THE MUSIC MAN is the 75th production I have directed in professional theatre, college/university theatre, community theatre and children’s theatre. The first step in directing a play involves deciding whether you are passionate about the work. As director, you will be “married” to the piece for many months of pre-production and rehearsal work. Once I’ve decided to direct a show, I read it straight through without stopping, just as an audience member might experience it. If there are places that confuse me, make me laugh, cry or bore me, I mark them. Then I go back and read again for an understanding as to why the script worked that way for me.
I read a script many, many times before casting it and beginning rehearsals. I study the script for characterizations, motivations, through-line and conceptual ideas. While doing this, I research the author, composer and lyricist (if it’s a musical). For THE MUSIC MAN, I read Meredith Willson’s autobiography, “He Doesn’t Know the Territory: the Making of The Music Man.” I researched the time period (1912) and location (Iowa), including socio-economics, morals and attitudes, clothing, architecture, lifestyles, politics, music, and literature. I read about major influences on Willson, including John Phillip Sousa (the composer/conductor known particularly for his patriotic marches.)
Then it was time to meet separately with the production team: set designer Rebecca Primm, costume designer Jamey Varnadore, lighting designer Trista Rothe Bremer, choreographer Lisa Blanton and music director Ryan Deal. The set designer and I talked about style, space, line, color, concept and we went over the show, scene by scene. We discussed entrances, exits and major highlights of each scene. Finally, a set of drawings and a model were completed and approved by me and the technical director of Theatre Charlotte, Chris Timmons. The same process basically took place with each of the designers.
Lisa Blanton and I discussed style, movement and placement of every musical number in the show. Ryan Deal and I discussed the score, vocal needs and interpretation. Lisa, Ryan and I together discussed the dynamics of each number. We also discussed casting needs, such as which characters really need to dance, age and vocal ranges of each. We discussed character types, how many children, how many teens, how many males and how many females. Finally, we were prepared for auditions.
Heading into the audition process is very nerve-wracking for me. The day of the first auditions, I am quite anxious, wondering who will show up, if we’ll have enough of the right types, if we’ll have people that can dance and sing and what new talent will we discover. We held two nights of auditions at the end of July that were attended by 109 people of all ages! We heard each of them sing 16 bars of a song and Lisa put them through a short dance routine, ten at a time. Each night, we sorted through the audition forms and decided who would be called back and who would be cut. Callbacks were held on a third night and included reading from the script, learning and singing from THE MUSIC MAN score and pairing for size, look and age. From the 109 that auditioned we decided on a cast of 43, including 9 children ages 6 to 11, and 9 teens. We got their acceptances, contacted those who were not selected and then quickly worked through everyone’s prior commitments to craft a rehearsal schedule.
The rehearsal process, which began on Monday, August 1, will be the subject of my next blog.
-Ron Law
Director, THE MUSIC MAN at Theatre Charlotte
8/18/11
THE MUSIC MAN runs September 9th through 25th at Theatre Charlotte. Tickets can be purchased through CarolinaTix at (704) 372-1000 or online at http://www.carolinatix.org/default.asp?tix=59&objId=2565
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