Penultimate

I just finished tweaking a bit of choreography that I will be teaching on Saturday.  It’s finally here – we gather for the first time to create at 10 a.m.   The cast and artistic staff have been waiting for nearly two months to start the rehearsal process.  We get to explore the story of a dead theater alive with memories of those who have been touched by it.  We’re getting ready for an explosion of emotions.

So now is the time to say good bye to everyone.  This will be my second to last blog about this show.  It’s time to create theater and not talk about it.  My notes now will be with cast and will be applied to making a show come alive.  To respect the privacy of creating and the desire to protect those who will now emotionally open themselves up and try different things, silence is needed.  Rehearsal needs to be a safe place for creating the story.  The challenges we face together need to stay in rehearsal.  This helps the show grow.

I’m also going to unpublish my older blogs.  They are yardsticks for the artistic process now and filled with hopes and dreams for the show.  The time is now for making it real and no matter what I’ve written about the plan and hope for Follies, it will now become a reality and assuredly not line up perfectly with the plan.  It will be better because it will come alive.  Come and see the reality in April.  The dreaming now becomes hard work. Reality beckons.

I will write one last time about the experience of Follies.  I’ll do that in May and do a post-mortem.  Stay tuned.

Braining Yourself

Happy New Year! It’s now design crunch time in Follies Land. (Kinda reminds you of Candy Land, doesn’t it?) Brains are working overtime.

Technical artists are hovered over their desks. They are drafting set drawings and footprints, makeup plots for each actor, costume drawings of Dresden dolls, 18^th century French romantic cavaliers and Marie-Antoinette-ish models of love’s idylls. And showgirls and ghosts, of course, are in the design mix – headdresses too. Property and set dressing inventories are being created and scouring for these items will start. Drawing the line between what’s part of the set build and what belongs to set dressing, what’s a personal prop vs. part of a costume, and where hair ends, makeup begins, and headdresses continue is all being worked out and worked on.

It’s the time when ideas are finally crystallized and the formation of creative thoughts and dreams gets set into cold reality. It’s also the time when communication among artists is really important. The members of a design team – and right now it’s this one – have to avoid ‘silo-ing’ themselves. That can be hard. The artist wants to create without outside constraint and yet the very nature of theater and putting all the design elements together requires collaboration. And collaborating may lead to compromise on some things. Ideally, designs will be great and they will hang together without effort. I’ve not seen that happen. They hang together because of inspired work, communication and collaboration.

How many times have we seen an incredibly built and designed realistic set that is not at all used by director in the staging of the show? Or a lighting design that is murky and dark in a light-hearted comedy. I’m not saying these can’t work if there is theme or message that needs to be stressed, but these things often happen because designers leading the production have not talked or agreed on a common direction. Collaborating is tough and requires communication.

So I met with Jared, the set designer, and Hal, the lighting designer, this past week to look at the current draft of the set design. Jared is really creative and has conceptualized some really cool ideas – a couple of them are ‘scathingly brilliant.’ He went in a direction on few ideas that were different from where I am, so I’m relooking at the entire blocking/choreography of the show this weekend and seeing how it would work. We’re meeting again next week to walk through the show and to look at the current set design’s strengths and weaknesses. With this in mind, we’ll determine what the next iteration should be. This is a lot of work for me this weekend and I’ve cleared my schedule to do this. Jared’s drawn several pictures of the set – it looks really cool, as well as crafting a scale model. I’ll post the pictures when we’ve fleshed the concept out more, if it’s ok with him.

The set of Follies focuses on two major looks – the broken down theater for most of the show and the ‘Loveland’ sequence where the theater comes back to life to present the ‘follies’ of Buddy, Ben, Phyllis, and Sally. Creating a real look of a broken down theater sounds like a simple thing to do, but doing that so that the theater mess looks haphazard (and yet isn’t), that there is a reunion party taking place, ghosts and memories because of their nature can come and go pretty much anywhere, intimate conversations in the middle of the party can be felt and heard, and party dancing can morph into productions numbers is a multi-dimensional challenge. Having the broken down theater transform in 16 bars of music into a quality vaudeville set of yesteryear that fills the stage, and then, after Ben’s breakdown, having it deconstruct to what it was is quite a challenge. On top of that, the vaudeville look from set and painting to costumes to lights must meld into that musical theater, polished look. Creativity and collaboration for these designers must occur to make this happen.

Kevin, the costume designer, is focused like a laser on the look, having drawn and re-drawn sketches for the chorus girls in “Who’s that Woman?” and the showgirls (who get to wear incredible feather headdresses) to make them look just the way he envisions them, judiciously selecting fabric and cut. Of course, Kevin got most of the cast measurements in December so knowing those details will help move the design and build forward. Digital pictures of the actors are serving as the basis for Bette, and Avery to create the makeup and hair design. The day is coming where we’ll be using computer-aided design software to morph the look of an actor, applying different makeup foundation, highlights and hair design and wigs. Right now, it’s by hand.

Kate, props and set dressing designer, and I meet this weekend to pound out details. Real food props are in this show, among other things. Sam and Linda are tasked with a special blocking assignment that focuses on the party-goers in the first act. J. Michael, Leah, and I need to work out the discrepancy between the score and script in the scene where chaos ensues after Ben’s breakdown. Funny how the score does one thing while the script does another – how many times have I seen that with older scores and scripts…. (Don’t ever look at the script, vocal parts, and score to Peter Pan unless you want a migraine.)

Besides that, I’m working my brain, too, during these days before rehearsal starts. I’m re-working choreography to fit the skills of the cast. The biggest brain challenge, however, is taking this sizable cast and its conflicts, and working them into a schedule that 1) allots the necessary amount of time to stage a scene or numbers, 2) minimizes the impact of absences of actors to fellow actors, 3) makes certain that actors who must develop relationships have the time in rehearsal to do this, 4) does not short change teaching the music, dance, or drama in a scene, and 5) ensures that show is built in a way that allows it to be stitched together so it gets up in the fastest time possible.

I think it’s like playing three-dimensional chess – every time you make a move, it impacts other moves on multiple layers. I’ve been knocking around rehearsal rescheduling for a few weeks and still am not satisfied with the revised schedule. This is one of those things that is not much fun that a director (or in some cases, the stage manager) must do in order to do their job. It’s the equivalent to practicing scales in music or doing plies in dance. They are not fun, but they are necessary to do in order to move on to the more enjoyable tasks. If you do it incorrectly, you’ll suffer the consequences.

Even after a revised schedule is finally determined, I’ve never led a production that did not have to have the entire schedule revamped about half way through anyway. Certain things take longer to do, others take shorter time, and new obstacles appear that could not have been known that affect the timeline and schedule.

Time – it’s our enemy now. Tick-tock, tick-tock until April 17.

For additional information about the production itself, go to The Arlington Players website: www.thearlingtonplayers.org.

If you have questions for the director, feel free to respond to the blog or email him at folliesdirector@gmail.com. Responses to the blog may be posted publicly; email correspondence will be private.

Decisions

A week ago, we held the first meeting of the cast of Follies. A cast of 47 and counting, it was a large gathering. Younger and older, men and women, alto belters and lyric sopranos, tenors and baritones, dancers and movers, actors all met to review the rehearsal schedule and upcoming plans, listen to concepts, get measured for costumes, have pictures taken for makeup and hair design, and really just get to meet each other. Actors looked at each other curiously, especially those that will play younger or older counterparts. They peered into each others faces, in sideway glances, looking for the person they were or would become. It was fascinating.

There was a focused energy with this cast. As each person introduced them self – and introductions took the better part of an hour – there was a sense of delight in being cast and also a sense of humility. There was an expectation that each of them was part of a team of really talented people who were ready to tackle this story. There was talk of past experience in theater, association The Arlington Players, love of Sondheim, love of Follies, and a bit of reminiscing and remembering how long some have known each other. The cast has some who are doing their first show since high school and others who have acted professionally in DC theater. The story of self was shared with humor and seriousness. The cast has a good, smooth feel to it.

How did these people come together and what of the others who auditioned but were not cast? Well, close to 90 people went through the audition process and a select group of these people was asked to callbacks. Callbacks for Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy took place for three hours on a Friday evening, and there was six hours of callbacks on a Saturday for the other older and younger Weissman girls and the other men’s parts. Dancing, singing, and acting were in full view. The results were delightfully impressive. Looking at the skills of the actors auditioning, I could honestly say that we had the skills to put up this production. I’m pretty happy when I can say that.

I’ve always been of the opinion that auditions are for the artistic staff to meet and assess the actor. My opinion of callbacks is a bit different. While it is for the artistic staff to further assess and decide on casting, callbacks are the time that the actor has a chance to assess the artistic staff. Is the production organized? Is time well spent and managed? Are the direction and artistic choices that are revealed something that I can work with as an actor? The actor’s judgment for callbacks is a key element in the final casting. If I offer a part to an actor, that person is on the spot making a decision to commit several months of their life to being a part of a production. It’s important that as a part of the artistic team that the actor feel confident in their commitment. I propose and s/he accepts – or not – depending on the experience at the auditions and callbacks.

So the artistic staff must be on their mettle for the actors. As a choreographer, I tend to create an audition combination that is not in the production but rather a mix of steps and skills that I need to check to see if the actor can do the dance planned. At callbacks, I unveil – and this is marketing the show, seeking to gain the confidence of the dancers, and plain auditioning – a piece of choreography created for the production. In the case of the Follies, I lifted a piece of rather challenging choreography that I made for the dance break for Phyllis’ folly, The Story of Lucy and Jessie. For me, it was great to see the choreography take shape and see the skill of those auditioning. For those dancing, they got a taste of what is to come and can a make a decision about joining the cast, if chosen.

Years ago, when I was auditioning regularly, I remember being aghast at a director’s behavior when I declined a part for which I auditioned. The audition process was disorganized and rather confusing, and after I auditioned, I had a bad feeling about it. I was invited to callbacks and I went, keeping an open mind and hoping that my initial reaction was wrong (and like most actors choosing to audition, I REALLY wanted to be in this show). The artistic staff left me wary. The callback was a bit disorganized. The music director did seem to understand the show’s music. The choreographer seemed intimidated by any one that may have had more skill or training. The director was sphinx-like and kept reading people in combinations but gave no insight on what was being wanted in a scene. As I left the callback, I remember deciding that this production was not a good fit for me. When I declined the part offered, the director became aggressive and though not quite belligerent, that’s the best word I have to describe the behavior when I declined the offer. It struck me at that moment that being cast was ultimately was my decision as an actor.

So I really think that the actor has the final say about being cast. That said, the casting decisions for Follies were very, very difficult, because of the talent and skill of the actors who auditioned. Directors love having choices that way, but they can despise them too, because decisions on casting are not simple and clear-cut. There can be so much gray in a choice, and the nuance of an actor’s skill with another actor’s skill becomes the basis of the decision against the director’s vision for the story. This, no matter how you approach it, comes to a decision that is a leap of faith in the actor and one of the imagination. Musicals, by the very nature of collaboration among the director, choreographer and music director, demand that these people come to the decision together. It’s not easy.

So, hard decisions were made. A cast was chosen. Some of those I cast I have never worked with. Others I have cast more recently, while still others I worked with more than a decade or more ago. But isn’t that what happens with nearly every production – familiar, old, and new combine to create something fresh?

Now comes the part of reworking the rehearsal schedule to accommodate conflicts and share that with the cast, and then – back the tech table. Final set decisions need to be pounded out with Jared. Choreography and staging needs to be re-worked and polished based on those decisions. Costume construction continues and grows in Kevin’s euphemistic ‘sweat shop.’ Avery and Bette start crafting the face and hair in detail of the Weissman girls. Kate works up the prop list and set dressing plans for discussion. I need to review with Linda and Sam the staging and their planned scene work. The choreographer will workshop The Right Girl with Buddy, and the Bolero d’Amour with Vincent, Vanessa, Young Vincent and Vanessa over the next couple months. Time is a-moving.

Seasons greetings! Have a great holiday season and New Year.

For additional information about the production itself, go to The Arlington Players website: www.thearlingtonplayers.org.

If you have questions for the director, feel free to respond to the blog or email him at folliesdirector@gmail.com. Responses to the blog may be posted publicly; email correspondence will be private.

People Who Need People

Theater is made up of people – people dreaming, people creating, people talking, people collaborating, cooperating, acting, rehearsing, fighting, imagining, pushing, listening, watching, learning, building, painting, sewing, hammering, yelling, crying, relaxing, smiling, frowning, judging, leading, following…. People do all these actions and more in order to tell a story.

Musical theater adds a couple of other dimensions – teaching music, singing, conducting, choreographing, dancing – to its arsenal of actions. In order to do all these things to create a good story, it takes people. If the musical is a large one, it takes lots of people and a team of creative leaders who work together with the goal of – to put it in the immortal words of Stephen Sondheim from Sunday in the Park with George – “putting it together.” I marvel and reflect every time I direct a musical at the sheer amount of human hours and energy it takes to put up on. Take a walk around backstage, the front of house, in the dressing rooms, and in the theater two days from opening and see what you see: a couple hundred people are giving their time and energy to make the musical come alive.

So I’m going to talk about the people leading this production of Follies – and, at this time of thanksgiving, the holidays, and a new year with the hope of a new beginning – say how grateful I am to them for their participation and creativity as we embark on this journey. They are a creative group of people who collaborate. Artistic, tough in assessing themselves, good listeners, good talkers and just plain good people, these artists will all contribute mightily. I’m only referring to them by their first names.

I’m directing and choreographing. Besides me, there is the music director J. Michael (JM) and the conductor Leah. Several years back, they formed a partnership where JM oversees the teaching of the music with the cast and rehearsals, while Leah manages the orchestra and its performance. I’ve known JM for almost ten years – I directed him in Damn Yankees in 1999 and was fortunate to work with him as director-music director in a production of A Chorus Line in 2000. It’s been eight years since we worked together as director-music director and I’m enjoying working together again. Plus, you’ll never find a kinder person. I have not worked with Leah as a director, but her insight and preparation are tops, as are her orchestras. She really commands the tempo and dynamics of her music.  She balances orchestral sound perfectly and also balances it beautifully with the vocals. I love her musicianship; I cannot wait to hear what she does with this score.

I have two assistant directors for Follies, Linda and Sam, to help with scene work, character development, and managing this cast of size. We have spent time over the past few months developing our team and we are poised to support the actors as they approach this piece. Linda has served as my assistant for many productions from 1995-2000, so it’s been a while since we have worked together – how fun it is to re-connect with an old artistic buddy. Linda and I met in a “crucible” – a production of Peter Pan at TAP in the early 1990s where she served as music director and I co-choreographed. That production was troubled and not very good, but I found that that experience gave me so much insight on how to trouble shoot problems with a show. This is my first time working with Sam as an assistant, but I directed him in Ragtime in 2005. A fine actor and a man with an even temperament and excellent communication skills, he’s a natural for directing. I’m glad we have this chance to work together.

The stage management team is headed by Terri. Terri has been one of the go-to stage managers in Northern Virginia for more than 20 years now, and you’ll never find someone as decisive and yet considerate. She first stage managed a show I directed in 1999 when she led my production of 1776. What I enjoy about Terri is that she really develops a feel, for not only the actors (who always love her), but for the rhythm of the piece that I try to build as director. It’s very easy to hand over the reins of the show to her during tech week. She has enlisted two assistants: Dina, who has ASM-ed many of Terri’s and my shows, and Lou, who stage managed TAP’s first production of Follies in 1988. This was a landmark production directed by Jack Marshall and music directed by Tom Fuller, and it has inspired many productions since. We follow in their large footsteps.

The theater producing Follies is The Arlington Players, based in Arlington, VA, which has a mission of presenting its theater in the grand style, and it stages its productions at the Thomas Jefferson Theatre, a 700+ seat theater with a proscenium stage that has a thrust. It’s a challenging space. Fortunately, we have real technical artists involved as we approach this venue – some of the best that DC has to offer for creating a show technically.

The Arlington Players and the Division of Cultural Affairs of Arlington County have a long history of collaboration. For Follies, two members of the Division’s technical staff agreed to design the set and lights respectively, Jared and Hal. This is my first time working with Jared. He has impressed Arlington audiences with his designs at the Thomas Jefferson Theatre with such productions as Kiss Me, Kate, Guys and Dolls, Noises Off, and most recently, …Forum. He’s incredibly creative and an amazing painter. I love the fact that the drops he paints mystify theatergoers – so many think that they are rented. His creativity will be front and center in Follies.

As for Hal, he was one that I hoped would design the lights for this production. As technical director of the Division, he does not design as much as he used to, which is a loss for all of us. I first worked with Hal in 1995 when he designed lights for my production of On the Town. His use of color and light for the jazz ballets was something both lovely and haunting. He’ll be able to put that vision to good use with the ghosts of Follies. I’m honored to work with him on this.

Keith is slated for our sound design. I’ve known Keith for years and I’ve been lucky to work with him on both sound design and amplification on many shows. His element is crucial for TJ, as sound is the one technical element that is one of the most difficult to manage since acoustics continue to be a challenge in Thomas Jefferson Theater. Peter will manage the fly rail – you’ll never find anyone as good and dedicated to making the set move as Peter.

The look of the actors in this production is being created by costume and headdress designer Kevin, makeup designer Avery, and hair designer Bette. I’ve known Bette for years – she’s been a mentor of mine and she designed hair when I directed Ragtime. She’s tops. Avery, a longtime TAP designer in many technical areas, has a keen eye for the right look and special attraction to this piece as she was involved with the 1988 production. You should see her designs for the show girls.

And no one will outstrip Kevin and his love for Follies. Along with Lou, Kevin shares an ‘uncommon’ passion for the piece and has waited for years to design it. He was one of the first designers I approached at becoming a part of this endeavor. His work on this piece and knowledge of it are guiding many of us. I’ve worked with him on such shows as 1776, Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, and The Cocoanuts. The man knows how to put up a show and is one of the best and most giving collaborators around.

The latest addition to our team is Kate, who will oversee the set decoration and properties. Kate has an impressive design background and is eager to join the team. I have not worked with her, but I am look forward to do so. She’s going to help link the look of the set to the actors.

Of course, none of this would come to fruition without the leadership and management of producer Nikki. This is Nikki’s first time as a producer and starting with such an undertaking would be foolhardy for most. Well, she’s not like most, and you’ll know that once you meet her. Her energy, her smarts and her heart are sure to keep this production on course.

So we have the staff to support the production. All we need now is the actors.

Auditions are next Tuesday and Wednesday, December 9 and 10. Actors, I invite you as players of parts to come and join us. Now we must wake up from the dreaming of Follies and start living it.

 

For additional information about the production itself, go to The Arlington Players website: www.thearlingtonplayers.org.

If you have questions for the director, feel free to respond to the blog or email him at folliesdirector@gmail.com. Responses to the blog may be posted publicly; email correspondence will be private.

The Others

 

OK, I’m not going to tell the plot of the Nicole Kidman film, “The Others.” Like that film, though, a ghost story is involved.

In recent blogs, I have focused on the principals and painted broad-stroke sketches of Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy. In older blogs, I framed the discussion of the piece as a whole, looking at major dramatic structures girding this musical. Follies is powerful in its breadth and depth. We have the memories in the theater as the ghosts and these living memories materialize when they are emotionally summoned. This surreal world colors the story and characters.

But we also have the others – the other real people – the former follies girls, their husbands, and all those who participate in this reunion at the Weissman Theatre. In other words, we have the supporting characters in the story. These ladies and gentlemen deepen the story of Follies and serve as dramatic foils to the principals. What’s even better is that these individuals are rich characters in and of themselves. They help drive home the point that remembering is not, in and of itself, a dangerous and destructive exercise, but can be one of joy and reflection. This point differs from what I have stressed in past blogs, with the flawed remembering of our principals.

If done in context and done honestly, remembering helps deepen who we are and allows us to experience satisfaction in remembering the past. Follies chorus girls of yesteryear come back to relish the memory that they were the toast of Broadway as the Weissman girls. Their lives have taken them in different directions, and in many cases, away from the life of the theater. Nonetheless, they can come back to this night with joy, excitement and anticipation of reliving their youth for this one last kiss.

I really like these broads. Some are sweet, others dignified, others ballsy, but all are excited to be in this theater for this reunion. When they reunite, they relive the past by singing and remembering their great moments on stage. In nearly every case, these ‘memory numbers’ are sung with pride, joy, and contentment. As much as Sally remembers the past incorrectly, Ben tries not to remember, Buddy is forced to remember, and Phyllis knows she must remember, the others remember with abandon. Isn’t that the point of a reunion? The others embrace the past for they have not forgotten or distorted it. It really is one last chance to be with those that remember you as you really were.

Let’s take a look at some of them. There is Carlotta Campion, a slightly older contemporary of Sally and Phyllis, who, unlike her fellow follies girls, made her way out of the showgirl chorus line and has had somewhat successful show business life. She’s brash and straightforward and has no illusions of where she has been and what she wants out of show business and out of life, especially if it is a young man. Sexy, candid, and direct, she is one dame that is not deluded. Her “I’m Still Here” is one of the best songs about show business around.

There are married show business couples at this reunion. These performers met in the theater and their lives have centered on the stage. Seventy-ish Emily Whitman is quite a bit older than Carlotta, Sally and Phyllis. She met her ‘doughboy’ husband, Theodore, after the Great War and performed with him as a husband and wife team in the Weissman Follies, and they were known for their patter song, “Rain on the Roof.”

Vincent and Vanessa were the featured ballroom couple of the Weissman Follies. They married and now run a ballroom dance studio. When dancing at the reunion with the other couples, they are transported into a memory of dancing together on the Weissman Theatre stage and summon their younger selves to join them in the “Bolero d’Amour.”

And we also meet the Deems – Stella and Max. Stella was a former headliner in a Follies tap number. She met her husband Max and they became a theater comedy team in the 1940’s, eventually leaving show business for a simpler life. Funny and brash, she is a real broad who shoots from the hip, and though she’s not in the theater anymore, there’s no question that she was. It would come as no surprise that she rallies her fellow chorines at this reunion into trying recreate her signature number, “Who’s that Woman?”

Of course there are the older chorus girls – those that are now well into their 60’s, 70’s and even 80. The charming and vivacious Solange La Fitte is chic and fashionable, and loves to be the center of attention. She has gone on to a successful career in cosmetics, but no one can forget her ‘ooh-la-la’ number, “Ah, Paris” – a song that evokes the spirit of the 1920’s Parisian cabaret acts of the Lido or Les Folies Bergère. A fellow contemporary is Hattie Walker, but Hattie is quite different from Solange. Down-to-earth, obviously tough, and utterly no-nonsense, she is the one that looks the least likely now to have ever been a Weissman girl. Nonetheless, you can see that show girl appear in her when she sings one of the all-time favorites from Follies, “Broadway Baby.”

The grand dame of the night is former operetta ingénue Heidi Schiller. At 80, she is regal and delicate, but there is no doubt that she was the star that served as a muse to such operetta geniuses as Franz Lehar and Sigmund Romberg. Her rendition of “One Last Kiss” with her younger self underlines the reckoning that takes place when time has passed.

Older men come back to this reunion too. Dimitri Weissman, the former producer and impresario, organizes this event and posits the reason and hopes for the evening. The ever lovable Roscoe – the Dick Powell tenor of the Follies – is here too to chime in the evening. Willie Wheeler gives us one of his trademark cartwheels. The husbands of the Weissman girls are here to support and honor their wives.

So what do all these characters have in common? They come to this night to cherish who they were. They accept who they were, who they are, and their journey in life. Unlike the principals, they have integrated their past into their present. This night is a joy, not a nightmare. The actors playing ‘the others’ must suffuse the story with their points of view to make Follies work. Their presence is needed to foil and balance the journey of Ben, Buddy, Sally, and Phyllis, and ensure that Follies is more than a screed.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Have a safe and wonderful holiday.

 

For additional information about the production itself, go to The Arlington Players website: www.thearlingtonplayers.org.

If you have questions for the director, feel free to respond to the blog or email him at folliesdirector@gmail.com. Responses to the blog may be posted publicly; email correspondence will be private.

Step, Kick, Kick, Leap, Kick, Touch…Again!

Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch…Right!
That connects with…
Turn, turn, out, in, jump, step….

Sound familiar? These musical theater lyrics from A Chorus Line are the mantra for choreographers. Choreographers are known for teaching steps, demonstrating them, calling them out, and intermingling them with numbers in a rhythmic fashion. (Have you ever heard a choreographer call out something like 1, kick, 3, 4, ball-change, reach, 7, dig?) After calling it out a few HUNDRED times, or so it seems, the choreographer calls for the music and then suddenly magic happens: music and steps link, and a dance emerges.

I love the thrill of that moment. As a choreographer, I dream up steps to a score and often, these patterns of movement will stay unrealized for a long time, until finally the day comes for that rehearsal when they come to life. It’s really hard to explain how that feels. It’s like a mix of going to confession, with finally taking a deep breath after holding your breath, with finally eating your favorite dessert after having been ‘eye-ing’ it all evening. There’s a pleasure and relief in finally getting it out and onto the dancer’s body.

Like when I direct, when I choreograph, I start with the music and the score. I look at it, hear it in my head, and look for inspiration. For a musical, dance is one more way of expressing the emotions of the story, and great dance integrates seamlessly with acting and singing. I like to think of it as the final polish on the story. In a musical, when words fail the actor, the actor sings. When the singing fails the actor, the actor dances.

Sometimes the score makes it clear where a dance break needs to take place. In other places, there is a hint of dance that needs to effortlessly arise out of the blocking of the scene. And then there is the ‘Mt. Everest’ of musical theater dance, the dream ballets – those extended musical sequences with pages and pages of music – that challenge choreographers to enrich a musical by creating a dance that tells a story without words within the story. Those are hard to make, but they can be the most satisfying to both create and watch take shape. And cutting dance from a musical – like cutting scenes or songs – is sad. (This usually occurs when someone doesn’t want to do the job at hand, but let’s not go there.) Why not give the musical its full voice?

Like all the arts – all of which demands technical skill to create something of depth – dance in particular requires training in order to master how the human body moves to create emotion. I don’t know many people that can just go and choreograph without lots of dance training. Different styles of dance communicate different things and whether it be an adage or allegro, the choreographer must understand what is going on with the movement against the music. Are you going to create a fast series of steps against a slow melody line to communicate stress? Are you going too move slowly to fast music to show that that a character is independent and doesn’t care? What kind of dance do you use – do you choose soft-shoe, Pointe, tap, jazz or rap to illustrate your point? Choices, choices, choices.

Again, having a good dance vocabulary and understanding how the human body moves to express emotion is key, and the first thing is to start with the music. The music clues you and cues you what to do.

Because music and dance are basically mathematical, the first step in choreographing is a rather dry one. You count. The song begins with counts and ends with counts. There are a limited number of counts to a song, and movement needs to fit to these counts. How much time a movement takes needs to be calibrated and it must fit the counts. Choreographers count and demand that their dancers count, and if you do not count it like the choreographer, you will be corrected. As a choreographer teaching a dance, you count my counts. It’s my way or the highway. I have the counts – you have to learn them. I don’t need interpretation – I need you to dance my counts. But if you do count it right and practice it over and over and over again, it may perhaps transcend to something that’s art and dance.

But first you count.

It’s funny. Directors like being original with something – “I want to interpret and stage this like no one has done it before” – whereas choreographers often like staging something that has come before – “That dance is great – I want to do that!” In dance, there is a real respect for the past and recreating it. Agnes de Mille’s dream ballet for Oklahoma! has stood the test of time for 60+ years – why not recreate it? Petipa/Ivanov’s pas de cygnettes from Swan Lake, Jerome Robbins’ Dance at Gym from West Side Story, Fosse’s Hot Honey Rag from Chicago, Bennett’s Finale from A Chorus Line are prime examples – who does not want a crack at dancing those dances? And choreographers certainly want a crack at recreating them in the style of these geniuses.

Follies has one such dance that I want to recreate: Michael Bennett’s “Who’s that Woman?” – the mirror number. In the middle of the party, former showgirl Stella Deems recreates a tap number without tap shoes with her fellow aging showgirls. While they try and remember and then recreate the number that they danced more than 30 years ago, they experience the joy of what it was to be a follies girl. That emotion summons the ghosts of their younger selves who simultaneously dance and mirror their older selves in this dance. Hailed at the time and since as one of the most perfect pieces of musical theater choreography, this dance BEGS to be recreated. I’m going to do my best to honor Mr. Bennett’s work when making this number. I can’t wait.

The rest of the choreography is not for a choreographer who is faint of heart. It demands that the choreographer dig deep in his arsenal of dance steps for it needs both depth and breadth of dance movement. This piece showcases such a variety of dance styles: an opening dream jazz-ballet adage prologue for the ghosts, vaudeville masque-like pageantry, comic shtick, a leading man’s dance solo about emotional frustration, a leading lady with back up boys, a leading man with leggy showgirls with Sally Rand fans, ballroom partnering, and finally, just good old classic musical theater staging. It’s got everything but the kitchen sink.

The point of all this choreography is to ultimately bring memory back to life and that memory is Vaudeville. It needs to live again this night as this party remembers the glory days of this theater and its past. Vaudeville is the vehicle for the four leads to live out their follies artistically: Buddy gets the clown number, Sally gets the torch song, Phyllis gets the boys to back her up, and Ben gets the kick line of showgirls. As the director has told me, only if these numbers are rendered as classic Vaudeville, will we be able to see clearly the harsh judgment of the leads’ follies. I’ll have to take the director’s word on that. I will just create some great dance numbers, don’t you think?

The director is back for the next blog. I’m not sure what he will write about, but he’s sure to wrap things up soon since auditions will be here in a few weeks.

For additional information about the production itself, go to The Arlington Players website: www.thearlingtonplayers.org.

If you have questions for the director, feel free to respond to the blog or email him at folliesdirector@gmail.com. Responses to the blog may be posted publicly; email correspondence will be private.

A Note from the Director – My Preparation

The choreographer has finished his blog, but I, as director, asked him to hold off on his post, until I do this one. I want to talk about my artistic process and how I approach a piece as a director. I realize that I’ve been analyzing Follies for you thematically and critically, but it dawned on me that I should talk a bit about how I prepare a musical from a broader perspective. You are reading a good deal about of what I think about Follies. I think I should add the frame to the picture I’ve been painting of this production.

You may ask why have I decided to do that now. Well, it’s pretty simple. I’ve had number of actors email after the last post when I talked about holding a reading of Follies. First, I want thank all who wrote me and shared their point of view. Some wrote saying how great it was to hold a reading. Others who wrote were upset or concerned that I had pre-cast the show. They were concerned that I had my mind set on certain actors because I had invited actors that know and respect to read for me. These actors must, of course, be the front-runners for the casting of Follies. I can understand these actors’ concerns since many of them do not know me.

So now I will talk about myself and my process as a director of a musical, including holding readings. Hopefully, I can assuage fears about pre-casting – either literally or mentally. I want to assure all the actors who may be reading this and interested in being a part of this production that I have not cast any part. All parts are open, and the artistic team and I are open to any musical theater actor who wants to join us on this journey. So, join us and audition in December. If I were to pre-cast (as I have done for in the past), I would tell you upfront. Auditioning is never easy. I think that directors should never mislead actors as to the availability of a part.

When I start preparing a musical – and this usually takes place when I am throwing my hat in the ring, so to speak, and interviewing with a theater about directing a production – I start with two things: the script and the score. I must know these things thoroughly before 1) I make the decision that I want to tell a story, and 2) I try to persuade a theater to trust me with a lot of money and resources in order to put up this story on their stage.

A musical – and this seems like such a simple concept but one I have seen ignored time and time again by qualified directors – starts with the music. The music feeds and colors the words of the script. That is what makes doing a musical so special. You have two different sets of arts – words and music – to play with in communicating the story created by the author, the composer and the lyricist. And this does not even begin to incorporate the third art – dance – that is a vital part of most musicals. Thorough analysis of script and score is paramount, and for me, I find it one of the most exciting parts of putting the show together. It’s the time for dreams and make believe.

I’m fortunate to have had an introduction to music at an early age since my father was a professional musician. I learned how to comprehend music young and was fortunate to develop the skill of reading music. I’m grateful to my dad for this. I remember in college sharing with a dear friend this very thought. We met in college concert choir. We both had early musical training and could read scores. We were talking once and opined about how easy it was to read a score and hear what the music would sound like in our head. This skill was something that we appreciated. We also (pompously I think) could not imagine not being able to do that and felt sorry for people that couldn’t read music.

Understanding music and its structure has served me well as a director of musicals, since I can analyze both script and score together, rather than relying on recordings that often are incomplete. Using recordings is particularly a problem in approaching the modern musical, where underscoring is such a significant part of the spoken scenes, unlike musicals prior to 1970 where there was minimal underscoring. The music supports the words and not hearing it can hurt the story telling. The music is always telling you something. This is also one of the reasons that I’m very leery of people that cut music that they decide is in the way of their story. It’s one thing to re-work a musical with the composer and author; it’s another thing to slice music out of the musical score because you don’t know what to do with it. My advice: start over and figure it out. It’s there for a reason.

So I start with the script and score. I open myself up to seeing if they talk to me. How do I know if they talk to me? I start seeing pictures; I start seeing movement. Something clicks and images start occurring in my mind’s eye. Some scripts don’t talk me. I read them and read them and read them, and I don’t see anything. Oh yeah, I could probably stage them, but it would probably be more elbow grease than wanting to tell that story. But, boy, when I start seeing a script come to life with images – those moments are highs and for me, a creative high is one of the great moments in life. I feel so alive. It’s like what I imagine having a past life regression would be like. I see the story coming alive with such vibrancy and visual intensity.

Some musicals that I have done have started with seeing a character. Some start with seeing a scene. Still others start with a dance combination or the musical staging of a number. It doesn’t really matter where it starts, because once it starts, it spreads like a puddle into the other parts of the story. After reading and re-reading the script and the score, the visual story takes shape. This, of course, happens well before technical choices are made about set, costumes and properties, and before a show is cast. Everything sits in the imagination. (So, what did I see first in starting this journey with Follies? I’ll tell you – it was Phyllis’ folly, The Story of Lucy and Jessie.)

Of course, musicals are collaborative. So many people need to be involved and contribute to their creation in order for them to come to life. I’ve been fortunate to work with some fine creative colleagues to put together the musicals I’ve directed. Being able to partner with and lead them as director is based on this initial imaging of the story.

But stories can’t stay in my head, because all of those images have sprung from me and it’s not a one-man show. So, to get it out of my head and my interpretation, I enlist talented actors I know and respect to read the script out loud. The actors know that they are not being auditioned or pre-cast. They are creative friends helping out the director. This ‘out-loud’ reading helps immensely in making the story move from imagination to reality, and it helps shake it loose from me holding on to it exclusively.

The hardest aspect for me – and the most disciplining – is to annotate this vision and write it out before rehearsals begin. Because this primer serves as the guide and springboard for what will happen in rehearsal with the actors and in creative design meetings, I must write it down and be able to share it. I suppose that the choreographer in me is the one that has taught the director to put it down on paper, since the choreographer really needs to write it all out in order to be ready to teach the choreography. He tells the director that having it down on paper is really helpful.

For me, the director makes the psychology of the scene come alive by imbedding in the staging the objectives and subtexts of the actors. There are clues for the characters in my staging choices. For me, this process of dreaming and writing works well. It serves as a baseline and starting point for rehearsals, and allows me to be there for the actors as they discover who they are as characters in the story. It opens me up to watch and listen to them, rather than focusing on the needs in the scene. That’s already been done in this early preparation.

Working with fine actors is always a delight and a surprise. They so often bring so much more than I have dreamed up as the director – and often a different way of seeing something – that renders the music, the staging, and the choreography more powerful and honest. I love it when the ‘booster rocket’ of my preparation takes off and the actors then commandeer the ‘space ship’ to the stars. Cheesy metaphor, eh? Best I could come up with.

I promise the choreographer will write next. Thanks for the indulgence.

Next up: Vaudeville at its Best – Let’s Dance.

For additional information about the production itself, go to The Arlington Players website: www.thearlingtonplayers.org.

If you have questions for the director, feel free to respond to the blog or email him at folliesdirector@gmail.com. Responses to the blog may be posted publicly; email correspondence will be private.

 

Relationships on the Rocks, Part II: Phyllis and Ben

Phyllis and Ben. Where to start? For those of us in the Washington, DC area, the high-powered couple is something that we recognize. Many of us have seen the super-sophisticated couple that is charming and innocuous, enjoys a pun, talks around an issue, communicates through nuance and metaphor, and ah, but underneath, is simmering and seething with their own reality.

That’s what we find when we meet Phyllis and Ben at this reunion. Phyllis Rogers Stone, Sally’s contemporary in the follies and former roommate, comes with her husband Benjamin in tow. They communicate around an issue with quips and barbs. The intimacy and honesty of their relationship went astray long ago and though they seem to be the couple everyone wants to be, they are shells of human beings. And, from at least Phyllis’ point of view, they are not who they expected to be.

Phyllis comes to this reunion at crossroads and with purpose. In her first conversation in the play with Ben, she talks with him in a rather direct way – something that she does not do often – and tells him honestly why she is here: “I’ve been devoting my attention to beginnings lately. I wanted something when I came here thirty years ago but I forgot to write it down and God knows what it was.” And then comes Phyllis’ MO: every time she reveals something slightly vulnerable or honest, she lashes back with a caustic comment.

She comes to this reunion to find something she lost. She is looking for a new beginning. She thinks that it has to do with remembering and going back to her roots. Like Sally, she comes to this night with change on her mind. She suspects, as we watch the story unfold, that it will be about leaving Ben, but she’s still figuring out what it is she needs to do to change. Like those who successfully make a change in their lives, Phyllis understands on some level that she needs to look back and reflect in order to make a change that means something.

Of the four leads, Phyllis – with all her sturm und drang – is following a path of discovery by remembering in a fairly healthy way. She wants to know her past and learn how she became the unhappy woman she is. Buddy didn’t plan on coming to this reunion to remember: he’s unexpectedly remembering after he followed Sally to New York. Sally is trying to make the past the present – not a psychologically healthy thing to do. Ben claims that he never looks back – what’s the point? – and his approach is the most dangerous one of all. Phyllis, of all of them, understands on some level that to change is to look back at what you have done, understand the how and the why of those actions, and plan a change. She’s subconsciously doing cognitive therapy.

Of course in the midst of her revelations, which swing between being direct and clamming up, she finds that she is not thrilled that Sally is going after her husband. It will be really interesting as a director to develop the subtext with the actor playing Phyllis on this point. Phyllis increasingly becomes concerned with Sally’s attention to Ben. At the same time, she confronts Ben and lets him have it, telling him that she’s leaving him and revealing her affairs with younger men. Phyllis’ emotional journey is a rich one, classic in its desires and irregular in its path. Her struggle to integrate the purity of her youth with the jaded and bitter sense of herself is the point of her folly in the second act, ‘The Story of Lucy and Jessie.’ At the end of the night, we’re still not sure how successful her discovery is. Years of behavior do not change in one night.

One final point on Phyllis. Of the four principals, Phyllis is markedly different from her younger self. Young Phyllis portrays hope, sweetness, and love so openly. These are qualities Phyllis yearns for but we certainly don’t see; somehow and somewhere, are those qualities still there?

Benjamin Stone probably does not think so. Successful diplomat and former successful philanderer, Ben accompanies Phyllis to this reunion thinking that it will have nothing to do with him. Why does he come? For his ego would be a good answer. He wants to be praised by all those who knew him as a struggling law student – those who were glamorous showgirls – and they will now know and see that he’s an international figure and a player in the world. That ego gets a major boost with the Sally’s fawning attention. It’s exactly what Ben wants on this night, but he gets more than he planned for. That attention – Sally’s acting out of the past – pulls Ben into the past.

Because he does not like or plan to remember, he is on strange and dangerous ground. Sally is remembering and acting on it. Phyllis is remembering and acting on it. Buddy is remembering and acting on it. Ben has to remember and act on it. He’s pulled into the memory vortex. Without the skills to remember or to reflect, he is confused and threatened by the actions of Sally and Phyllis in particular on this night. His psychic break in ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ ends the follies vaudeville sequence and pushes the story back to realism. There’s nothing that propels us into our life’s metaphors (in this story, the follies vaudeville sequence) than a psychological crisis. And there’s nothing that destroys life’s metaphors better than a psychological crisis, too.

I like Ben. I see a lot of myself in him. I have found that the way he views the past to be tempting for me: it seems so much harder to integrate our past with whom we are in the present and look at ourselves. Isn’t it better just to start a new day fresh without reflection? “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” It’s a maxim for forgiving the past. It also could be a maxim for ignoring it.

I was fortunate to be able to have a reading of Follies this past weekend. I enjoy holding readings of scripts that I am about to direct. For me, there is nothing more refreshing than hearing the words out loud and not with my own voice. The reading was held so that the production staff could hear the script out loud and feel the rhythm of the piece. What struck me on hearing the script was how harsh the words of the four principal characters are to each other and how different the words of their younger selves are in relation to them. How easy it would be to make these characters one dimensional. Then there is this huge, rich chasm of silence in the script that centers on actors acting off the line and the presence and actions of the silent ghosts on the stage.  Mixing all these together will form the foundation of the complete story and reflect all these characters’ humanity.

I’m taking a break on blogging as the director for the next post. There will be a guest blogger: the choreographer. He’s pretty different from the director.

Next up: Vaudeville at its Best – Let’s Dance.

For additional information about the production itself, go to The Arlington Players website: www.thearlingtonplayers.org.

If you have questions for the director, feel free to respond to the blog or email him at folliesdirector@gmail.com. Responses to the blog may be posted publicly; email correspondence will be private.

Relationships on the Rocks, Part I: Sally and Buddy

When I first started writing this post, I thought of commenting on all four principals in Follies: Sally, Buddy, Phyllis, and Ben at once. As I starting writing it, it became clear to me that I could write a lot on each, so I am dividing this into two posts. There are many possible ways to discuss these four – by gender, by couple, by possible couple, by their follies sequence – among other possible mental mixings. I’ve decided to talk about them as the couple they are at the beginning of Follies. So, let’s look at Buddy and Sally.

Sally Durant Plummer is the first to arrive at the reunion of the Weissman Girls, nearly flying onto the theater stage with a determination to not miss a thing. She looks like a nice lady, anxious to meet up with her fellow follies chorines for this big party, but it becomes clear that she is on a mission: she wants to meet up with the love from her youth, Benjamin Stone. Benjamin left her thirty years ago for her friend and roommate, Phyllis Rogers, and though devastated at that break up, Sally is still in love with him. She hopes that Phyllis comes to this reunion and bringing Ben, for she wants to see if Ben thinks he made a mistake marrying Phyllis. She hopes so, because that is a mistake she wants to correct.

How did Sally get to this point in her life? And why has she harbored this hope for the love of her youth? She married Ben’s friend, Buddy Plummer, a man who was crazy about her and loved her fully. Here she is – 49 years old, perky, seemingly optimistic, a not-so-stylish, suburban housewife who has raised her sons, hoping for her lost love to return to her. She has been with this desire for thirty years and not acted on it, but she sure has thought about it. No matter who you are, that kind of Walter Mitty dreaming is going to affect your head and how you see the world.

This party at the Weissman Theatre is filled with hope for Sally. She can finally get on with her life, a life that has been tolerated – or wasted, would we dare say? She has lived comfortably, both emotionally and financially, with Buddy, but she has not had passion for him. And that discussion is one that is avoided in the Plummer home. Still there are hints of emotional cracks and distress in her. As a character, Sally ranks right up there in drama where seemingly functioning women that, in the right circumstances (or perhaps it is better saying the wrong circumstances), become unhinged because the reality they must face is not acceptable. Sally does not have the coping skills to handle it. Nor will any of us if we hold onto a memory and read into it our present hopes and dreams, and then start acting on it.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I’d rephrase that saying: Those who cannot remember the past correctly are condemned to repeat it even worse.

I love words and their meanings, as you probably know if you read my first post. I looked at Sally’s name and thought about her maiden name – Durant. Is there more to it? It looked like a French name to me, so on a whim, I looked up the meaning of “durant” in a French dictionary. The meaning of the French word “durant” is during, whereas, while, whilst. It’s a preposition – not even a noun or a verb – indicating doing one thing at the same time you are doing another. Can you believe it? Sally is the beginning of a prepositional phrase between Ben and Buddy. It’s a stretch of linguistic analysis for teasing the meaning of her name into understanding who Sally is, but the name doesn’t seem to be an accident. Not in a Sondheim piece.

Of course this leads to the name of Buddy Plummer. Buddy is, well, a buddy… to Sally. He’s a pal, a confidante but he is certainly not a lover. There’s affection but not passion. And the meaning of Plummer is interesting too. One meaning of the verb “to plum” is to displace or take the place of something. Buddy is a buddy who takes the place of someone. In Sally’s mind, that someone is Ben.

Buddy is a kind man, passionately in love with his wife for all their thirty years together, even as it is clear to him that she does not feel that way about him. To handle this lack of affection, he’s engaged in extramarital affairs and when this reunion takes place, he has had a regular mistress named Margie who really loves him. He, on the other hand, is still in love with Sally. It’s this emotional workaround that is the basis of his comedic folly.

He embodies the classic qualities of a good salesman. He’s affable and outgoing with strangers. He talks easily and he is a good listener. Of the four leads, I get the sense that Buddy really does listen to what the others tell him. And he is not afraid to remember the past since he’s more afraid of the future. He’s smart but not deep and has the hide of a salesman; he can take no and not believe it. He’ll just come back wanting it to become a yes the next time he sees you.

While Sally is looking to accomplish something at this reunion, Buddy is on his own mission: he comes to make sure that his wife does not leave him. To do that, he is willing to go through all the pain his happy-go-lucky self has to face to make sure. It’s going to be fascinating creating the history of this couple with the actors playing Sally and Buddy, because it will require determining the degree of how much has been said and done in their life about Sally’s holding onto Ben. Has this come out in marital spats or when they have drunk too much? How much has been said about Ben’s place in Sally’s heart?

When Buddy completely loses it, after seeing Sally and Ben embrace – which motivates his singing of the ‘The Right Girl’ – what is new about this that triggers his emotional outburst? It’s tied to the fact that he actually sees this thing that he has feared come to life. It’s a challenging staging moment too, because, ‘The Right Girl’ is the only time in Follies that dance is used to communicate the emotionally conflicted state of a ‘live’ person. All the other dance in Follies is tied to ghosts, the re-enacting of stage memories, or part of the follies vaudeville sequence. I think Goldman and Sondheim are telling us something about Buddy – when he hits his limit, the salesman’s words fail him and he has to become physical to express himself.

By contrast, Sally heads the other way. When confronted with the hope of having Ben in ‘Too Many Mornings’ and then being immediately rejected by him, she freezes, becoming nearly emotionless and almost catatonic. Sally is the one lead whose story is nearly complete by the time of the follies vaudeville sequence happens. How the actor playing Sally handles the fight between the four of them (and their young selves) and her famous solo, ‘Losing My Mind’ will be fascinating to develop in rehearsal since she’s already shell shocked and reeling. She’s a ghost of the person she was when she came to this party when she leaves the theater at the end of the night.

The story lines of Sally and Buddy are disturbing for many of us that are in comfortable relationships in our middle age. Sally and Buddy look an awful lot like many of us. Does it make you wonder if your spouse is thinking of the passion of a past lover when you are looked at? Would they act on it if given the chance? Would you?

Next up: Relationships on the Rocks, Part II: Phyllis and Ben.

For additional information about the production itself, go to The Arlington Players website: www.thearlingtonplayers.org.

If you have questions for the director, feel free to respond to the blog or email him at folliesdirector@gmail.com. Responses to the blog may be posted publicly; email correspondence will be private.

The Weissman Theatre – A Temple of Art Crumbling

Have you ever been in an empty theater by yourself? Limited light, dark shadows, your eyes struggling to adjust to darkness with only the red glow of the exit signs showing you the where you can walk. In the dark there is an utter aloneness and silence that you can almost touch. There’s nothingness and yet there is the expectation that something can happen.

There is something sad about an empty theater, but there is something even sadder and it’s a theater that is in ruins and falling apart. The nothingness is still there but the possibility of life is not there anymore. It’s like a wounded animal that has crawled into the woods to die. There is an emptiness, a sense that a scream can happen, but above all there is silence and stillness. One’s mind races in a space like that.

I have a coffee table book that I like to look at. It’s a soft-covered book, so I guess it’s not really a coffee table book, but it’s a book with the title, Lost Broadway Theaters. It holds stories and photos of many of the theaters built for Broadway in the 19th and 20^th centuries that no longer exist, but that showcased the best of vaudeville, theater, operettas, and musicals. The pictures show these theaters in their glory and also show them as they were when they were converted into movie theaters, adult entertainment venues, and department stores. You finally get to see some of them in their decrepit state before they were torn down. The stories of each of these theaters is fascinating – landmark productions that breathed life into our culture and in some cases, influenced how we came to think of ourselves were on these stages. These places no longer exist or rather, they exist now only in memory. I’m haunted and touched by that book.

Years ago I used to live in Mt. Pleasant in Washington, DC, not far from the old Tivoli Theater, a movie palace created in the Italian Renaissance revival style in 1924. The Tivoli seated more than 1,700 people and it is located at 14^th Street and Park Road. When I lived nearby, the theater was boarded up and a real wreck. There was rusting and rotting canopies, and hundreds of pigeons had taken up residence in its eaves with the expected results. Sometimes, I would walk my dog by it, wondering what it looked like in side. I never had the chance to see that.

Years later the theater was declared a historical landmark and refurbished but as a mixed use venue. A friend of mine invited me to dinner at a restaurant named Rumberos that was right near the Tivoli. When we were seated in the restaurant, he informed me that part of the restaurant was built in the Tivoli and you could see parts of the proscenium arch in the restaurant. I looked around and about two yards away was the arch, seemingly growing out of the floor of the restaurant and holding on to pieces of its plaster moldings, as it thrusted into the ceiling and curved to a wall, which was where center stage must have been. I was having a drink on the Tivoli stage apron. I was relieved, disturbed, fascinated, and comforted to see that arch. I was glad to be there.

At a design meeting for Follies in July, our set designer told us of an old theater in Michigan that had actually been converted into a parking garage. The theater was not destroyed – it just had a garage built in it and the old proscenium overlooks parked cars now. It was pretty hard to believe. The set designer shared a picture of the theater with cars parked in front of a baroque arch. It’s both disturbing and fascinating to see.

Seeing our places of art turned into mundane venues or allowed to crumble borders on a sense of desecration and sacrilege, but it should come as no surprise that we feel that way or that we use religious terms to express ourselves about art. The basis of art is creating something from our imagination. The act of creating is the closest that we as humans come to touching the divine. The act of creation allows us to be what we know God or the gods to be – a creator. The act holds something sacred. And this is especially so when what we are creating is the performing arts, where our art is making stories about how we act and know ourselves to be as human beings. And the instrument for this creation is our own bodies as human actors.

Philosophers have pondered the place and power of aesthetics for centuries. Aristotle wrote of the philosophy of art and the essence of correct story telling in his Poetics. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche wrote of aesthetics becoming the new metaphysic, replacing ethics, in the postmodern world. “Art and not morality is represented as the actual metaphysical activity of mankind.” Art is on its way to becoming the language of religion and our understanding of self according to him.

Destroying a theater really does then seem to be a sacrilege, and having a party in a dead theater is either the act of religious ritual of celebration and remembrance – like a funeral – or it could be much darker, a ritual of awaking the dead and their memories. It’s kind of like playing with a Ouija board and you invite someone from the spirit world you didn’t expect and who won’t go away. Who knew that would happen?

I think we’re doing both in Follies.

The Weissman Theatre is a living character not talked about in Follies per se, but it is as important as any human character in the piece. It lives on in those that have performed in it and is alive with those who are remembering. It harbors the pain of its coming death and it is locus for the memory of those celebrating on its deadened stage. And what better place to face self-reflection, if you are one of the former follies girls, than in this theater where you can relive your past. Only in this place could the affirmation of a good memory be intensified and shared, such as Carlotta’s “I’m Still Here,” Hattie’s “Broadway Baby,” or Stella’s “Who’s that Woman?” And only in this place would the conflict with the past be ripped open in self-discovery when the buried, forgotten or ignored memories come alive. This is what Sally, Buddy, Ben and Phyllis encounter when they come to this party.

Throughout the preparation of Follies, I keep coming back to the memory of walking by the boarded-up ruins of the Tivoli Theater and then seeing that arch years later.

Next Up: Relationships on the Rocks. Here comes Sally and Buddy Plummer, and Phyllis and Benjamin Stone.

For additional information about the production itself, go to The Arlington Players website: www.thearlingtonplayers.org.

If you have questions for the director, feel free to respond to the blog or email him at folliesdirector@gmail.com. Responses to the blog may be posted publicly; email correspondence will be private.

Quote is taken from The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche