We are living through some ugly and unsettling times right now, and there are urgent issues afoot that we cannot afford to evade or overlook. Nevertheless, I have been incredibly grateful for those rare occasions this summer when something has come along to offer a welcome – if only temporary – escape from the world. There were even two delightful instances in which we were able to step out of this world and into other worlds: specifically Wonderland and Neverland.
Our trip to Wonderland was courtesy of a spectacular production of Alice in Wonderland Jr. by KYPAC- the Kenosha Youth Performing Arts Company. KYPAC offers performance opportunities to young people ranging from the early elementary grades through middle school – and even though it operates under the auspices of the Kenosha Unified School District, parochial school and home school students are welcome to participate as well. It’s a glorious program and it’s impossible to even calculate how many young people’s lives have been immeasurably and forever touched by being part of this. And under the careful guidance of such caring educators as my sister-in-law Polly Amborn and a number of her KUSD colleagues, the youngsters are given a rich and fun experience in which they learn a tremendous amount about what is required to mount this kind of production- and learn what they have to offer. One thing I especially appreciate is the care they take to make sure that all of the performers are given something to do, unlike some productions in the past in which the youngest students would be trotted out for the briefest of cameos …. sometimes having roughly sixty seconds onstage total! That might work if you’re the flower girl at a wedding, but not if you’re trying to give someone a meaningful introduction to the world of musical theater, you need to give them more to do then just a few moments of ‘being cute.’ In this production, even the youngest members of the cast were given plenty to do.
Just over 125 performers were crowded on to that stage, but Kathy and I were mostly interested in one: our niece Lorelai, who was one of three talented and adorable young ladies portraying the Cheshire Cat. (In this particular telling of Lewis Carroll’s classic, the role of the Cheshire Cat is split amongst three performers- and it works well because it makes the character seem even more intriguing and mysterious.) They were an almost constant onstage presence and entrusted with all kinds of tricky stage business, but they handled every bit of it with skill and aplomb. Kathy and I could not have been prouder!
And although the story is a little too weird for my taste …. and the musical score is not one of my favorites …. it was impossible to resist the energy and color and imagination of this dazzling production. And when the entire cast came out at the end to raise the roof with a rousing rendition of “Zip a Dee Doo Dah” (a song imported from Song of the South) as a grand finale, the deal was sealed! We could not have been happier that we came. Just the sight of that many children joyously singing as one was enough to be convinced that maybe there is hope for this world after all.
As it turns out, Wonderland wasn’t the only magical place I got to visit this summer. I’m also glad that I was taken to Neverland, courtesy of a terrific performance of Peter Pan Jr. at Carthage, presented by our brand new summer music theater workshop camp. There were a couple of things that made this dramatically different from the aforementioned Alice in Wonderland performance. For one thing, Alice was prepared over the course of approximately one month, while Peter Pan was rehearsed within the space of a single week! Secondly, the 25 youngsters who performed it were all from the iMusical School in Shanghai, China; they came here with their teacher (and their parents) to experience the joys of musical theater in an American setting with American teachers.
Needless to say, these youngsters were all complete strangers to me- except for three of them who I had the pleasure of interviewing for my radio program. They were bright and engaging youngsters with very fine English. (In fact, their facility in English was significantly better than that of their teacher from Shanghai, who was also part of the interview.) All of them had been to America before- and two of them had done somewhat similar musical theater camps before- and yet their excitement and enthusiasm was unmistakable. I also spoke with Maggie Spanuello and Tommy Novak, two relatively recent Carthage grads who have gone on to do great things in musical theater. Maggie was the director of the camp and Tommy was the director of the production, and I was both impressed and touched by the passion and affection with which they spoke about the camp. Even over the course of a single week, they had clearly grown very close to these youngsters and were already dreading the goodbye that was soon to come.
The performance of Peter Pan Jr. took place in what’s known as V-Pal (I have no idea what that actually stands for). It’s a simple space that alternates between an art gallery, reception room, and theatrical workshop space. You don’t expect anything technically fancy to occur in such a space, and the fact that the audience is so close to the performers also means that the creation of what one thinks of as onstage magic is all but impossible- or should be.
But this performance reminded me that there are different kinds of magic in the world of live theater, and one can become just as absorbed – just as carried away- by a performance such as this.
Several things were striking to me. One was how admirably these youngsters managed to perform the show in English. The Chinese inflection was heavy- to the point where plenty of lines were pretty much impossible to understand- and yet the cast really delivered the story with full emotional investment and expressiveness. And we as an audience were with him- including that moment when Tinkerbell lies stricken on the ground and Peter exhorts the audience to clap in order to revive her. And we did! And it was so interesting to observe the parents who were all around me in the audience, every bit as proud of their children as Kathy and I were of Lorelai. In fact, I sat right next to the father of the young girl portraying Tinkerbell – and I found myself stealing a few glances at him as he looked carefully through the viewfinder of his video camera, capturing his daughter’s performance with understandable pride. Yes, of course, I knew in my mind that Chinese parents love their children just like American parents do. But there was something so reassuring about seeing that with my own eyes. It was yet another reminder that we are all so much alike than we are different from one another- even if we live on entirely opposite sides of the planet.
I also saw that right before the performance began, when I walked past the doorway to the choir room where the youngsters were gathering. The room rang with laughter and one would never have guessed that these children were from someplace else. And when the camp counselors (all Carthage students or graduates) tried to gather them for a group photo, one could only delight in all of the love and excitement that was in that room. In that moment, no one was Chinese and no one was American. They were all friends- and traveling companions to Neverland.
Of course, not all music theater performances are exercises in escape. On the contrary, some are designed to take us towards pain rather than way from it. I experienced that twice this summer. The first was a Kenosha Unified performance of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story that could not have been more powerful – with a tragic final scene that is among the most emotionally wrenching experiences I have ever had in a theater.
I had several voice students on that stage, including Austin Voyles as Riff. Seeing him “killed” – even knowing it was nothing but pretend – was surprisingly hard. It was yet another reminder that even ‘make believe’ can be all-to-real when it is delivered this convincingly. Speaking of convincing, I was especially astonished at how convincing the gang members were- even when they were dancing. (How rare is that?) And the singing of the entire cast was absolutely first rate, across the board. But what was most important about this performance was its profound emotional truth. It left me shaken in the best sense of the word.
Most recently, I was in Chicago to see a workshop performance of a brand new work titled Survivor’s Story that was composed by a Carthage graduate named Rachel Page. Inspired by a true story, it weaves together parallel experiences of two different sexual assault survivors and takes us through the bewildering mix of pain, fear and anger that they feel in the wake of their assaults. It is certainly not the most likely subject matter for music theater, but it worked astonishingly well – even in (and perhaps because of) the very simple, spare setting in which we viewed it. The very skilled cast, which included Rachel herself as one of the assault survivors and Carthage grad Gage Patterson as the perpetrator, delivered a convincing and moving performance that had me very much engrossed. (One of my music faculty colleagues, Dimitri Shapovalov, who worked with Rachel on this project, provided able and sensitive support at the keyboard.)
There was an audience talkback afterwards, and as the facilitator began reading her first question, I was worried that the audience wasn’t going to be given much of a chance to ask any questions of our own. But then she read the first question – “so how did the music work? Was it the right amount of music and did it come at the right times?” – and I realized that the reason the facilitator was asking the questions was because the questions were being posed to us in the audience rather than to the performers in the cast! Rachel and her coauthor were anxious to know our frank appraisal of what we had just seen and heard- and what ensued was one of the most interesting audience talkbacks I’ve ever been part of. (It also made me think back to the world premiere of my opera Black September and wonder whether or not I would have had the guts to ask the audience pointed questions such as “How did it work to have the athletes singing an excerpt from Fiddler on the Roof?” or “were you able to follow the action through the final scene or did it leave you confused?” I really commend Rachel for being so open to and hungry for honest feedback … which, by the way, was almost entirely positive.
I must admit that my first love is still opera and I remain one of its dogged champions – but music theater remains a tremendously important part of my life … not just professionally, but also as an eager and grateful audience member. And these four summertime performances were the perfect reminder for me of the almost endless possibilities that music theater can offer us – to challenge us, disturb us, teach us, move us, entertain us, and … once in a while … to spirit us off to wild and magical worlds that are nothing like our own.
And thank goodness for that.
