‘Half Time’ on stage at Theatre Three through June 22

Candace McCready stood center stage, rapping her heart out.

The actress, 57, is one of nine local actors over 50 in the Long Island premiere of “Half Time,” running through June 22 at Theatre Three in Port Jefferson. Adapted from the documentary “Gotta Dance,” the musical tells the story of a senior dance team that performed for the New Jersey Nets from 2006 to 2015.

McCready’s character, Dorothy/Dottie, is based on a woman in the documentary — a kindergarten teacher who is secretly a fan of hip-hop and loves to quote Tupac Shakur. Not so with McCready, who despite years of dance training has never studied hip-hop and has had to work hard to pick up the style. But it’s worth it, she said.

“When you get older, you’ve got to keep your mind going, keep your body going,” she said, adding that “it’s really good to learn new things.”

But, yes, the Selden resident acknowledged, “it was a little intimidating.” It’s important to McCready that she honors the spirit of the dance style. “I don’t want to be making fun of it,” she said. “I don’t want people to laugh at a chunky old lady doing rap.”

Jeffrey Sanzel, the theater’s executive artistic director and director of the show, said the production asks a lot of its cast members.

“It’s very different for us,” said Sanzel, who discovered the show when he was sent a highlight tape of a production at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey. The Theatre Three season began with “Matilda,” a musical about empowering children, on the schedule for fall 2024, and he decided to end it with “Half Time,” a show that was “a celebration of people of a certain age.”

“The script is funny and smart and very human,” he said. “One of the things I love is that it’s not afraid to be raw and honest.”

It also allowed him to draw upon “the wealth of older actresses on Long Island,” Sanzel said.

“Usually there’s just one role in a show,” he said. “This was a great opportunity to bring together all these strong performers. That never happens.”

The show is not a duplicate of the film, but what’s fascinating, said Sanzel, is that “most of the things in the musical are based in truth.” Even the humor is based in reality, he said. But when you step away from it, “the film really confronts what it is to age in a society that is obsessed with youth.”

And that’s exactly the message Dori Berinstein set out to convey when she created “Gotta Dance.” The Broadway producer (“Legally Blonde,” “The Prom”) also wrote and produced documentaries in Hollywood where she said she was “shocked by the blatant ageism.” It was very different from Broadway, she said in an interview with Newsday, “where age is embraced and respected.”

Berinstein said she wanted to speak out on the issue, but struggled with the best approach. “I wanted to figure out a clever way,” she said. “I didn’t want to make a preachy documentary that only people who agreed with me would see.” She sat on it for a few years, then out of the blue saw a newspaper article announcing the New Jersey Nets were holding auditions for a senior dance team — only those 60 and over need apply.

“I thought that could be a really interesting way into the issue,” Berinstein recalled. “A way to say age doesn’t matter unless you’re a cheese.” So she showed up, camera in hand, and talked her way into the audition. The documentary, released in 2008, followed the 13 seniors as they went about their lives while learning how to perform hip-hop for their first performance in front of some 20,000 fans.

FILM TO STAGE

As she was making the film, Berinstein started to think the story was perfect for the stage. “This was obviously a story that would sing and dance,’’ she said. She screened the documentary for renowned Broadway director Jerry Mitchell, he loved it and they were off. The musical debuted in 2013 in Chicago, and after some tinkering — and later a name change to “Half Time” to avoid some confusion about the show’s connection to Gene Kelly — it opened at Paper Mill Playhouse in 2018. The stars included Broadway heavy hitters like Lillias White, André De Shields and Donna McKechnie, of “Chorus Line” fame. (“Chorus Line” composer Marvin Hamlisch wrote several songs for “Gotta Dance” before he died in 2012.)

Despite their credentials, none of the older actors in “Half Time” had any experience with hip-hop. The actors at Theatre Three are in the same boat. “It’s all new to me,” said Linda May, 62, of Port Jefferson, a local actress who last summer took on the leading role in “King Lear” at Carriage House Players in Centerport. “Hip-hop makes our bodies move in a different way,” said May, pointing out that she has arthritis and a bad knee. The choreographer, Josie McSwane, keeps asking us if we can “get any lower.” May’s response: “Not much, I won’t be able to get back up.”

With little formal dance training, Mount Sinai resident Marci Bing found hip-hop especially tricky. Performing on Long Island since 1971, Bing, 79, said she was always able to pick up whatever choreography was thrown at her. But hip-hop is “a whole new ballgame,” she said. She turns to younger cast members to help her get a handle on the style, what she likes to call “the dirt of it.”

Passionate about hip-hop, McSwane loves teaching the history and culture of the dance style to the senior cast, down to the correct names of some of the moves — tutting, robocop, the Steve Martin. “Any style takes time to perfect,” said McSwane, 34, of Center Moriches. “But they’re starting to look good,” she said after a rehearsal in early May. “It’s really all about confidence.”

And that is what makes the show so relatable, she said. The first-act finale is called “Swagger,” and she believes everyone in the cast is developing their own individuality and style. “To quote the show,” she said, “age is just a number.”

THE MAN IN THE DANCE LINE

Jack Seabury, 57, of Shirley, plays Ron, the lone man on the dance team, a dejected guy who hangs out in his basement as he mourns the death of his wife. Encouraged by his daughter-in-law to try out, he eventually comes out of his shell, even embarking on a new romance.

“When a whole cast works together, it’s just magic,” Seabury said. “The show is a lot more poignant than I thought it would be.” And it also points out how relevant hip-hop can be to an older person. The characters talk about this, he said, reminding that Dorothy/Dottie sings about how hip-hop is loud and angry. “Isn’t that how aging adults feel?” he continued. “You feel like you got left behind, you get angry, you want to yell at people because they just pass you by.”

The message hits home for the entire cast. “It is so true,” said May. “As senior citizens, we are ignored, kind of shuffled to the back … just because we’re older doesn’t mean we’re not vital people.” The show sends the message that seniors can be energetic, enthusiastic and strong, Bing said. “I love the idea of acknowledging you can be a senior and not just sit in a chair,” she said. “You don’t have to conform to how a lot of people look at us. Your mind is never the age you really are.”

People get impatient with the elderly, said Phyllis March, whose character finds the dance team an escape as she deals with her husband’s dementia. The Medford resident doesn’t care to reveal her exact age (70-something, she said), an issue Berinstein picked up on when filming the documentary. The NETSationals uniforms had their ages emblazoned on the back. That was done away with in the stage show, where all the numbers are 00 and are on the front of the jerseys.

March recognizes that many seniors lose their identity when they retire. “Thankfully,” she said, “I have theater.” She hopes the show will inspire others to find their passion. “It’s not a selfish thing,” March said, urging other retirees to revisit activities “you put on the back burner” because of your responsibilities.

“Think of it as ‘me time.’ ”

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