormones. Like any good 80’s teen movie, there are the prerequisite jocks, cheerleaders, popular kids, misfits and nerds maneuvering through their last year in high school, class elections and prom. The musical’s characters are all loosely based on characters from 80’s sitcoms and pop singers. Corey Palmer is the everyman, hero of the musical who pines for popular girl Tiffany Houston, who aspires to be a combination of Cyndi Lauper and Madonna. She is good friends with Corey but is busy mooning over bad boy/coolest boy in school, Michael Feldman, to notice Corey’s love for her. Their tales of love and woe are set to classic 80’s pop such as Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, Girl Just Wanna Have Fun and Footloose, sung and danced by the young actors of North Posey High School.
“The guys were definitely motivated about the dances. Surprisingly, they have been the ones staying after rehearsal for extra practice. They are the ones showing the girls the dance moves,” laughs Wilderman. “They have been a lot of fun to watch.”
The musical is liberally sprinkled with references to 80’s pop culture from when Michael Jackson was the king of pop to when Atari was the coolest game around. It also plays homage to movies like Star Wars and The Karate Kid. Hipp and Wilderman are certain they won’t be the only ones laughing. The parent’s of most of their actors and crew were in high school and college in the 80’s and they are certain they will catch all the references to their own “wonder years”.
On stage, it is the beginning of the school day and the actors sit in desks, their backs to the audience. The teacher takes attendance, droning tonelessly through his list of names when he drops a little gem inspired right out of Ferris Buehler’s Day Off. The teacher reaches the name of a character named Alf Bueller. “Bueller… Bueller ….Bueller..” he deadpans. Obviously young Bueller, like his movie counterpart, has taken the day off. Out in the auditorium, behind Wilderman and his stage manager, someone has made the made the connection and laughs out loud. The stage manager turns around and so do a handful of the actors on stage. They smile. Wilderman is lost in the scene. He is watching the actor as he continues taking attendance. “Bueller ... Bueller ….” He continues before moving on to the next name on his list.
Back to the 80’s runs March 14-16. The Friday and Saturday shows open at 7 p.m. Sunday matinee is at 3 p.m. General admission is $7; $5 for students.
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