Author: Charleston Stage

Tonight the West Side Story company of 53 (30 actors, 13 musicians, 10 crew members) are joined by an audience for the first time.  Last night was the final dress rehearsal where the final fine tuning took place.    Tonight the large audience who’ve been buying tickets like crazy all day will be treated to one of the greatest musicals of all time.   The soaring score, gigantic set (wait until you see the work of our scenic graffiti artists) and well over 100 costumes all adds up to a stunning production . . . and the debut of Charleston Stage’s Professional Resident Acting Company—wait until you hear their amazing voices,  all supported by our live West Side Story orchestra and a terrific ensemble of singers and dancers and Aaron Velthouse, our guest “Tony”.  “Something’s coming”!   Something amazing! 

 

 

As West Side Story nears the end of it’s rehearsal process, the emergence of a beautiful final product quickly approaches. However, much is yet to be done.  Technical elements are being finalized, costumes are being added, and some minor changes in blocking are being made to accommodate the larger-than-life-set.  The “urban playground”, designed by Stefanie Christensen, gives the Jets and Sharks a variety of levels on which to play, but also lends a challenge for the “dream ballet” sequence.In order to take the characters out of their reality and place them into a dreamland of sorts, Stefanie brilliantly gathered sheer white fabric and hung several panels from above, spanning the entire stage. Fog was later added to enhance the effect. Once these technical elements were in place, it was my turn to join the picture.Although I am playing “Action”, the most aggressive and rambunctious Jet, I am also playing “Dream Tony”. That is, I quickly reappear as the dream version of Tony (accompanied by a “Dream Maria” as well) while the “real” Tony and Maria watch their dream come to life right before their very eyes. The ballet sequence is technically difficult, especially considering that both myself and Micky Dims (Dream Maria) both are relatively new to ballet. In actuality, my background in dance comes from hip-hop and Micky’s background comes from gymnastics. However, both of us picked up ballet in recent years and were lucky enough to get chosen by choreographer Kevin P. Hill as the dream duo. It seems the both of us have been to countless (and I really do mean COUNTLESS) extra rehearsals with Kevin or with Michael Lasris (“Bernardo”/Dance Captain) to learn and polish the ballet. After many rehearsals, the ballet eventually came together and transformed into a seamless and coherent artistic creation. While additional technical elements are still being added, the ballet, as well as the rest of the show, is nearing completion and is almost ready for viewing by the general public. As my excitement builds to open my first show here at Charleston Stage, I am simultaneously stepping away from the show and watching it emerge as a realized conceptualization… Get ready for West Side Story! 

 

(Resident Actor Sonny Kong And Local Actor Micky Dims As “Dream Tony And Maria”)

  

 

This weekend we began spacing rehearsals where the actors get to use the set for the first time and we adjust their spacing.   For this show it is a really a challenge since this set has fences to climb on, sewer pipes to dive into and balconies to climb—none of which we had in our rehearsal hall.  Though we lost a rehearsal due to Hanna, the cast worked diligently for 16 hours this weekend to get their spacing right—a challenge since some of the rousing dance numbers have upwards of 30 dancers onstage at the same time. Many of our costumes include knee pads, but there were still a few bumps along the way.  Set designer Stefanie Christensen promised me an “urban playground” and with over 100 feet of chain link and even more steel pipe she really delivered. That’s all for now, there is a can of spray paint calling my name. What’s an urban playground without a little graffiti?!

 

(Actors rehearse for the first time on stage at the Sottile Theatre while Director Marybeth Clark and Choreographer Kevin P. Hill work with spacing)

 

  

(Actors dance and rehearse for the first time in costume while staging the big dance off at the gym.) 

Next up are tech rehearsals which also began over the weekend.  Here we added sets rolling on and flying in and out, spectacular lighting cues,  wireless microphones, and over 150 costumes.  Just getting a cast of 33 dressed in time for each scene requires incredible coordination and planning backstage.  And just to add to the fun, for the first time, the cast would be singing and dancing to a live orchestra.  Though they’re playing the same music actors heard in rehearsal, tempos and rhythms have to be carefully coordinated so everyone’s on the same page.  Bernstein’s jazzy score, while brilliant makes this very challenging.  Choreographer Kevin P. Smith and Music Director Wendell Smith had their hands full.  Still, though the show is still coming together—the set not all painted and costumes still to be fitted, the show already is shaping up into something dazzling.

 

(The Sharks dance in “I Want To Be In America”)

 

 

(“When You’re A Jet, You’re The Top Cat In Town”) 

 

(Professional Resident Actor Viveka Chandrasekaran as Maria sings “I Feel Pretty” with the Shark girls) 

Because we can not use the theatre until the week before a show opens, we rehearsed the first four weeks of West Side Story in our Mount Pleasant rehearsal studio. Our rehearsal facility has a specially built dance floor, a mirrored wall and a stage that is almost as big as Sottile’s stage.  We are lucky to have a large work space, but it is not quite big enough for one important element— the set.  The ceilings at the rehearsal studio aren’t tall enough for the twelve foot walls, platforms and chain link fences that make up the streetscape of NYC for West Side Story.  Stefanie Christensen, our  resident scene designer has designed an amazing set for us based on a dilapidated NYC playground with torn chain link fencing and grafitti-spattered brick walls in the background.  (For that we’ll paint the actual back wall of the theatre.)  To show the actors what the set will look like, Stefanie  built a  scale model  for us. (See photo below) In the rehearsal studio, production stage manager Bessie Edwards, taped the outlines of the set on the floor and I directed the actors using these marks. This is a challenge, for the fire escape balcony for instance,  all we have in rehearsal is a rectangle taped to the floor.  Actors have to use their imaginations for scaling fences, ducking under platforms and even sliding down giant drain pipes.  The cast will get to work on the actual super sized set on Saturday.  Though this will be the first time they get to work with  the full scale scenic elements  choreographer Kevin P. Hill, Music Director Wendell Smith and I tried it out this “playground” yesterday.   We had fun  but the balcony scene just wasn’t quite the same with Wendell playing “Maria”…. I can’t wait til Saturday.

 

(Miniature scale model for West Side Story) 

 

 

 (West Side Story set in progress on the stage of the College of Charleston’s Sottile Theatre.  Grafitti and chain link fence are still to come.  Photo taken on Sept. 5, 2008)

We are watching the weather just like everyone, but that doesn’t mean we stop working.  Last night was the first rehearsal for our West Side Story orchestra. There is just one rehearsal before we move to the Sottile Theater and work with the cast, but with twelve of Charleston’s finest musicians, even the first run thru was audience worthy.  Some of the Low Country’s finest musicians have come together for this production:  Mark Sterbank, Jon Phillips, and Cathy Ardrey on woodwinds; Chuck Dalton and Steve Berry on trumpet; Phil King on trombone; Brian Reed on French Horn; John Wiley, violin; Larry Crosswell, piano; John Kennedy, bass; David Patterson on drums; and Tim Clemons on timpani, xylophone, vibraphone, and everything else you can shake, rattle and roll.  And once again at the musical helm of the good ship Charleston Stage, Wendell Smith.  Leonard Bernstein was the ultimate composer, conductor, musicial genius, and this is one of the most challenging scores ever written for the stage.  The tunes have become such classics that it’s hard not to play them with passion and get them right.  “Maria,” “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty”… see, even you are tempted to come sit in the pit and play or sing along.

 

I’ve always hated dream ballets in musicals,  They always seemed silly and contrived to me and often unnecessary (which is why they are often cut or shortened in modern productions).  But this week Guest choreographer Kevin Hill staged the second act dream ballet for West Side Story, a sequence that retells in dance the tragedy of Maria and Tony.  There is no dialogue in the sequence,   the orchestra plays the lyrical  “Somewhere” and is joined by a beautiful offstage soprano, (Cathy Ardrey in our production).  Of course we didn’t have the orchestra at rehearsal, just a single piano, and Cathy was out of town so Wendell Smith, our Music Director (not a soprano) sang”Somewhere”  softly as the dancers went through their paces.    And there in the rehearsal hall, with no orchestra, no sets or costumes, this beautiful and moving story came magically to life simply in the movement of the dancers.  It was beautiful, a dream.    I couldn’t believe I was moved to tears by a sequence I’d actually thought about cutting from the show. I can’t wait for you to see it.

Marybeth Clark, Director for West Side Story.

This past Wednesday our Resident Professional Acting Company joined me at lunch for pizza and a reading of my latest draft of our new version of Frankenstein which will premiere in October.  This is draft ten and there were a number of changes from the last draft they read.  The biggest change was the ending.  Don’t worry, I won’t give it away.  All I’ll say at this point is that it involves fire and ice.  (And it’s closer to Mary Shelley’s original ending, though it has a few of my own twists thrown in as well.)  Most of all I worked more fully on developing the characters.  Victor’s betrothed, Elizabeth, (Sara Claire Smith) for instance, now relies on faith versus Victor’s reliance on science and reason.  Victor’s friend Henry, (Brian Zane) who was just a tag-a-long friend in the early draft, now challenges Victor and his methods.  In one instance I realized I had simplified the plot elements for Justine, the governess (Viveka Chandrasekaran) and the village bully (Sonny Kong) too much and will restore some of the elements cut from version 10.  (Note to future playwrights: Never throw anything away.)  The biggest development in this new draft, as was evident from the reading, is how the character of the Creature has evolved.  Actor Michael Lazris read it with great pathos and power and the scenes between Victor (Andy McCain) and the Creature in Act II are really strong—so much so that I realize I need to go back and rework the Creature’s act one scenes.  This is a tough act because it’s here that we are introduced to the Creature for the first time, and as in Mary Shelley’s version, we must see the horror of this creation but his humanity too.  A tall order.  The other actors gave great readings too and in some scenes made my writing sound better than it is. (Another hint for future plarwrights, always find a cast that makes  you look good.)  By reading the script out loud these professionals helped me find the awkward parts—phrases that look great on paper but don’t sound that realistic. Bessie Edwards, our Stage Management Intern this season read the stage directions to help everyone follow the action—and there is a lot of action, explosions, fights,  lightning, thunder and more.  Bessie did a great job of making these come to life and helped us to get a feel for the rhythm of the show.  Production Manager Stefanie Christensen, Costumer Barbara Young and Property Master Mike Christensen were there too and we began initial discussions on the look of the Creature (more on that in a future blog) and discussions how the sets will work—especially considering there are six locales from an alpine meadow to Victor’s lab to a ship bound for Capri.  And so, on to draft 11!  Writer David Halverstam once said writing and rewriting are like cleaning a dirty window, with every new draft the window gets cleaner and cleaner and we begin to see the truth more clearly as well.  For this new version of Frankenstein, I’m still “window cleaning” but I can definitely see this great story taking form through the still murky glass.  I now have about a month to finish the draft the actors will use when we go into rehearsal.  But it won’t be the last draft, generally two or three additional versions will be created during the rehearsal process.  So I guess it’s time to stop blogging and get to those rewrites.

Julian Wiles, playwright for the all new Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus. 

         

I have a confession to make. My name is Brian Zane and I’m addicted to West Side Story. There I said it. They say the first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem. However, my love of this show seems to be incurable. I was first seduced by this work of art at the spritely age of 7 and my condition has only worsened with time. It was one of the first musicals I ever saw and definitely my clearest memory of musical theatre at such a young age. The production was done by the Pleasantville High School (a small school that I would later attend) Performing Arts program and was more alive and raw than anything I had ever seen on small or big screen. The music, the dancing, the story: it all broke my heart and yet also awakened it. It awakened a need not only to see more theatre, but to become a part of it and tell this story and more stories like it. Suffice it to say, when I found out I would be playing the part of Riff, I felt like I was seven all over again.

Flash forward to our first rehearsal, this past Tuesday, when we had a read-thru and sing-thru of the show. I felt like a ball of energy, more excited for this read-thru than I had been for any other. We began to read and the energy and attitude of the show seemed to soar through us. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long to say my first line or sing my first song and I finally had an outlet for all my energy. When guest actor Aaron Velthouse (our Tony) opened his mouth to sing “Something’s Coming” alone and then the “Tonight” duet opposite resident actor Viveka Chandrasekaran (our Maria) I knew I was going to be part of something special.

The next night, Wednesday, our dance boot camp commenced. Let me repeat that phrase: dance boot camp. What, you may ask, is dance boot camp? Dance boot camp is everything you think it would be and more. Kevin Hill, our choreographer, is quite a task master and made us do pushups, sit-ups and all kinds of body-weight exercises until we were red in the face. Never having been in armed services, I can’t compare it to actual boot camp. However, I did play football all four years in High School, and I had flashbacks of three-a-day summer practices during dance boot camp.

(Center- Resident Actor Brian Zane at Dance Boot Camp) 

My name is Brian Zane and I’m addicted to West Side Story . . . And you know what? I’m just fine with that because I know that something really is coming.

  

 (Local Actor Cara Dolan and Resident Actor Brian Zane practicing their dance form)

The cast for our new version of Frankenstein assembled last week to readthru the first draft of the script. (Actually it’s the 7th draft of the script but the first one to be read out loud. )  Hearing a script read aloud is so important for a playwright, for unlike a novel,  the words in a play are written especially for the ear and a line that may look great on the page may sound awful or awkward out loud.   As we read I made a number of notes on lines that need some tweaking.  The goal is to make the dialogue sound not like sentences but conversational and that’s a challenge.  The professional cast for this new version of Frankenstein is made up of our six new Resident Professional Actors (Michael Lasris: The Creature,  Andy McCain: Victor Frankenstein, Brian Zane: Henri, Sara Claire Smith: Elizabeth, Sonny Kong: Felix, and Viveka Chandrasekaran: Justine, joined by local favorite Ross Magoules as De Lacey.    It is a GREAT cast and they made the script (even the awkward parts) sound great!   Best of all they could provide insights into their characters, what lines felt natural,  which plot points seemed realistic and more.  Creating a new script is a partnership, plays are not “written” they are “wrought” (which is why it’s called playwrighting).  This means the final script will be forged by the actors working with me as the writer to bring this classic tale to life in an all new way.  So we read through the entire script, Bessie Edwards, our Stage Manager reading the stage directions trying as best she could to add in all the special effects, lightning and thunder and explosions.  After the reading the first reviews came in from the cast, staff and friends who’d gathered around.  They weren’t bad!  So what do I think?  Well, as usual at this point I know I still have a lot of work to do.  Some parts I think are already work well, especially the first thirty pages which I’ve worked the hardest on.  Others need some tweaking and I’ll be focusing on those parts as my rewrites begin.  The challenge for me, is to stay true to Mary Shelley’s original story but to be mindful that our visions of Frankenstein are shaped by the famous Boris Karloff films, not to mention, Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein, which is a classic in its own right.  Our new script isn’t there yet but I think we’re off to a great start.  Next will be a full revision (version 8.0) which we will read once more before we go into rehearsals.  The evening concluded with themed refreshements, including a vegetable skeleton designed by Stefanie Christensen our resident scene designer. (See below)

Julian Wiles, playwright for this season’s new version of Frankenstein. 

 

The Veggie Skeleton Centerpiece!