More Theater Odds & Ends

 

[Here’s another compilation of short pieces from various outlets—this time, two Washington Posts and a New York Times—all about some aspect of theater.  Some of these—most of them, really—I filed away some years ago (these are all from the 2010s), and I’ve enjoyed rediscovering them.  I hope you find them interesting.] 

“THE LEAD HAS A BROKEN ANKLE?

GET THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR!”

by Rebecca Ritzel 

[The following article was originally published in the “Style” section of the Washington Post on 12 February 2014.  It was previously posted on the WaPo website as “Backstage: For Theater J, breaking a leg for real leads to 'Yellow Face' recasting scramble” on 11 February.]

“Call the understudy, I can’t go on tonight,” is the closing theme from the cult television comedy “Slings and Arrows.” The show about backstage drama at a theater company debuted in Canada in 2003, but in the ensuing decade, the refrain has become a bit dated.

[Slings & Arrows was a darkly comic TV Series, aired on Canada’s Movie Central cable channel and The Movie Network streaming service in 2003-06, and in the United States on the Sundance Channel, 2005-07.]

These days, it’s not “call the understudy,” it’s “text the assistant stage manager.” And post-recession, there may well not be an understudy to call.

Jessica Soriano, an assistant stage manager at Theater J, got the dreaded text message [Tuesday,] Feb. 4. The actor sending it was Al Twanmo, one of the leads in the play “Yellow Face.” He was at the hospital, being treated for a broken ankle after falling on black ice. Soriano then e-mailed (still no phone call involved) the production team with the bad news.

[Yellow Face, a 2007 play by David Henry Hwang, played at Theater J in Washington, D.C., from 29 January to 23 February 2014.  It was directed by Natsu Onoda Power; at the time, Ari Roth was the artistic director of the company. (Roth was fired in December by the theater’s parent organization, the Washington DC Jewish Community Center, for protesting the DCJCC’s cancelation of a series of controversial plays about the Middle East (some of which were critical of Israel). See my post on Rick On Theater “The First Amendment & The Arts, Redux,” 13 February 2015.]

With little deliberation, Wednesday night’s show was canceled (ticket holders received refunds), but the actors were called to the theater. Director Natsu Onoda Power had an idea to make sure the show would go on sooner rather than later.

First, she re-blocked the entire play, allocating many of Twanmo’s lines to the four other actors in the ensemble who play multiple roles. But replacing Twanmo’s main character was going to be tricky. David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face” is a satirical comedy about racial stereotypes. The lead character is Chinese American, as is his father, who Twanmo was playing. The only Asian actor Theater J found who could read for the role on short notice was, in the words of artistic director Ari Roth, “30 years too young.”

Undeterred, Power turned to Roth.

“There was just one person who knew the part, who is not Asian, and who the audience would accept in this role, and that’s Ari,” she said late Thursday night after Roth, a 50-something Jewish playwright, made his professional stage debut playing an elderly Chinese American banker.

Roth maintains that he wasn’t actually acting, “I did this as a reading, everyone else was up there acting,” he protested, adding that he was “doing Al” and did his best to match Twanmo’s cadence.

The part of the father is written in broken English, with lots of stubborn humor, given Twanmo’s character is an immigrant who worked his way up from a laundry worker to the chief executive of Far East National Bank. Before his fall, Twanmo had received praise for his work in “Yellow Face”; Post critic Peter Marks called his performance “beguiling” in his review of the show. Roth will not be nominated for a Helen Hayes Award [the Capital area’s local award for excellence in theater; Helen Hayes (1900-93), the “First Lady of the American Stage,” was a native Washingtonian] for his one-night stint as a substitute, but what he will take away is a bouquet of yellow roses, and some insight into life outside an artistic director’s office.

“I have never spent so much on my personal grooming,” Roth said, “At 5 p.m., I stopped doing my computer work and started preparing for the show.” Those preparations included both streaking his hair with gray and spending some time in front of the mirror trimming nose hairs. He came away not only with more respect for his actors but also for the stage managers and others working behind the scenes at Theater J.

“I have been running this theater for 17½ years,” Roth said, “and I’ve never been backstage watching for an entire show.”

When Roth did come out onstage, it was in a wheelchair, a change Power kept when Twanmo returned to the stage Saturday. In Act II, the script calls for an ensemble member to play the father’s doctor. In Power’s revision, the doctor (played by Mark Hairston) will always wheel Twanmo out. But there’s still a major challenge that they’ll have to deal with until the show closes Feb. 23: a massive set of file cabinets surrounds the stage, and only one entrance is wide enough for the chair.

“The scenery is not wheelchair-accessible,” Power said.

Casting a wider net

Theater J learned its lesson in staging accessible theater the hard way, but several other theaters in the Washington area are deliberately seeking to be more inclusive in their casting, and are succeeding artistically as a result. At Studio Theatre, Nina Raine’s play “Tribes,” about a deaf son in a dysfunctional family, has been extended through March 2. Out in Herndon [Virginia], NextStop Theatre Company is mounting a well-reviewed production of Shakespeare’s “Richard III” with a deaf actor, Ethan Sinnot [sic; Sinott], starring as the murderous monarch.

Also worth noting: Deaf actor Hector Reynoso is a company member at Synetic [a physical theater company located in Crystal City in Arlington County, Virginia], and next month’s World Stages international theater festival at the Kennedy Center will include Israel’s ­Nalaga’at Theater for deaf and blind actors.

Locally, the two leads in “Tribes” and “Richard III” share an interesting connection: Sinott is chairman of the theater program at Gallaudet University [prestigious university in Washington, D.C., for the deaf and hard of hearing], and James Caverly, who plays the lead in “Tribes,” is one of his most successful graduates. Yet until he drove out to Herndon recently for a dress rehearsal, Caverly had never seen his former professor act. Caverly loved the concept – and the performance.

“It was brilliant!” Caverly wrote in an e-mail message. “For so long, I’ve thought of Richard III as it was written in the text: a hunchback, hobbled, and writhed villain who’s sole ambition was to destroy those who had more power over him. I never perceived him to be deaf. And it does make sense when you correspond it to a real-life scenario. Most of the royal court chose to seclude him because of his deafness, which eerily echoes with the daily basis of deaf people everywhere. . . . This is a big step for the DC theater scene, and [I’m] proud to be part of something bigger.”

[Rebecca Ritzel is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 20 publications in the United States, Canada, and the U.K.  Ritzel regularly contributes arts and entertainment articles to the Washington Post, the Washington, D.C., City Paper, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Raleigh, North Carolina, News & Observer.  Washington’s Theater J, founded in 1990, produces plays “that are part of the Jewish cultural legacy.” 

[I have posted performance reports on three plays by David Henry Hwang (“Golden Child,” 9 December 2013; The “Dance and the Railroad,” 17 March 2013; “Kung Fu,” 8 March 2014) and a performance by the Nalagaat Deaf-Blind Theater Ensemble of Tel Aviv (Not by Bread Alone, 12 February 2013) on ROT.  Earlier, my friend, the late Helen Kaye (1934-2020), who reviewed theater for the Jerusalem Post, sent me her own review of Not by Bread Alone, which I posted in “Dispatches from Israel 1,” 23 January 2013.

[Coincidentally, Ari Roth’s experience filling in at the last minute in a stage role happened to me once, years ago.  I happened to think of it just the other day.  I was in college—May 1967, the second semester of my sophomore year.  I was taking a directing class, the final exam for which was to direct a one-act play.  I had finished my final rehearsal for the presentations the next day and one of my classmates, who’s rehearsal was scheduled to follow mine in the university theater, approached me.

[One of his cast members had been taken ill and wasn’t going to be able to do the show the next evening, and my classmate asked if I’d fill in.  Well, I couldn’t let him down for his final grade, so I agreed to learn the part—it was relatively small, even for a one-act play—but he and his cast would have to help me out.

[I said I could learn the lines and the blocking for the next day after the one rehearsal that night, but the rest of the cast would have to keep to the lines as written, especially the cues, and the blocking as rehearsed—no ad libs or improvisations when I was on stage.  I wouldn’t be able to handle deviations.

[I don’t remember who the director was, or the play, and I don’t know what grade he got on the project—but we made it through and, as far as I could tell, no one knew what we’d had to do.  I do remember being totally keyed up for the whole scene in which I appeared, which was only a few minutes but seemed like at least a half hour to me. 

[I’m sure I collapsed as soon as the curtain came down—and I probably found a drink somewhere as soon as I could get to it.  (In Virginia, where I went to school, you couldn’t buy a drink in a bar or restaurant at that time.  You had to by a bottle in a state package store and keep the booze at home.)]

*  *  *  *

“WITH TRAINED NARRATORS,

BLIND THEATERGOERS FIND A SIGHTLINE”

by Caitlin Gibson 

[Caitlin Gibson’s report ran in the Washington Post on 5 May 2016 (sec. C [“Style”]) and was posted on the paper’s website on 4 May as “'He's picking his nose': How volunteers help the blind 'see' a theater performance.”]

‘Describers’ bring onstage action to life

On the brightly lit theater stage, the first scene of Robert Schenkkan’s Tony award-winning play “All the Way” is in full swing: President Lyndon B. Johnson [1908-73; 36th President of the United States: 1963-69] is pontificating behind a podium. A large desk is wheeled into the spotlight. An agitated secretary darts into view.

[All the Way is a 2012 play by Robert Schenkkan about President Lyndon B. Johnson's efforts to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where it premièred 25 July-3 November 2012. The play was produced in 13 September-12 October 2013, at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the production premièred at Broadway’s Neil Simon Theatre from 6 March 2014 to 29 June 2014 (27 previews and 131 regular performances). It won the 2014 Tony for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

[The Arena Stage production of All the Way in Washington, D.C., ran from 1 April to 8 May 2016 on the Fichandler Stage (the arena theater). Jack Willis played LBJ; he was nominated for a 2017 Helen Hayes Award as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play.]

Steps from the bustling action in the Fichandler Stage at Arena Stage, about 20 audience members are not actually watching the drama unfold. They sit silently, some with their heads bowed, others with their eyes closed. They are all blind or visually impaired; they either can’t see the stage at all, or it appears as little more than a haze of light and shadow.

But these theatergoers aren’t missing the action: Through the headphones clamped over their ears, a woman’s voice is explaining everything happening onstage, in detail, in real time.

The voice belongs to Rita Tehan, a veteran theater describer for the Metropolitan Washington Ear, a nonprofit organization that provides audio services to the blind and visually impaired in the Washington region. Tehan sits behind the crowd in a dark, elevated sound booth as the fast-paced plot — depicting the efforts of Johnson and civil rights leaders to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — unspools below.

Tehan speaks crisply into a plastic audio mask linked to a large radio transmitter, explaining what’s happening on the set as vividly and efficiently as possible.

“He waves her away, and pats her on the rear end,” she says when Johnson abruptly dismisses his frazzled secretary.

“LBJ is picking his nose — really deep,” she says during one of the show’s comic moments, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the audience’s laughter. “Hoover is watching.” [That’s J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), the first, and longest serving Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1935-72).]

Tehan points out when Johnson turns from one character to another mid-sentence: “He’s talking to the tailor now,” she quickly interjects. She makes sure that her listeners don’t miss the joke when Johnson, frustrated by his strict diet, swipes a bite of Sen. Richard Russell’s [1897-1971; Democrat of Georgia (1933-71)] dinner. (“LBJ stabs a pork chop on Russell’s plate and pops it in his mouth,” she says. “Russell’s eyes widen.”)

She continues for well over an hour, until the stage lights dim and Act One comes to an end.

“This is intermission,” she says. “It will be about 15 minutes.”

Then she lowers the mask and exhales.

An art in itself

Tehan’s preparation for “All the Way” began weeks before the May 1 matinee, one of more than 50 annual performances with description services provided by the Ear. Describers typically see a performance at least once or twice before they narrate it live, to familiarize themselves with the script and note important visual cues.

The Ear’s roughly two dozen volunteer describers serve more than 250 blind or visually impaired people at seven local theaters every year. They take special requests, too — a couple of years ago, a describer accompanied a blind fan to a Lady Gaga concert at Verizon Center.

“It takes a very special person to be a describer, someone who can think fast on their feet,” says Neely Oplinger, the Ear’s executive director. The people who sign up — and pass a rigorous audition — tend to stick around; many have been volunteering for 10 years or longer.

Tehan joined the organization in 1992, but she had practice long before that: Her father went blind from diabetes when she was a teen, and she used to describe his favorite television shows to him.

“They are so dedicated, and most of them really know theater,” Oplinger says of the group’s volunteers. “But it takes a lot more than knowing theater.”

They also have to know the rules: When describing a performance, you have to slip all the description into the gaps between dialogue. You shouldn’t make judgments; instead of concluding that a character looks “disappointed,” you note simply that he frowns and his shoulders droop. You must capture any movement that’s essential to the plot. And — as with any live performance — if you make a mistake, you have to keep going.

These guidelines were created by Margaret Pfanstiehl, who founded the Metropolitan Washington Ear in 1974 to improve the lives of the blind and visually impaired. Pfanstiehl, a Virginia native, suffered from a degenerative disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which eventually left her almost entirely blind.

At first, the Ear was a radio reading service — still a core part of its identity. The Silver Spring, Md.-based nonprofit has nearly 400 volunteers who read newspaper and magazine articles over closed-circuit radio, and the organization offers a dial-in service for listeners to hear recordings of articles from major publications, including The Washington Post, the New York Times and many others. About 5,000 people in the Washington area use the service.

But Pfanstiehl, who died in 2009, was also a devoted opera fan and theatergoer who longed to find a way for blind audience members to enjoy live performances.

“I always wanted a little voice to tell me whether it was a gunshot or a slamming door onstage, if the villain was walking across the stage with a dagger, and whether or not the lovers were facing each other,” she once told Reuters.

In 1981, Arena Stage approached the Ear about making live performances accessible to the blind. Pfanstiehl — then Margaret Rockwell, a divorcee — recruited longtime Metro spokesman and radio pro Cody Pfanstiehl as the first volunteer describer.

They watched dozens of movies together, says Oplinger, and he described the scenes unfolding onscreen. “Together, they devised what they called ‘the art and technique of audio description,’” says Oplinger. “And in the process, they fell in love.”

The couple, who married in 1983, went on to develop a comprehensive training system, teaching hundreds of volunteers to capture live performances for the blind.

Of course, the human mind is not a camera, so the description process is perhaps more like translation — an art in itself: The word choices matter, as do the pacing of the narration, the tone of voice and the clarity of enunciation. A secretary doesn’t just run into view, she gallops. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. doesn’t touch his wife, he gently strokes her arms. The describer has to engage in a sort of verbal dance with the actors, gracefully avoiding overlap or interruption.

And like any art, it’s imperfect. Sometimes details are missed, or a describer talks over a character, or the audio sounds muffled. But even with minor hiccups, the effort makes all the difference to a blind member of the audience, says Freddie Peaco, president of the Ear’s board of directors.

“You can hear the voices, but you don’t know the setting of the stage. The audience gives a great gasp, and you don’t know why they’re gasping,” she says. “With the describer, all of that comes to life, and I can’t tell you how meaningful that is.”

The show goes on

For a describer, Tehan says, “the moment the curtain rises, you’re on your toes” — and so she is as the second act of “All the Way” begins. She stands in the dark booth, her eyes trained on the stage.

“House lights are fading to black,” she says.

After the show, her listeners will praise her performance —“You did a great job, a great job!” one man will gush, grasping her hand — but Tehan won’t be entirely convinced. Even now, halfway through, she’s frustrated by details she couldn’t capture, by how little time she has to speak between the actors’ lines. An artist is never satisfied.

But the show goes on. Tehan cranes forward to follow the actors, her glasses reflecting the glow of the stage lights. She raises the mask to her face. In the seats just beyond the booth windows, all ears are on her.

[Caitlin Gibson is a feature writer focused on families, parenting, and children.  She joined the Washington Post in 2005.] 

*  *  *  *

“INVESTING IN THE THEATER

CAN GET A CHILD’S FOOT IN THE STAGE DOOR”

by Liz Moyer 

[Liz Moyer’s report appeared in the New York Times on 27 May 2017 (sec. B [“Business Day”)].  It was posted on the Times website on 26 May as “To Invest in Your Child’s Theater Dreams, First Invest in the Theater.”]

Dean Roth, the owner and president of a New Jersey company that makes parts for the tool-and-die industry [William T. Hutchinson Co. in Union, New Jersey, a third-generation family business], admits he has utterly failed to talk his teenage daughter out of pursuing a career in musical theater.

Instead of watching helplessly as she bounded down an uncertain career path, he became a Broadway investor to get an inside track: He said his initial $1,000 outlay [equivalent to $1,400 today], in the 2011 revival of “Godspell,” was “tuition for me to find out what the business was like.”

[The Broadway revival of Godspell, conceived by John-Michael Tebelak, who wrote the book based on the Gospel of Matthew, with music and new lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, ran at the Circle in the Square Theatre from 7 November 2011-24 June 2012 (30 previews and 264 regular performances).

[The production was directed by Daniel Goldstein and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, with scenic design by David Korins, costume design by Miranda Hoffman, lighting design by David Weiner, sound design by Andrew Keister, and projection design by Daniel Brodie.]

Since then, he has invested in 22 other shows, with six returning profits so far. And he and his daughter, Kim, now a musical theater student at Syracuse University [see my note following the article], have come to an understanding about where to draw the line between meddling parent and struggling artist.

Like so many parents juggling feelings of pride and concern as their children step into adulthood, Mr. Roth said he wanted his daughter to understand the risks — as well as the rewards — associated with a career in the arts, and the only way he could see doing that was for both of them to get closer to the business.

“I wanted her to go into this with open eyes and know what she was getting into,” Mr. Roth said.

As with practically everything in New York, especially the insular world of Broadway, connections mean everything. Being a child of an investor in a show doesn’t secure a part or even an audition, but it can create opportunities that open doors.

“Getting to know a director and having the opportunity to observe a rehearsal or a script reading to get a deeper understanding of the business, that is a definite advantage,” said Pippin Parker [b. 1969], a playwright and the dean of the drama school at the New School in New York City.

Ken Davenport, a Broadway producer [the current Gypsy with Audra McDonald and the upcoming Othello with Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal; he’s produced two Tony-winners] and blogger who raises money for shows and has worked with Mr. Roth [the 2011 Godspell] and other investors, said he has seen more parents invest in shows to encourage a passion they share with one of their children or to bolster the child’s career prospects.

“The parents don’t have the friends or relationships, so they do it the old-fashioned way by writing a check,” he said. “All that check does is get you in the door. It’s up to the kids to prove themselves.”

Of course there’s no substitute for talent, Mr. Parker and others said.

“Investing is a wonderful and glorious activity, but unless you know what you are doing as an investor, the best you can hope for is a glass of Champagne with Bette Midler,” said Peter Cooke, the head of the drama school at [Pittsburgh’s] Carnegie Mellon University, which sends many graduates on to Broadway careers.

The only career path he can see, he said, “is being well trained.”

There are different ways productions raise money, but for many shows, affluent individuals play a key role. Typically, these are people with at least $1 million of investable assets — what the finance industry calls an accredited investor, who is presumably able to swallow the considerable risks associated with this type of investing.

Producers raise the money by putting together pools of investors, who tend to give an average of $25,000 to finance a production in a Broadway theater. Sometimes there are different investing tiers, and those who give more can get perks like having their names printed above the show’s title on posters and Playbills, or getting an invitation to a dress rehearsal.

The investor pools are usually organized as a limited partnership, like a private equity investment fund. Very often these investors are people who know the show’s insiders, including the actors, writers, directors and others bringing it to the stage.

Tim Speiss, a former board chairman of the Abingdon Theatre Company, a Broadway production group, said he once auctioned an item for a production in which the winning bidder could get his or her child a small speaking part in one performance. “There are some very clever ways to raise money,” said Mr. Speiss, who is a wealth adviser at EisnerAmper, an accounting and advisory firm based in New York.

Once a show gets up and running, the investors might get their money back, proportionate to what they put in, plus any profit after the show’s expenses are covered.

Many shows are money losers: Just one in five will end up being profitable, and even fewer are runaway successes. But Mr. Davenport points out that those odds aren’t much different than those of any other alternative investment in which a high-net-worth investor might dabble. As far as privately held start-ups — a favorite of private equity investors — some 50 percent of new companies fail after the first four years, according to labor statistics.

Linda Huber, an executive at a financial services company in New York, began investing in Broadway a few years ago when her daughter, now a high school senior, showed an interest. Her daughter, Claudia Lopez-Balboa, gives her advice on which shows to bankroll. So far she has invested in four, including “On Your Feet,” a musical about the lives of Gloria and Emilio Estefan [Marquis Theatre, 5 November 2015-20 August 2017], a story that resonated with her daughter’s part-Cuban heritage.

“For art that’s worth making, it’s the responsible thing to support these endeavors — it’s a thing to do together,” Ms. Huber said.

Her daughter is about to graduate from St. Paul’s School, a New Hampshire boarding school, and plans to go to the University of Michigan in the fall to major in finance and minor in arts management.

Ms. Lopez-Balboa said that Broadway had captured her imagination since she saw the show, “Bring It On” [St. James Theatre, 1 August-30 December 2012], as a middle-school student — she recalled skipping all the way home afterward.

“I wanted to produce a show that would make you leap in the air,” she said.

She reached out to Daryl Roth, a 10-time Tony-winning producer (and no relation to Mr. Roth, the tool-and-die executive) to seek out an informational meeting about the business.

Ms. Roth recalled that initial meeting and said she was impressed by Ms. Lopez-Balboa’s energy and interest — enough to hire her as an intern for two summers.

Ms. Roth, the lead producer of the show “Kinky Boots” [Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 4 April 2013-7 April 2019], said she understood where Ms. Lopez-Balboa was coming from because her son Jordan had also dived into the theater world. “I wanted to help Claudia learn and be excited about working in theater,” Ms. Roth said.

For Dean Roth, the industrial company executive from New Jersey, the first $1,000 investment got him and his daughter invited to a cocktail party at Sardi’s, where they mingled with other investors and met the show’s director, Danny Goldstein.

Some of those contacts advised Kim Roth on whether she should pick college or an acting conservatory (she chose college), gave her tips for getting started in the business, and helped answer other novice-level questions.

Ms. Roth, who interned for Ken Davenport one summer, has one year of study left at Syracuse before setting out for what she hopes will be a career as an actress, singer and dancer on Broadway. [She got her BFA in 2018; see below.]

“Living so close to the city just getting to make those networking connections is definitely helpful,” Ms. Roth said. [Westfield, New Jersey, where the Roths lived at this time, is 23 miles from New York City—a 35-minute drive or an 85-minute train ride.] “Knowing someone doesn’t necessarily help, but it doesn’t hurt.”

[Kim Roth (b. 1996), originally from Westfield, Union County, New Jersey, completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in musical theater from New York’s Syracuse University in 2018, and is now living in Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey.  She’s had additional training at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, on whose stage she’s performed (The Merchant of Venice, 2016).  Acting, singing, and dancing are her passions.  Roth is a member of Actors’ Equity Association.

[Liz Moyer is a journalist with experience reporting and writing about finance, markets, public policy and consumers.  She was most recently a reporter at Barron’s; she was previously an editor at the New York Times and a reporter at the Wall Street Journal.  Moyer has a Master of Science in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (1991).

[My friend, and a generous contributor to this blog, was, with his late wife, a small investor in a Broadway musical (Memphis, Shubert Theatre, 19 October 2009-5 August 2012).  It won several awards, including the 2010 Best Musical Tony! Read about his take on being a “Broadway Angel” (by Kirk Woodward, 7 September 2010).]

Odds & Ends About Musicals

 

[These short, random articles from various sources have been such fun to gather and post that I’m doing it again.  This time, the selection is again all about theater, but the pieces are all devoted to some aspect of musical theater. One of the articles is relatively old, from the member’s magazine of the union representing Broadway musicians nine years ago.  The other two are less than a year old.  I found them most interesting—I hope you will, too.] 

“A VIEW FROM THE PODIUM”

by Joseph Church 

[The article below was published in volume 115, number 6 (June 2015) of Allegro, the member magazine of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the union that represents members of the pit orchestras for all Broadway and many Off-Broadway shows (among other gigs around town).  Its author, a member of the union, is the author of a book about music directing, a specialty I certainly know little about, and it seems it’s not well understood by most non-musicians.  It is, however, a vital profession in the world of musical theater, and in the spirit of my occasional series on theater jobs most theatergoers know little about, I’m presenting an insider’s own view of his work.]

Broadway music director gives an inside story in new book

As well as being a great honor, it is especially fitting to introduce my new book, “Music Direction for the Stage: A View from the Podium” [Oxford University Press, 2015], here in Allegro, as my involvement with the musicians’ union was one of my first incentives for my undertaking the book’s writing.

In the book I recount how in 1994, a group of music directors instituted a committee within local 802 to address a concern that their work was encroaching into areas for which they were not properly compensated or recognized, in particular extensive transcription and arranging, composing additional music, and doing music preparation. Several of us were helping composers realize their work as elaborate Broadway scores. Among our campaigns was an appeal to the Tony Awards committee to reinstate the Tony for music direction, discontinued after 1964. We presented our case in person and with a meticulously detailed and well-produced demonstration video about music direction, showing the transformation of a raw piece of music to its final form. The Tony committee were unmoved by the impassioned plea. They still expressed bafflement at a music director’s work, and were unable to remember the criteria by which they had judged the award until 1964, even though some of them had been on the awards committee then. Ironically, and very gratifyingly, one outcome of our failed attempts to explain our occupation and lay a groundwork for acknowledgement thereof was the American Theatre Wing’s establishing a Tony award for orchestration, beginning in the 1996-97 season. [ATW, along with the Broadway League, presents the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award.]

Our quest revealed how misunderstood, or more accurately “un-understood,” the job of music direction was then, and it continues to be. Its impenetrability is not difficult to accept, for a variety of reasons, two foremost among them: first, because the job varies so greatly from situation to situation, and second, because when a music director does his or her job well, the music is woven almost invisibly into the fabric of a larger entertainment, and the music director disappears.

The definition of music direction that I propose in the book sheds even more light on the confusion, so to speak. A music director is responsible for all aspects of preparing and performing the music for a musical production: a varying, fluid combination of creative, technical, and administrative functions. He or she is the nominal head of any music department that might exist within a production organization. Among the duties: accompanying (usually, but not always, at the piano), conducting, rehearsing, giving notes, coordinating with technicians and designers, explaining or demonstrating music to others, teaching singing, instruction in harmony and counterpoint, composing, arranging, orchestrating, determining music cues, contracting and managing music staff and instrumentalists, overseeing the physical and technical aspects of the music, maintaining and revising performances over time, acting as a supporter, mediator, counselor, psychotherapist, and executive decision-maker when musical indecisions and disputes arise. To prepare for each job, music directors acquire a comprehensive understanding of every aspect of the musical score, and of the on-stage content – the story, the style, and so on. They must execute their work in an effective union with many other creative and production personnel.

Local 802 and the AFM make many appearances in “Music Direction for the Stage,” partly because I use Broadway production as a model of stage production, regardless of whether the discussion is of Broadway theatre, a stock theatre, a community theatre, a nightclub or a university. The standards and practices that the union upholds on Broadway are applicable in all work situations, with regard both to reliability and excellence of the product – the musicians and music – and to the working conditions. Though the union makes no reference to music directors in the Broadway agreement, many of the tasks that fall under the heading of music direction are under the union’s protection, including, of course, conducting, playing, and arranging. (The managerial duties of music directors prohibit their coverage under a collective bargaining agreement.) Music directors are both management and rank-and-file, and during the contentious negotiations between employers and the union, music directors often find themselves with one foot on each side of the border.

There is little doubt in the writing of my pro-union bias, and my strong preference for live music performed without undue orchestra reductions. An audience member deserves to hear the energy of a living horn player blowing into a metal mouthpiece or bamboo reed, deserves to hear the sound of the player’s spit, and even deserves the musician’s mistakes, which confirm the sound’s reality, its personality, and its immediacy. Surely the few dollars that might be saved with reduced and synthesized orchestras cannot be worth the loss in humanity.

[Support of live music over the use of recorded or synthesized music in the production of stage musicals has been a policy of AFM for well over a decade, as has the campaign against reducing the size of the orchestra from that for which the score was originally composed. On Rick On Theater, I’ve published several posts on the subject beginning with my editorial post, “The Sound of Muzak” (16 June 2011). Other posts include “‘Big Sound’” by Mary Donovan with Marisa Friedman (27 September 2011), “Making Broadway Babies” (25 November 2013), and “Music Theater Programs for Kids” (18 May 2018).]

In my book, I give strong cautions against nonunion work. These are the least excusable production situations, and least advantageous for a music director. The presenters of these shows egregiously decimate orchestras and casts and employ low-fidelity electronic emulation, yet they bill their productions as “Broadway” shows. Musicians on these productions can be worked at will, going weeks without days off and traveling nightly by bus to the next stop, all at subpar wages. On the road, when not under a union contract, with many or all of their belongings in tow, including perhaps their instruments, exploited musicians have little remedy should their situation become dire. In my opinion, music directors (and all musicians) should avoid these productions entirely, even when looking to build a resumé. Nonetheless, my book addresses music direction situations of all kinds, even those at the amateur or semiprofessional level.

Finding the balance between instruction and information, between depth and comprehensiveness, and between theory and practice were among my many challenges in organizing the wealth of knowledge related to the subject matter. While it’s certainly meant as a textbook for aspiring and curious music directors, my hope is that my book will be read by all those who work with and experience the work of music directors, including orchestra musicians, singers and dancers, directors, producers, and of course the interested, enthusiastic audience member – a typical profile of a Broadway attendee in the 21st century. The material covered within is relevant not just to conductors and pianists but to all musicians and instrumentalists who might someday find themselves in the position of music director, for a singer or club act, for a revue or a benefit concert, for a local gala or an awards ceremony, or even for a Broadway musical.

Many of my colleagues, professional and academic both, encouraged me to write the book, and were supportive throughout the process. I have done my best to include their insightful and inspiring voices in the chorus of approaches, methods, and opinions I present. As I state in the introduction, it is mostly the lack of understanding of music direction that creates space for a study of the subject. A music director is not just an interchangeable part, nor just someone who plays the piano really well, nor just someone who happened to be available when a music director was needed, but rather an individual who can provide a unique and significant creative contribution to a production, as well as absolute musical and accompanimental proficiency. If I have a loftier goal, it is the desire to improve upon the discipline and its execution in both professional and amateur situations. . . What qualifies this author as a resource or an expert? In no way whatsoever do I profess to be the sole or utmost authority. It is not boldness, but rather inquisitiveness that motivates this work.

[Joseph Church (b. 1957), a member of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians since 1983, is best known for his work as music director and supervisor of two groundbreaking Broadway musicals, The Who’s Tommy (music and lyrics by Pete Townshend, book by Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff; St. James Theatre, 22 April 1993-17 June 1995) and The Lion King (music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, book by Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi; New Amsterdam Theatre, 13 November 1997-Present).  

[He’s worked on countless other productions as music director, conductor, keyboardist, and/or arranger, on and Off-Broadway, nationwide, and worldwide, among them, In The Heights (music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, book by Quiara Alegría Hudes; Richard Rodgers Theatre, 9 March 2008-9 January 2011; associate conductor, keyboardist), Sister Act (music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Glenn Slater, book by Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner; Broadway Theatre, 20 April 2011-26 August 2012; associate conductor), Les Miserables (music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, English book by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil; Broadway Theatre/Imperial Theatre, 12 March 1987-18 May 2003), Little Shop Of Horrors (music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman, book by Howard Ashman; Virginia Theatre, 2 October 2003-22 August 2004), Randy Newman’s Faust (music, lyrics, and book by Newman; La Jolla Playhouse, 24 September-29 October 1995, music director), and Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular (1988).  Also an active composer, he has written for film, television, the concert stage, and over 30 plays and musicals.] 

*  *  *  *

“WHY WAS THIS TREASURE OF MUSICAL THEATER

ALL BUT LOST TO THE AGES?”

by John McWhorter 

[The piece below is the 9 May 2024 John McWhorter newsletter, published for New York Times subscribers only.  It’s not only about musical theater, but also about Black theater—in this instance, a vintage play.  A version of this article appeared in print on 12 May 2024 in the “Sunday Opinion” section of the New York edition, with the headline: “A Lost Treasure of Black Theater.”]

A Columbia University linguist explores how race and language shape our politics and culture.

Three Black book musicals were Broadway hits in the 1970s: “Purlie” in 1970, “The Wiz” in 1975 and “Raisin” in 1973, based on Lorraine Hansberry’s [1930-65] “A Raisin in the Sun.” That was Blacker than Broadway had been since 50 years earlier, when the 1921 hit “Shuffle Along” inaugurated a string of jolly all-Black shows that petered out during the Depression.

“Purlie” and “The Wiz” — along with “Dreamgirls,” which landed just past the decade divider in 1981 — have been well attended since the 1970s. “Purlie” was filmed for a video that got around a lot in the 1980s [it aired on 18 June 1981 on Showtime], and City Center’s Encores series revived it in 2005. “The Wiz” was made into a film that many Black people regard as iconic [released by Universal Pictures and Motown Productions on 24 October 1978], and a revival is playing on Broadway now [Marquis Theatre, 17 April-18 August 2024]. “Dreamgirls” was also successfully filmed, in 2006 [by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures], was revived on Broadway in 1987 and has had various touring versions; its original cast recording won two Grammys.

“Raisin” was a hit in its day. It is a faithful rendition of the play, the script written by Hansberry’s ex-husband, Robert Nemiroff (with Charlotte Zaltzberg), with music by Judd Woldin and lyrics by Robert Brittan. It ran for over two years [at the 46th Street and Lunt-Fontanne Theatres, 18 October 1973-7 December 1975], won the Tony for best musical and best actress (Virginia Capers) and Theatre World awards for three other leads [Ernestine Jackson, Joe Morton, and Ralph Carter]. Its cast album, too, got a Grammy.

And yet you may never have heard of it. Even if you are old enough to have seen it back in the day, you probably have not thought about it in a very long time and might be hard pressed to hum even a few bars of any of the songs. Musical theater historians tend to blow by it with a couple of respectful sentences. That’s because “Raisin” basically dropped from sight after it closed. It’s had a regional revival or three, but compared with “Purlie,” “The Wiz” and “Dreamgirls,” it is a dead property.

I first encountered “Raisin” in 1986, by way of its cast album. I found it weak and wondered how the show had run so long. This was when I was first becoming interested in musicals (a bug that didn’t bite me until the end of my senior year in college). Compared with the Sondheim and Porter and Kander and Ebb stuff I was drinking in, the music of “Raisin” sounded to me like just the R&B on the radio from 10 or 15 years before, except with fewer hooks and stretched beyond what it could support.

Recently, however, a friend asked me what I thought of it, so I pulled out my LP and gave the score a listen. Now I am better equipped to hear what in 1986 sounded too recent in style for me to assess. Now I can see that the “Raisin” score was golden work, and it deserves more attention. (Encores, are you listening?) [Encores! is a concert series presented by New York City Center since 1994, dedicated to reviving neglected musicals.]

Even the overture music is so infectiously gritty — roughly, the “Shaft” soundtrack meets Duke Ellington’s “Far East Suite” — that I suspect the most determined hater of musicals would hearken to it. In “Man Say,” Walter and Ruth’s early disagreement over his ambitions, each time Walter sarcastically imitates Ruth, the arrangement jabs in a high, dissonant sting of a chord from muted brass, perfectly conveying the mocking irony in Walter’s words. The score is full of unexpected touches like that, such as Ruth’s affectionate tribute to her son. An ordinary orchestration would have started it with violins purring long notes and some comments by a solo flute. But in the beginning of “Whose Little Angry Men,” Ruth is accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, which sounds more intimate, vernacular, down to earth — that is, like a mother talking to her son. I might still rate the “Dreamgirls” score higher, but “Raisin” is a close second.

I knew the composer, Judd Woldin, for a bit when I played a role in an early pre-professional tryout of “The Prince and the Pauper” that he scored. He borrowed a musical theater history book of mine and for some reason left a piece of duct tape on the spine. I still have it on my shelves. He was a sterling mensch. I think it was only chance that kept him from making a bigger mark. Had “The Prince and the Pauper” ever made it to Broadway, two of the ballads, “Mother Is Here” and “Kiss Away,” could have become audition staples. His musical adaptation of Langston Hughes’s play “Little Ham,” which did make it to Off Broadway for a bit in 2002 [at the John Houseman Theatre on Theatre Row], had a smart, plangent R&B lament, “Big Ideas,” that has never left my hippocampus.

So why are “Dreamgirls,” “Purlie” and “The Wiz” remembered and revived, while “Raisin” is all but forgotten?

Lack of authenticity is not the reason. Its score was written by white men but so were the scores of “Purlie” and “Dreamgirls.” A lack of flash may have been a factor: “The Wiz” and “Dreamgirls” are spectacles, as much about costumes and dancing as how they sound. But “Purlie” is about a few people in a couple of rooms talking about problems, just like “Raisin.”

A likely reason “Raisin” isn’t much revived is a sense that a play as important as Lorraine Hansberry’s should be preserved as it was, that setting it to music is intrusive or at least unnecessary. Ethan Mordden, a historian of musical theater whom I hold in the very highest esteem, wrote: “The songs are finely judged. But they add nothing to what Hansberry wrote. They are what Hansberry wrote; that’s the trouble.”

People said the same about turning “Pygmalion” into “My Fair Lady.” I myself view Hansberry’s play as something close to scripture, but the musical pulls off some things that the play cannot. In the play, the little boy, Travis, can usually make only so much of an impression because the acting ability of kids that age is often limited (although the first person to play that role was Glynn Thurman [sic; Turman, b. 1947], the now celebrated veteran actor, and he was probably excellent). In the musical, however, Travis gets a captivating little song called “Sidewalk Tree” and comes across to us vividly. “He Come Down This Morning” gives us the Younger family singing in church, a central aspect of their weekly existence that the play, without music, can’t deliver. And while “A Raisin in the Sun” unwittingly initiated a genre that George C. Wolfe affectionately dissed, in “The Colored Museum” [1986], as the “[The Last] Mama-on-the-couch play,” “Raisin”’s music for the mother, Lena, — especially the unjustly neglected ballad “Measure the Valleys” — transcends any cliché.

“Raisin” is also special in being about Black people just having conversations. Clearing the table, standing around, answering the doorbell. Most Black musicals are about performers, flash, funk, scarecrows, witches, the Supremes or something like them, silvery gleaming, yellow brick, bluesy numbers that raise the roof. All great. But in the warm duet “Sweet Time,” “Raisin” has what may be the first Broadway song in which a Black couple simply converse with each other rather than proclaim and prance for the audience.

“A Raisin in the Sun” is certainly one of the best plays ever written in the English language. There is a reason it has been revived on Broadway not once but twice in the 21st century alone, as well as once Off Broadway, and is often done by regional and community theater groups. (I think I have seen it seven times.) However, it is increasingly distant from us in time. It was valued in 1959 as giving white theatergoers their first sustained look into Black life, but they have had many more such looks since. Housing segregation still exists, but not in the overt form of the covenants that the play so searingly depicts. Ambivalence about assimilation to white ways persists among many Black people, but the color line is not what it was. Today if Black people assimilate, it’s to a whiteness that is no longer as pure as it was in the 1950s, having been transformed by the “browning” of the culture.

This all means that “A Raisin in the Sun,” mythic though it is, is a look at history. Space opens up for new approaches, including Bruce Norris’s hit 2012 play, “Clybourne Park,” which revisited the mise-en-scène both before the play’s events and 50 years after them. Meanwhile, music has a universalizing essence, leavening characters who might otherwise seem like people of another time and making them more archetypal. “Raisin” complements “Clybourne Park” as an expansion upon the original material, keeping it alive as part of an ongoing artistic conversation.

“Raisin” is a property that audiences of all races can relate to just as they did 51 years ago. Its obscurity is accidental and undeserved, and a theater company that gives it a chance is likely to find itself with a smart, happy hit that sheds new light on a classic work of art.

[John McWhorter is an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University.  He is the author of Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now and Forever (Avery, 2021) and, most recently, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America (Portfolio/Penguin, 2021).

[I saw Raisin in October 1974, one of the first plays I went to after I arrived in New York City that summer after five years in the army, the last 2½ of which I’d spent in West Berlin.  I remember the play quite vividly because of one thing: Virginia Capers’s performance as Lena Younger, the mother

[At that time, I was keeping a mental list of the most outstanding individual performances I’d seen.  I never committed the list to paper, and I stopped keeping it maybe a decade later, but Capers was high on it.  (A few others on the list were James Earl Jones’s Jack Jefferson in The Great White Hope, Alec McCowen’s Frederick William Rolfe in Hadrian VII, and Pat Carroll’s Gertrude Stein in Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein.)  Like the others’, her performance is indelible.

[I also saw a touring performance of Dreamgirls in 1990, and as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t come close to Raisin in quality.  (I saw The Wiz, too, in its Broadway première.)  While Raisin has stuck with me for 50 years now—I, too, have the cast album—I barely recall Dreamgirls as anything more than a wan facsimile of the Supremes (who were a strong musical presence in my college years).

[One additional personal note: George C. Wolfe’s Colored Museum premièred in New Brunswick, New Jersey, at the Crossroads Theatre in 1986, directed by L, Kenneth Richardson, one of the theater’s founders.  (The Crossroads production went on to its New York début at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theater (where Wolfe was then artistic director) for 198 performances from November 1986 to July 1987.)

[The Crossroads was founded in 1978 by Ricardo Khan and Lee Richardson, two of my MFA classmates at what is now Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts.  It was a small program in those beginning years, 1975-77, so we all knew each other pretty well, but Lee became a friend—Ric was a directing student while Lee and I were actors.

[Crossroads was a big success.  Aside from premièring Wolfe’s play, it was New Jersey’s first professional African-American repertory company, and in 1999, it won the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.]

*  *  *  *

“EQUAL ACCESSIBILITY FOR DEAF

AND HEARING AUDIENCES? IT’S POSSIBLE!”

by Brian Andrew Cheslik 

[From the American Theatre website of 26 July 2024—it didn’t appear in the print edition of the magazine—comes this article on a production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella with a cast of hearing, deaf, and hard-of-hearing actors and a similarly mixed staff and crew.  The author of the piece, Brian Andrew Cheslik, himself deaf, was the director of the production.]

How a new staging of ‘Cinderella’ is bringing Deaf/hearing theatre out of the ‘shadows.’

The beautiful thing about theatre is that there is never just one way to do it. Directors are able to take a piece and stage it in new and creative ways, while holding true to the story and the text. As a director who specializes in Deaf theatre, I look at each script to find ways to increase the accessibility. My goal is always to ensure that the show is accessible to both Deaf and hearing audiences, while finding ways to challenge the traditional theatre norms.

Traditionally, Deaf theatre has been staged with “shadow” actors or interpreters—i.e., every role is double cast with a Deaf actor and a hearing actor. This method has been used for many years. But in my opinion, it is quite oppressive to the Deaf actors. It requires that the Deaf actor share the spotlight with a hearing actor who is only providing the voice, while the Deaf actor is performing the embodied role. This method has often troubled me, because it sends the message that the Deaf actor’s language, American Sign Language (ASL), is not enough. Many companies will say that this bilingual approach is designed to make the show accessible to everyone. While the logic is sound, the result is that Deaf audiences have to focus harder on the signing actor, while having the visual distraction of the hearing actor. While hearing audiences’ attention may be split as well, there is never a danger that they will miss anything.

Take Deaf West’s Spring Awakening, for example. First, some qualifiers: I highly respect Deaf West [Los Angeles] and everyone involved on the show, as many of the Deaf artists involved are close personal friends. I am grateful for the show, as it really helped to put Deaf performers on the map in the industry and brought about an awareness that was needed, and I applaud the theatrical and Broadway community for welcoming this version of the show. I was lucky enough to see it on its closing night on Broadway. [The production ran on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre from 27 September 2015 to 24 January 2016 (23 previews and 135 regular performances).]

All that said, while I was thrilled to see Broadway audiences falling in love with my friends and this production, as a Deaf audience member, I have to say it was not fully accessible to me, as it was designed for a hearing audience. I will admit that I do have the privilege of having some residual hearing left, and my hearing aids to help me experience the music. I saw the original Broadway cast years before and fell in love with the story and the music, so I knew the show by heart. This allowed me to note what was lacking in terms of accessibility.

During intermission, I spotted another audience member I knew from my time as a student at Gallaudet University [prestigious university in Washington, D.C., for the deaf and hard of hearing]. I knew he was profoundly Deaf, with no residual hearing. I asked him if he was enjoying the show so far. His face dropped, as he told me he could not follow the story; it was often hard to see the signing due to the lighting design, and the periodic projection of text on the set was often illegible due to placement and font choice, while the constant dual shadowing of hearing/Deaf casting was distracting.

I have met numerous Deaf people who felt the same way. When I have been contacted by theatre companies that want to do inclusive shows in the mode of Spring Awakening, I have to explain the problems with this model, which is entertaining for hearing audiences but inaccessible to many Deaf audiences. It was time for a change. I had been wanting to push those boundaries of accessibility and try something new. Enter ZACH Theatre in Austin, with an offer to collaborate with my company, Deaf Austin Theatre, on an ASL/English production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, with a new book by Douglas Carter Beane [see my post Cinderella: Impossible Things Are Happening (CBS-TV, 31 March 1957) (25 April 2013); the Beane script was written for the Broadway production which ran at the Broadway Theatre, 3 March 2013-3 January 2015 (41 previews and 769 regular performances)]. We brought on Michael Baron, artistic director of Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, to co-direct the show with me because of his experiences co-directing with Sandra Mae Frank on a Deaf/hearing version staging of The Music Man at Olney Theatre Center [Olney, Maryland] in 2022.

As a Deaf director myself, I understand how important representation is, and Michael 100 percent agreed. So the first thing that we did was to carefully select a production team that was mixed with both Deaf and hearing professionals. The production team included music director Allen Robertson (hearing), lighting designer Annie Wiegand (Deaf), choreographer Cassie Abate (hearing), assistant choreographer Mervin Primeaux O’Bryant (Deaf), costume designer Jeffrey Meek (hearing), set/projection designer Stephanie Busing (hearing), and a director of ASL, Kailyn Aaron-Lozano (Deaf).

When discussing the storyline and the integration of Deaf culture, I had to decide which characters were Deaf, which were hearing, and which were hard of hearing. We already knew that Ella was going to be Deaf and Prince Topher was hearing. Jean-Michel, Ella’s friend, would be Deaf, while the Prince’s buddies, Sebastian and Lord Pinkleton, would be hearing and Deaf, respectively. Madame, Ella’s stepmother, would be hearing, while stepsister Charlotte would be hearing and stepsister Gabrielle hard of hearing. These distinctions also served the story: Madame, the stepmother, valued speech over any other communication, sharpening her dislike of Ella, who could not hear or speak, in contrast to her hearing and hard-of-hearing daughter.

In casting the show, we put together a group of 15 actors, seven Deaf and eight hearing. Sandra Mae Frank, best known for her work on NBC’s New Amsterdam [2018-22] and Deaf West’s Spring Awakening, stepped into the glass slippers as our Ella. To star opposite Sandra Mae as Prince Topher, we found Trey Harrington, a hearing actor who had been studying ASL for years; we decided to make the Prince a CODA (child of deaf adults).

In our staging of Cinderella—which ran at ZACH in early 2023 and is about to reopen at Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma [30 July-4 August 2024] in Oklahoma City—Michael and I threw out both what is traditional in musical theatre and what is traditional in Deaf theatre. We created a production where accessibility was an even platform for everyone, regardless if you were Deaf, hard of hearing, hearing, fluent in ASL, or completely ASL illiterate. Unlike the “shadowing” practice noted above, the Deaf characters Ella and Marie had no vocal counterpart for most of the show, including during songs like “My Own Little Corner” and “There Is Music in You.” The same was true in reverse for hearing/speaking characters like Madame and Sebastian, who had no ASL counterparts. Prince Topher would shift from speaking to signing to SimCom (simultaneous communication: signing and speaking at the same time), depending on who he was with.

How did these various audiences follow everything that was happening? The key: The entire production would have the English text and lyrics projected as supertitles onto the set throughout the show, so that at any point the text would be readily available when needed.

Throughout, I strove to use Deafness and hearing as part of the story. I wanted to bring in the dynamics of a typical Deaf/hearing relationship, along with all the hurdles and opportunities that presents. During the Prologue, we set the story in a modern library, with an ensemble pantomime that shows a modern-day Deaf girl bumping into a hearing boy. He tries to communicate with her but learns from the librarian that she is Deaf, so he finds an ASL dictionary and learns how to sign, “My name is . . .” But when he tries to communicate with her, he loses his nerve and runs off. Dejected, our modern-day Deaf girl dives into her favorite fable: Cinderella. As she opens the book, the story comes to life and the stage transforms.

Bookending this opening, at the finale we bring back our modern-day couple and see that he’s finally built up the nerve to talk to the beautiful Deaf girl and introduce himself, as the final notes of the music sound out, leading to a conclusion of hope and love for the young couple.

Signing, Not Singing

To spotlight the Deaf actors portraying characters we identified as Deaf, we wanted to honor their authentic language, which meant not adding voicing for their characters. So during Ella’s solo of “My Own Little Corner,” Sandra Mae Frank signs the song along with the music, but no vocals are heard. As a Deaf person, the first time I saw Sandra Mae signing the song along with the music, it gave me goosebumps because it was so empowering to see.

This inspired us to add more ASL songs without voicing, including songs between Ella and Topher, because it makes sense that he would want to communicate with her in her own language. Songs like “Ten Minutes Ago” and “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful” are performed in ASL, English voicing, and SimCom at moments that align with the progression of Ella and Topher’s relationship.

During ensemble songs like “The Prince Is Giving a Ball/Now Is the Time” and group songs like “When You’re Driving Through the Moonlight/A Lovely Night,” vocals of the lyrics are heard, but the singers are hidden among the ensemble or offstage so as not to distract from what was happening. Gabrielle, the hard-of-hearing stepsister, SimComs whenever Madame was around, but when it is just Ella and Gabrielle, they use ASL only, solidifying their relationship. This growing sisterhood is even more prominent in the reprise of “A Lovely Night.”

This device works the other way too: When Prince Topher is speaking with his right-hand man, Sebastian, with no other Deaf characters onstage, they speak only. But if Lord Pinkleton is around, the Prince uses SimCom so that Pinkleton is included in the conversation. For Pinkleton’s song, “The Prince Is Giving a Ball,” Sebastian voices the song while Pinkleton signs it. The Prince, meanwhile, progresses in his relationship with Ella, from SimCom to full signing with no voice. This corresponds with the natural development of a hearing person’s relationship with a Deaf person.

As Madame is one of the more oppressive characters, we wanted to make it clear that she does not like sign language and only values spoken language. This is a form of audism: i.e., the belief that the ability to hear makes you better than someone who cannot. So Madame crudely gestures with Ella and treats her as ignorant. Madame disapproves of Gabrielle’s relationship with Jean-Michel because he is Deaf and cannot speak.

Supertitles to the Rescue

Co-director Michael Baron was on board with the goal of full accessibility with the production, and also wanted to build on what learned from his experience with The Music Man, based on audience feedback regarding the placement of the supertitles.

Supertitles are captioning projected onto the set and ingrained within the set design. Captions, by contrast, are not fully accessible, because they are often placed in obscure locations, forcing Deaf audience members to look away from the stage/show in order to read the text. We wanted to ensure that the supertitles had a central home onstage, while also being free to move if the scenic action is happening stage right or stage left. Stephanie Busing, our set designer, was completely on board and integrated these surfaces into her design, while also taking on the role of projection/supertitle designer. This allowed for a streamlined vision of cohesion between the physical set and the projections.

The supertitles are projected onto a large framed canvas descended from the fly system in the stage center position. But if Cinderella’s house happens to move far stage left or right, the supertitles are projected on the archway representing her house. The goal is to ensure that the text and the actors are all within the audience’s field of vision at all times throughout the show.

Some people have asked me why we have songs and dialogue without voicing, and my response to that is . . . why not? Why does everything have to be voiced? If Deaf audiences are always having to determine which mode of accessibility they will take advantage of during a show (ASL interpreters or captions), then why can’t hearing audiences also adapt? With this staging, everyone has to do a bit of work, turning to the supertitles when the text onstage is not accessible to them. No person has an advantage over the other—unless you are a hearing person who is fluent in ASL. Then you have the best of both worlds.

Honestly, while I’m very proud of what we’ve done with Cinderella, this should not be a rare or special occasion. Deaf actors should be considered, and supertitles included, in every production. That way Deaf audiences would not be limited to booking tickets on specific nights, but have the equitable option of choosing any night to attend the show.

This new wave of accessible theatre can be implemented in any venue across the U.S. and beyond. Want to see how it is done? Cinderella is playing at Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma City, July 30-Aug. 4 [2024].

[Dr. Brian Andrew Cheslik is the managing artistic director of Deaf Austin Theatre and the program director for the American Sign Language & Interpretation program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley [multiple campuses], as well as a Certified Deaf Interpreter.

[I referred to a post on R&H’s Cinderella above, with an embedded link.  That post is founded on my recollection of watching the original, live broadcast of the television version of the musical in 1957.  It starred a young British actress named Julie Andrews, who’d been making a splash on Broadway in My Fair Lady, from which she’d taken a break to do the only musical Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote for TV.  

[I was 10 and was already an incipient theater buff, especially musicals—I’d seen several shows in Washington, D.C., my hometown, and in New York City, I’d been to Fiorello! and MFL already.  There were many more to come—as I relate in my post “A Broadway Baby” (22 September 2010).  Needless to add, I loved that Cinderella, and a day or so later, my dad came home with the cast album, a monaural vinyl LP—which I still have.]