-Thanks to stage manager Jennifer Kincaid for offering this insight.
When Walter announced the 2008/2009 Porchlight season, I immediately laid claim to managing Pacific Overtures. Of course, I had to be officially asked to work on the show, but I made my interest known early on. Porchlight has an excellent history with Sondheim's musicals, and I know this show is no exception. It is my fourth show with the company - second show with Walter as director and third show with Eugene as Musical Director - but the first time working with both Eugene and Walter on a Sondheim collaboration.
The role of Stage Manager in rehearsals is as the principle "note-taker". As the show comes together piece by piece it is my job to keep track of every little thing that goes into its creation. From a production angle, I commit as many of the designs as possible to memory so that in rehearsal I can confirm where things might be on stage once we move into the theatre (because we rehearse without our set on a taped-out floor to indicate important set elements and only a small number of rehearsal props). As the actors begin to move around the stage I take careful notes about everything they do - Kayama draws his sword on this line, Abe sets down the tea cup and then exits down stage left, etc.. Eventually all of these notes are compiled into the master Prompt Book, which helps me keep the show in good condition once we open and start our run at the Theatre Building. Once the show closes, the Prompt Book along with design drawings, photos and video serves as the official archive of the show, and much like a scrapbook that you can take out of storage years down the road, Walter and Eugene will be able to pull this book out at any time and (if I have done my job correctly) should be able to re-live this entire production!
As I write this blog entry, I am sitting in the rehearsal space listening to our first sitzprobe (the first time all the musicians and cast get together and sing through the entire show with full orchestrations). This is the reason I wanted to do this show. The music is absolutely fantastic. And our cast is stellar. But nothing about it is particularly easy! The orchestrations are complicated, the characters varied and the cast seems to multiply onstage, each actor having to fill numerous roles, both historic and modern. Keeping track of it all could be nightmarish to some, but to me it is a stage manager's dream come true. Definitely keeps life exciting!
Coming up next week is my favorite part of production. We say goodbye to the rehearsal hall and move everything we've done to the theatre to start Tech Week on our stage! Tech Week can be more ominous than the "Four Black Dragons" in the show, but I'm confident that with our cast and crew we can pull it off as planned. Our set is scheduled to load-in on Monday with our "Q2Q" happening Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. During a Q2Q, I sit with the lighting and sound designers and literally put every cue into the Prompt Book. We need to run all of the cue sequences to make sure that everything looks and sounds like it should, that sound levels are where they should be, each explosion is carefully timed, screens are lit when they need to be and are dark when there is movement behind them that needs to be concealed. This is the "magic" of the show - and I love being a magician! Sometimes this can be a boring process for the actors because they don't get to act much over the tech nights, but time spent on the stage is imperative as it gives them all time to walk around and get the "stage into their bodies" so that they can find their way around in the dark and are aware of any and all hazards.
After Q2Q comes the Dress Rehearsals when we add costumes to the mix. And this show has a TON of them. Costume changes are often very fast and it's another whole bit of choreography off-stage to manage dressing and undressing. Sometimes I find an actor's most amazing performance is not what they do on the stage, but what they manage to do backstage and not appear winded when they make their entrance in stage lights!
The performance we call the "Tech/Dress" puts it all together. With any luck we'll get a couple of these in before we have an audience. Here's hoping (*fingers crossed). Our first audience is on Saturday night and then we have a few Previews before we officially open on Wednesday the 18th.
My wish for this production is that our audience can appreciate all of these complexities in the simplicity of the setting of Japan. It's paradoxical Sondheim at his absolute best. And I hope that you all enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed working on it!
Jenn A Kincaid
Stage Manager
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
What Will Audiences Experience
-Thanks to assistant director Sean Kelly for offering this insight.
A night in at the theatre involves many expectations on the part of the audience. Based on their previous experience in the theatre, an audience member comes to understand the rules, traditions and conventions involved in a theatre event. The lights will flash during intermission to alert me that the show is about to resume. We all rely upon these expectations as a contract between audience and actors that helps to guide us through the experience. Pacific Overtures is a Kabuki Broadway musical. What is one to expect from that? Pacific Overtures challenges expectations, traditions and conventions, turning them inside out and boiling them to yield new conventions that test and thrill our imaginations. Set in Japan 1853, the piece is as much about the evolution of cultural traditions as it is about the reevaluation of theatrical tradition. Pacific Overtures, through the intriguing combination of Broadway, Kabuki and Noh practices, gives its audience an opporutnity to develop new expectations about how theatre can move, question, interpret and motivate.
A night in at the theatre involves many expectations on the part of the audience. Based on their previous experience in the theatre, an audience member comes to understand the rules, traditions and conventions involved in a theatre event. The lights will flash during intermission to alert me that the show is about to resume. We all rely upon these expectations as a contract between audience and actors that helps to guide us through the experience. Pacific Overtures is a Kabuki Broadway musical. What is one to expect from that? Pacific Overtures challenges expectations, traditions and conventions, turning them inside out and boiling them to yield new conventions that test and thrill our imaginations. Set in Japan 1853, the piece is as much about the evolution of cultural traditions as it is about the reevaluation of theatrical tradition. Pacific Overtures, through the intriguing combination of Broadway, Kabuki and Noh practices, gives its audience an opporutnity to develop new expectations about how theatre can move, question, interpret and motivate.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Design on a Dime
The Porchlight aesthetic is economical elegance. Ours is a very intimate theatre (seating 148 people) and our scenic, costume, prop, and lighting choices need to hold up to intense, close scrutiny. It is far better to have one perfect prop chair that to have a sea of inappropriate, cheap scenery.
We take large scale shows and refine them to their bare essence. This restriction often produces surprisingly imaginative results. When creative people are faced with a challenge, they deal with it.....creatively.
Our challenge with Pacific Overtures is how to transport the audience to feudal and contemporary Japan, and create characters with the look and feel of this very foreign land. The original production of Pacific Overtures featured a cast of 35 actors; ours will have 11. The play calls for approximately 14-20 different locations, we will have one unit set. Every actor plays between 1 and 6 different roles. This is going to call for a lot of imaginative solutions.
Today I met with costume designer Carol Blanchard. She is designing a standard, white costume Hakama (袴) with a top that all the actors will wear. Each character will be defined with select costume accessories, hair/wig styles, makeup and hand props. She and I spent some time working through the various pieces that will create each character.
The white costumes will be painted with the lighting design by John Horan. These austere costumes will help to transport the audience to our foreign land, where the shape and texture of each piece will perceived as authentically Japanese.
(Side note: Costumer Carol tells me there are no authentically Japanese fabrics in the city of Chicago. She is calling on national and international resources to dress our show.)
We are working to get the costumes into the rehearsal process as soon as possible. The billowy fabrics which drape to the floor will affect the actor's movement. The zori (flip-flop style sandals) will take a lot of getting used to.
We take large scale shows and refine them to their bare essence. This restriction often produces surprisingly imaginative results. When creative people are faced with a challenge, they deal with it.....creatively.
Our challenge with Pacific Overtures is how to transport the audience to feudal and contemporary Japan, and create characters with the look and feel of this very foreign land. The original production of Pacific Overtures featured a cast of 35 actors; ours will have 11. The play calls for approximately 14-20 different locations, we will have one unit set. Every actor plays between 1 and 6 different roles. This is going to call for a lot of imaginative solutions.
Today I met with costume designer Carol Blanchard. She is designing a standard, white costume Hakama (袴) with a top that all the actors will wear. Each character will be defined with select costume accessories, hair/wig styles, makeup and hand props. She and I spent some time working through the various pieces that will create each character.
The white costumes will be painted with the lighting design by John Horan. These austere costumes will help to transport the audience to our foreign land, where the shape and texture of each piece will perceived as authentically Japanese.
(Side note: Costumer Carol tells me there are no authentically Japanese fabrics in the city of Chicago. She is calling on national and international resources to dress our show.)
We are working to get the costumes into the rehearsal process as soon as possible. The billowy fabrics which drape to the floor will affect the actor's movement. The zori (flip-flop style sandals) will take a lot of getting used to.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Rehearsal Plan
Creating a rehearsal plan (or schedule) is highly traumatic. We survey everyone's availability and then realize that no one is available for any rehearsals! Eventually we come up with a plan of days and times that work for most people.
As the majority of the cast and crew have day jobs (welcome to the theatre), rehearsals are typically weekday evenings and weekend daytime. Most everyone works a full 8 hour day (or more), skip dinner and come directly to rehearsal. We can skip feeding our bodies, and opt instead to feed our souls. We are doomed to a life "of booze, pills and heavy meals late at night."
For Pacific Overtures, we will begin with a concentration on music. Once that is covered we will start at the beginning of the play and work through each scene/song. Every few days we review what we have accomplished so far. We have a few complicated dance numbers, so we try to learn these early in the process to allow us time to get it in their bodies.
A typical rehearsal begins with a vocal and physical warm up. We have an Asian movement specialist who will be leading us in a daily movement workshop. After we warm up, we read/sing through the material for that evening. We spend some time talking about the material and eventually get on our feet to start exploring the staging.
It is a collaboration. We have a lot of directors, musical, staging, dancing and acting, who work together in support of the material. We work though moments of the show and review/revise them; always searching for the best, most impactful, storytelling.
This particular week is all about the music. Our musical director, Eugene Dizon works with the actors to shape the sound of the show. He is very careful to balance the storytelling with the musicianship. Fortunately, our composer Stephen Sondheim was very specific in his composition. If you follow the music carefully, the composition will guide the drama.
Sondheim is an actor's dream, but a singer's nightmare. What I mean is that the technical side is very challenging to learn. The music is often dissonant and the rhythms can be very tricky. The words and music are so perfectly matched to the drama of the song, if you sing it exactly as written, the drama is there.
Pacific Overtures was composed for entirely male voices. Our cast features two sensational women. Their voices bring a unique quality to the score that I have never heard before.
Right now the singers are singing against an electronic keyboard (which reproduces some authentic Japanese musical sounds). I can hardly wait until we have the musicians accompany the singers.
As the majority of the cast and crew have day jobs (welcome to the theatre), rehearsals are typically weekday evenings and weekend daytime. Most everyone works a full 8 hour day (or more), skip dinner and come directly to rehearsal. We can skip feeding our bodies, and opt instead to feed our souls. We are doomed to a life "of booze, pills and heavy meals late at night."
For Pacific Overtures, we will begin with a concentration on music. Once that is covered we will start at the beginning of the play and work through each scene/song. Every few days we review what we have accomplished so far. We have a few complicated dance numbers, so we try to learn these early in the process to allow us time to get it in their bodies.
A typical rehearsal begins with a vocal and physical warm up. We have an Asian movement specialist who will be leading us in a daily movement workshop. After we warm up, we read/sing through the material for that evening. We spend some time talking about the material and eventually get on our feet to start exploring the staging.
It is a collaboration. We have a lot of directors, musical, staging, dancing and acting, who work together in support of the material. We work though moments of the show and review/revise them; always searching for the best, most impactful, storytelling.
This particular week is all about the music. Our musical director, Eugene Dizon works with the actors to shape the sound of the show. He is very careful to balance the storytelling with the musicianship. Fortunately, our composer Stephen Sondheim was very specific in his composition. If you follow the music carefully, the composition will guide the drama.
Sondheim is an actor's dream, but a singer's nightmare. What I mean is that the technical side is very challenging to learn. The music is often dissonant and the rhythms can be very tricky. The words and music are so perfectly matched to the drama of the song, if you sing it exactly as written, the drama is there.
Pacific Overtures was composed for entirely male voices. Our cast features two sensational women. Their voices bring a unique quality to the score that I have never heard before.
Right now the singers are singing against an electronic keyboard (which reproduces some authentic Japanese musical sounds). I can hardly wait until we have the musicians accompany the singers.
Monday, January 26, 2009
The First Read Through - We are off to a great start!
I cannot stress the importance of the first read through. It sets the tone for the production. I'm delighted to report that after many months of preparation, meetings and casting, we had a sensational first reading.
At tonight's meeting we covered a lot of organizational issues: contracts, tax forms, costume measurements etc. We also read through the script for the first time as an ensemble. It is magical to watch a group of strangers embrace a common project and bring life to the words on the page. The actors were encouraged to make some bold choices and create instant relationships and characterizations. It was terrific.
I can usually tell how a project will progress based on that one reading. Tonight I saw a lot of committed people, taking chances and being playful and imaginative.
We are off to a great start!
At tonight's meeting we covered a lot of organizational issues: contracts, tax forms, costume measurements etc. We also read through the script for the first time as an ensemble. It is magical to watch a group of strangers embrace a common project and bring life to the words on the page. The actors were encouraged to make some bold choices and create instant relationships and characterizations. It was terrific.
I can usually tell how a project will progress based on that one reading. Tonight I saw a lot of committed people, taking chances and being playful and imaginative.
We are off to a great start!
Casting
When Pacific Overtures debuted in the 1970's, there were very few Asian actors trained in musical theatre. Not much has changed over the years. There are only a few musicals which require Asian actors (Miss Saigon, Flower Drum Song, Mame, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and The King and I - come to mind). Some directors cast color-blind, but for the most part, Asians just do not have the same opportunities available.
I was determined to cast Asian actors. I have seen the show with a mixed bag of Asian and non-Asian people, but it just never rang true. This is a story told from their perspective and without them, the storytelling is confusing. G*d forbid we should have non-Asians in makeup. You would never do Raisin in the Sun in blackface and Pacific Overtures deserves the same respect.
Casting is perhaps the most important and challenging step in preparing a show. I knew the challenges of this piece and got to work casting it in early September. I started working with my friends at Silk Road Theatre (the premiere east Asian theatre company in Chicago). They had a few good leads. I was also referred to an electronic newsgroup of Asian actors. I also went through the ordinary casting channels in Chicago. We had a few weeks of auditions and eventually came up with a cast of 9 Asian men and 2 Asian women.
Our cast includes Broadway actor, David Rhee as the Reciter, Kent Haina as the Samuri Manjiro and Danny Bernardo as his friend the fisherman Kayama. The ensemble is composed of: Chelsea Dolinar-Hikawa, Adrian Fontanilla, Jillian Anne Jocson, Erik Kaiko, Chip Payos, Nick Shoda, Peter Sipla and Keith Uchima.
I was determined to cast Asian actors. I have seen the show with a mixed bag of Asian and non-Asian people, but it just never rang true. This is a story told from their perspective and without them, the storytelling is confusing. G*d forbid we should have non-Asians in makeup. You would never do Raisin in the Sun in blackface and Pacific Overtures deserves the same respect.
Casting is perhaps the most important and challenging step in preparing a show. I knew the challenges of this piece and got to work casting it in early September. I started working with my friends at Silk Road Theatre (the premiere east Asian theatre company in Chicago). They had a few good leads. I was also referred to an electronic newsgroup of Asian actors. I also went through the ordinary casting channels in Chicago. We had a few weeks of auditions and eventually came up with a cast of 9 Asian men and 2 Asian women.
Our cast includes Broadway actor, David Rhee as the Reciter, Kent Haina as the Samuri Manjiro and Danny Bernardo as his friend the fisherman Kayama. The ensemble is composed of: Chelsea Dolinar-Hikawa, Adrian Fontanilla, Jillian Anne Jocson, Erik Kaiko, Chip Payos, Nick Shoda, Peter Sipla and Keith Uchima.
Start at the very begining
Over the course of the next two months, I will describe our adventure, bringing Pacific Overtures to the stage. It has been one of my favorite musicals ever since I first listened to the cast recording in 1994. I was struck by the haunting beauty of the music and the clever lyrics. I didn't begin to grasp the profoundness of the material until I picked up a copy of the script.
Pacific Overtures is the story of the great nation of Japan which is forced to reinvent itself. It is about western imperialism and class warfare, as told through the eyes of common folks. Author John Weidman took historical facts and gave them a dramatic human interest story. It reminds me of the great history plays by Shakespeare. The transformation of an entire nation of people is seen in the microcosm of a few ordinary people.
I find the material unfortunately relevant. We continue to march into foreign lands bringing peace with a price. Lives are lost, but so is individual identity. Assimilation is a virtue.
The twist of Pacific Overtures is that the conquered people have an entirely different response. The Japanese do not bow down to the west, but rather absorb us. They have learned from our culture, taken what works, and excelled. The tables have turned.
Pacific Overtures is the story of the great nation of Japan which is forced to reinvent itself. It is about western imperialism and class warfare, as told through the eyes of common folks. Author John Weidman took historical facts and gave them a dramatic human interest story. It reminds me of the great history plays by Shakespeare. The transformation of an entire nation of people is seen in the microcosm of a few ordinary people.
I find the material unfortunately relevant. We continue to march into foreign lands bringing peace with a price. Lives are lost, but so is individual identity. Assimilation is a virtue.
The twist of Pacific Overtures is that the conquered people have an entirely different response. The Japanese do not bow down to the west, but rather absorb us. They have learned from our culture, taken what works, and excelled. The tables have turned.
East meets West in Sondheim's Japanese Themed Musical, PACIFIC OVERTURES
Porchlight Music Theatre will present the exotic musical Pacific Overtures at Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 West Belmont. This touching and witty musical tells the story of the painful westernization of Japan through the eyes of two friends. Pacific Overtures begins previews on March 15 with a Press Opening on March 18 at 7:30pm and runs through May 2, 2009.
A ground-breaking musical, Pacific Overtures examines the transformation of Japan beginning when U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry brought four black ships into “a land of changeless order.” Many of the events and characters portrayed in the show- Japan’s self-imposed isolation from the world, the fisherman Manjiro, the Tokugawa shogunate, the Meiji revolution and its consequences – are as familiar to an Japanese schoolchild as George Washington and the Revolutionary war are to Americans. This rarely produced show mixes elements of traditional Japanese theatre with the Broadway musical. The original 1976 production was nominated for a whopping ten Tony Awards including best musical, book and score.
With a book by John Weidman (Assassins), Pacific Overtures features music and lyrics by Broadway legend, Stephen Sondheim. Many of the songs in the show rank among the most admired compositions in Broadway history. Sondheim himself recognizes “Someone in a Tree” and “A Bowler Hat” as personal favorites.
In preparation for the production, Artistic Director L. Walter Stearns and Music Director Eugene Dizon traveled to Tokyo and Shimoda, Japan. They experienced Japanese Kabuki and Noh theatre and visited the actual port where U.S. Admiral Commodore Perry sailed into the East. With their host, actress Haruna Tsuchiya, Mr. Stearns and Mr. Dizon retraced the legendary march along Admiral Commodore Perry’s Avenue. Their adventures and research will be shared in a series of post-show audience discussions.
A ground-breaking musical, Pacific Overtures examines the transformation of Japan beginning when U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry brought four black ships into “a land of changeless order.” Many of the events and characters portrayed in the show- Japan’s self-imposed isolation from the world, the fisherman Manjiro, the Tokugawa shogunate, the Meiji revolution and its consequences – are as familiar to an Japanese schoolchild as George Washington and the Revolutionary war are to Americans. This rarely produced show mixes elements of traditional Japanese theatre with the Broadway musical. The original 1976 production was nominated for a whopping ten Tony Awards including best musical, book and score.
With a book by John Weidman (Assassins), Pacific Overtures features music and lyrics by Broadway legend, Stephen Sondheim. Many of the songs in the show rank among the most admired compositions in Broadway history. Sondheim himself recognizes “Someone in a Tree” and “A Bowler Hat” as personal favorites.
In preparation for the production, Artistic Director L. Walter Stearns and Music Director Eugene Dizon traveled to Tokyo and Shimoda, Japan. They experienced Japanese Kabuki and Noh theatre and visited the actual port where U.S. Admiral Commodore Perry sailed into the East. With their host, actress Haruna Tsuchiya, Mr. Stearns and Mr. Dizon retraced the legendary march along Admiral Commodore Perry’s Avenue. Their adventures and research will be shared in a series of post-show audience discussions.
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