This year, Shaler Area High School welcomes Mr. Anthony Martello to the performing arts department as the new musical director.

The Woodland Hills graduate is now taking over the responsibility of Shaler Area’s spring musical. He’s been on the stage ever since the age of two, and he is now behind the scenes, ready to direct a wonderful show.

Martello has a long history in theater, starting dance at the age of just two years old. At fifteen, he started teaching dance as well, at Lorraine Busch Dance Center. In his childhood, he joined Larry Cervi’s East End Kids Performance Group, similar to a glee club; they would perform for nursing homes, the school for blind children, and even at the Arts Festival.

Musicals are not something new to Martello, though. Throughout middle school and high school, he performed in Woodland Hills’ productions of “Pippin”, “Les Misérables”, “Beauty and the Beast”, and “Wizard of Oz”, with lead roles of Cogsworth and The Scarecrow his junior and senior year.

Not only does he have experience performing, but he also has experience as a director. He choreographed four shows for Woodland Hills junior high; “High School Musical Junior”, “Seussical”, “Aladdin”, and “Guys and Dolls”. Even after graduating, Martello continued to be involved in performing when he got the opportunity to play Bobby Strong in “Urinetown” at Pitt-Greensburg.

Martello is now part of a Woodland Hills Alumni Facebook group, where he learned about the opening for Shaler Area’s position. Once he was offered the job and he accepted it, he was able to go through resumes and pick who he wanted to interview for the other positions.

This is not a given for all school districts, so being given a final say in who he’d be working with made him feel a lot more comfortable going into this. Since he doesn’t know any students, being able to build his own team has given him a stronger sense of hope in what they will be able to achieve.

“It was really exciting to be able to pick my team and have a team I was confident and comfortable with, that way it was a group effort instead of just me trying to do everything,” he said.

It is now almost a year into the pandemic, and things are still not “back to normal,” but Martello is ready for whatever issues may come his way. Outside of the normal challenges of directing a musical, he has the extra challenge of dealing with the restrictions from the pandemic.

Everything from where they can do the show, to if they can be on stage, if they will have to be outside, where they can be outside, masks, is all going to be different. Even so, he says that he and the directors are ready and eager to be creatively challenged.

“There are challenges. I’m not gonna pretend like they aren’t. I’m not naive to them… At the end of the day my priority is the safety of the students and the adults involved; that’s number one. After that it’s putting on a good show and making sure the kids have a good time. If I can keep everyone safe and put on a good product and make sure the kids are happy, then I’m good,” Martello said.

Martello is not completely unknowing of what Shaler Area High School’s performing arts has to offer, though. He was able to see “Shrek”, so he has a solid gauge of what he will be working with this year.

“This is an established program where the quality of the show is high. My challenge is to not only maintain that quality but build upon it… to see how much we can do with it,” he said.

Because of the timing of his hiring, Martello decided to conduct auditions in a different way this year. Normally a show is selected and auditions are held for that show. This year, auditions were held prior to a show being selected to help the directors see what type of talent is available.

Regardless of the show, Martello has a vision for what he wants from his program.

“There’s one thing I do want to make abundantly clear: I know what good a healthy high school theater program can do for a student who may be struggling or may feel left out, or feel like an outcast, or just might need a place where they feel comfortable and confident and welcomed,” he said. “Everything I do, I do out of love. Every rehearsal, every schedule I make, every casting decision, is made out of love. There are times that I have to make decisions that are best for the group and I want to make the environment the best for the group. It’s important for me to make sure people understand that I want to build an inclusive, welcoming, loving environment where students feel cared for and comfortable to express themselves as true as they can.”