My
current writing project is a non-fiction book, working title Director’s
Notes, since I begin each chapter with the notes which were included in the
printed program for the show. In the book I revisit some of the shows I
directed over a period of thirty-plus years beginning in 1984. Here’s an excerpt.
The Fantasticks
(2003)
In preparing The Fantasticks, I have worked with an absolutely incredible cast
and directing staff, and this has been a memorable experience. Kelly Foley is
one of the most creative and imaginative people I’ve ever known. With The Fantasticks, she has been able to
let her imagination soar and the results are, well, fantastic. Scott Besser is
a remarkable musician and very gifted pianist and this score has offered him
the kind of challenge he enjoys. His artistry enhances every moment of music in
the show.
The cast has been delightful to
work with and each person has developed a character that is truly
unforgettable. I would like to thank each of them for making every rehearsal a
special time I looked forward to. I believe we have all had a great time
learning this lovely show.
For those of you who recall life
before TV, you will remember (as I do) radio shows that let your imagination
take you to wonderful places. The
Fantasticks does that – but it also makes you think about a lot of
important life lessons. It’s easy to see why this show has run for 42 years
off-Broadway, and why it will be performed for decades to come. Like
Shakespeare, it is timeless and absorbing. It is a show that resonates.
Susan Jordan
Pocono
Lively Arts (Best Western Pocono Inn)
July, 2003
Beginning in the summer of 1999, it
became difficult for Pocono Lively Arts to continue our summer stage
productions at Stroudsburg High School. Newspaper articles from June of that
year, including an editorial in the Pocono
Record on June 2, 1999, explained the problems that had arisen between the
group and the Stroudsburg Area School District. (NOTE: the group had been presenting a holiday show every November or
December since 1979, and these were ongoing. The problems were only with using
the venue in the summer, which we had been doing since 1989.)
The summer of 1999 we performed A Grand Night for Singing, a delightful
scripted revue of the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and in 2000 we
presented a semi-staged concert version of Guys
and Dolls. These were performed primarily with piano, and though our casts
were of necessity much smaller (we were performing in the Inn’s Ballroom), we
enjoyed the intimacy and the new challenge of theater-in-the-round and the
dinner theater performances were quite well attended. In 2001 we did another
dinner theater production revue, Blame It
on the Movies.
We found a way to do a fully staged
show at Stroudsburg High School in the summer of 2002, The Secret Garden. We had to rehearse off site until tech week, and
the set was also built off site and disassembled, moved to the school piecemeal
and reassembled at the same time we were rehearsing. These difficulties, and
the increased fees we were charged by the school district for our week of rehearsal
and performance weekend, meant a return to dinner theater in 2003.
Learning The Fantasticks was an absolute joy for me. I’d heard of it, and I
knew a few of the songs: “Try to Remember,” “Soon It’s Gonna Rain,” and “Much
More” were all songs I was familiar with and had taught to some of my private
voice students. I had an idea of what the show was about, but hadn’t been aware
of its thought-provoking, absorbing, meaningful and complex story. The Fantasticks can be defined in many
ways, and I think it means something a little different to all of us. We can
see ourselves in more than one character in this deceptively simple fable. The
story line seems direct; the characters are what create the complexity.
It’s no wonder the show continued
its run beyond the year 2003 and only, finally,
closed in March of 2015. More and more people have come to see it and be
enchanted, and more beyond that have returned, possibly many times, to find
something new in the show each time.
Since we could not rehearse in a
busy downtown hotel’s ballroom except on a very limited basis, we found other
venues for rehearsal. With small casts this proved to be a relatively easy
matter, and the Inn management generously gave us as much rehearsal time in the
ballroom itself as they possibly could.
We rehearsed The Fantasticks for the most part in a large room which was in a
strip mall behind the Paynter Music building. The school had converted it to a
studio which was often used for ensemble rehearsals. It was about the same size
as the dance floor in the hotel ballroom, which meant whatever we worked out in
that space transferred fairly easily to our actual performance space.
It was an unusually rainy summer
and we frequently had thunderstorms in the evenings. The parking lot near our
rehearsal space had very poor drainage, and it wasn’t unusual for all of us to
arrive with our feet soaked from walking the short distance from our cars to the
venue. The rain continued into tech week and performance weekend, and the Best
Western, a fairly old building, had a leaky roof right over one corner of the
ballroom. We had to mop up the dance floor in that area before most rehearsals
and performances and repeat the process during intermission. “Soon It’s Gonna
Rain” for sure!
Our instrumentation for the show
consisted of piano, keyboard, percussion and acoustic bass. Scott Besser is one
of the most talented musicians I have ever been privileged to know, and is a
near-genius pianist who tossed off the sometimes difficult score with great
relish. The music, as the plot, seems deceptively simple, yet it has some
complex and difficult sections, echoing the characters.
Scott hesitated about taking on the
show at first; he wasn’t familiar with the music and wasn’t sure about the
idiom. “Some of the pieces offered substantial challenges, technically and
rhythmically,” he recalls. “‘This Plum Is Too Ripe’ was the song that convinced
me to play the show. I gave it a chance and of course it grew on me.”
The
Fantasticks works best in an intimate setting, and it was perfect for the
Best Western Ballroom where our audience was on three sides of the dance floor,
which was our stage. Working in the venue had its challenges but I felt overall
we handled the production well. I think the more intimate setting worked better
for this show than the eight-hundred-seat Stroudsburg High School auditorium
would have.
Anyone who is familiar with the
piano score for this show knows it has some virtuosic moments. It requires a pianist
who also understands the subtleties of accompanying singers. There is music
through much of the show: set musical pieces, incidental music, scene change
music. I volunteered to turn pages for Scott. He was probably sorry he accepted
the offer, because I was an abysmal page turner for the show.
I went to a music school and turned
pages for pianists fairly often. I know what the assignment is: you follow the
printed music closely as the pianist plays, anticipating when the page should
be turned, making sure to turn at exactly the right time. You cannot be
distracted because that leads to an early page turn or a late one, and I’m not
sure which is worse. Scott was generous to his very distracted page turner who
had to apologize after every show for getting drawn into the performance. It’s
hard to be the director who is admiring her cast’s performance and also be a
good page turner. He said it was okay, but it wasn’t. Scott is a kind person. We’re
still friends.
Every person who was part of this
production was deeply committed to it, and was very much affected by it.
Rehearsals were absorbing and sometimes exhausting, but more often,
exhilarating. The Fantasticks draws
you in as few shows do, and we were all sorry to see the run come to an end.
We could have gone on performing
that show for a very long time. It’s definitely a theater piece that the actors
live. It’s impossible to be a part of it without feeling you’ve been changed.
You know yourself better; you look at the world a little differently. You see
other people with more compassion. You resolve to be kinder and more
understanding.
Maybe that’s why the pianist put up
with this not-so-great page turner.
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