The Weiner Takes It All

Last night I had the honor of shadowing the Stage Management team for the North American tour of Mamma Mia who is here in Pittsburgh performing at Heinz Hall for a week.  As per the standard non-disclosure of being backstage on a Broadway tour I can't share a lot of details, but it was fascinating to talk to the team about how the show (especially the tour) has changed in the past 10 years that it's been running.

One striking takeaway was the power of the ensemble.  In the audience you can often tell there are actors singing who aren't on stage and they are used to help round out and give depth to songs.  In Mamma Mia, the ensemble often sings offstage just before and just after their entrances.  During "The Winner Takes It All", however, the entire ensemble stands just offstage next to the SM console and backs up the principal female vocalist onstage.  The sheer power of all those voices singing one of the more beautifully arranged pieces in the show while they were literally standing right in front of you was mind blowing and chill inducing.  There aren't a ton of benefits to being stuck behind a console in the wings without a view of the stage, but this is a definitive perk. 

Although the storyline is mostly fluff, it is certainly an energized show that is the perfect upper after a long day at work.  If you have the chance this week, I'd consider it well worth your time.

Dunkel, Dunkel Everywhere

Wow, I have really fallen off the wagon.   I was involved pretty much exclusively with our upcoming production of The Good Person of Setzuan that I barely had enough time to update our schedule for the next day before it was time to pass out.  Why so crazy you ask?  Our Director for the show, Peter Kleinert was in town for a week-long design and casting intensive.  Me being the Production Manager, this meant a lot of work.  Peter is an international Director hailing from Berlin and is one of the heads of the Ernst Busch School of Performing Arts in Germany, so it is an incredible honor to have him working with us at CMU.  We had been collaborating for the past few months through email and on Skype to create basic design concepts that would fit Peter's vision, but this visit was partially about finalizing these concepts into something that could be budgeted and hopefully approved by the end of the school year.  Additionally, Peter used his time here to meet with all the actors and make some decisions about casting (although he plans to keep it a secret until first rehearsal, sorry guys).  We also met with our Dramaturgy department to discuss the translation we are using, which is the one done by Wendy Arons and Tony Kushner.  Wendy happens to be a faculty member in our school and is still close friends with Tony, so it was enlightening to hear them talk about the translation and the decisions they made when creating it.

Although we were all clearly invested in making the most of Peter's time to ensure our milestones could be met in time, my larger goal for his visit was to establish a trusting relationship with myself and the team.  We began the week with the Scenic Designer, the Assistant Director, and myself picking him up from the airport and pointing out some key features of Pittsburgh on our drive to his hotel.  After dropping him off, the three of us decided to go out for a beer to celebrate.  About 15 minutes after we sat down, we see Peter walking down the street, he sees us, and comes in and joins us.  We spent about two hours at the bar talking about our lives, where we came from, and our concept for the production.  Within these two hours my team learned more about the show we were working on than in the previous three months of communication.  It was clear at the end of that evening he trusted our team to take good care of the show until his arrival in August to start rehearsals.  I deemed our frequent informal bar chats the remainder of the week "Production Meetings" and truly believe they were some of the most productive and relaxing production meetings I've ever been in.  If only they could all be like that.

Some Lessons Learned This Week
- There are two IKEAs in Berlin
- The German pronunciation of opera sounds a lot like a former talk show host
- A church converted into a brewery is "very American"
- When all else fails, it's "as you like"
- You look like an idiot in front of Europeans if you don't know the population of your city
- The purpose of a revolve is to make a very distinct sound and spin
- There is always time for a dunkel, no matter how many days you haven't slept

and my favorite

- It is the government's DUTY to preserve the art of theatre in times of economic crisis.

Ripley, Believe it or Not

I've been seeing a lot of theatre lately and that makes me happy.  Tonight was the Next to Normal tour, which opened at the Benedum Center this evening.

I'm not really what to say about the production so I'm going to make a modified venn diagram (my fifth grade teacher will be proud) of some fleeting thoughts in my head.

Things I Liked
Bartender with a heavy hand in the lobby (I gave in and got the sippy cup)*
Kevin Adams' lighting design, appropriate use of bumps and fades
Having the orchestra on the levels of the set and fully embracing this fact

Things I Am Unsure About
Gabe's choreography in which he always had to be squatting or leaning
A depressed teenage girl is cured by a hot guy in a blue suit
Does some poor Props guy have to sort all those pills in the bucket by color each show?

Things I Didn't Like
Union stagehands not wearing blacks who appeared on stage during transitions
Alice Ripley's voice, perhaps the worst diction I've ever heard
All sad musicals must have an uplifting flashy number at the end that makes it all okay


* Andrea Approved

Sun Never Rises on Mother Earth

This weekend I was fortunate enough to sneak away from snowy Pittsburgh and visit my undergrad, St. Mary's College of Maryland.  While clearly part of the trip was to recharge and take a mini vacation before the final 4 weeks of classes commence, the main motivation for this particular destination was to see their currently running production of Mother Hicks directed by Faculty member Holly A. Blumner.  As an alum of their theatre program, I make every effort to see as many of their mainstage productions as my schedule allows in hopes my moral support will keep the Alumni Office from calling and begging for money.  So far my plan hasn't succeeded.

Mother Hicks is another example of a play that tries to interweave stories and then falls pretty flat in the end.  Set in a rural community during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the play deals primarily with the title character Mother Hicks, a deaf and mute boy named Tuc, and an orphan conveniently named Girl.  It's a classic plot of 'blame-the-witch', where the townspeople blame any strange happenings or unexplained events on witchcraft, with this play's target being Mother Hicks, a typical dark and mysterious woman who lives up in the mountain alone.  The more interesting plots involve Tuc and Girl as Girl tries to figure out who her mother is and where she came from.  Tuc, in true theatrical convention, is often the voice of reason as those that refuse to try and communicate with him are the most misfortuned characters of the lot.  Sadly, the playwright spends what I would argue is too much time developing the witch-hunt, and only skims the surface of Tuc and Girl's stories.

Despite the dramaturgical shortcomings (and plot holes that make Pittsburgh pot holes look like dimples), Holly did an excellent job of creating a unified vision with an ensemble cast.  Impressively, the entire cast learned a simplified version of American Sign Language and much of the show was signed.  Tuc can only speak through sign, so during portions of the play where he steps in as a narrator, the entire ensemble would sign with him as his words were vocally interpreted by another cast member.  This would be an impressive undertaking even for a professional cast, so I must give them credit.  Set on a very simple stage composed mainly of a modified 3/4 trust raised deck, scenes were quickly represented with a single object or piece of furniture, which was an excellent choice given the lofty ideas trying to be tackled in the play.  An equally simple lighting and costume design kept in congruence with this staging.  In defense of the designers, often designing something that looks simple in extremely complicated, so my comments are not meant to degrade their work.

A student asked me after the show, "So what do you really think?", knowing I'm hesitant to talk about a production in the lobby afterwards since you never know who might be listening.  The star's mother is always standing right behind you hanging on to your every word, regardless of the situation.  Well, what I really think is the ensemble did a good job with what I find a less-than-good play.  My biggest issue with the script is its eco-drama assertions that come at the 11th hour and barely get off the deck.

Tuc and Girl reveal that Mother Hicks is earth, fire, water, blood...everything.  This, to me, is a pretty blunt reference to Mother Nature, yes?  The townspeople blame things on Mother Hicks, treat her poorly, and refuse to accept her healing capabilities.  As Mother Hicks recounts, "they all leave once they're healed", referencing our disassociation and even shunning of nature until we need it for something.  Our lack of understanding of our environment is no reason not to respect and embrace it's power.  In fact, there is a very real danger of trying to obtain the power of Mother Nature and being blissfully ignorant of how little control you actually have.  In a play centering on the origin and formation of identity/history and the necessity of community, these 'natural' references do have their place and I feel were highly underutilized by the writer.  Otherwise, Mother Hicks really is just a witch they say.