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.] 

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“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.]

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“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.]