I thank everyone who came out to audition for us in February, 2009.  It’s a hard process, no matter what side of the apron you’re on.

As soon as PTP announced Sweeney Todd in its season line-up we started getting a good amount of buzz because

1. obviously the show is popular in its own right;
2. Tim Burton’s 2007 movie garnered a new generation of enthusiasts (although the movie and the show are definitely different constructions); and
3. production team members Brooke Howells, and Jim and Karen “Sweetie” Kleyle come in to this show with strong credentials (and a slew of WATCH awards and nominations between them!) — people actively want to work with them.

And so we expected (hoped) to be booked solid for our auditions, with plenty of talent to invite for callbacks.  We weren’t disappointed, with almost sixty auditions spread across fewer than eight hours.

What to Ask For

I like to check an actor’s vocal range during auditions so we can see quickly whether the person is able to match the tessitura for any role.  In community theatre we don’t typically have time to work up transpositions across all orchestra parts to accommodate an actor who can’t cover the original keys. (Now-a-days most musical theatre licensing companies do offer packaged transpositions for a fee, but even so it’s generally easier to work with a cast that can cover the score.)

As we were anticipating the large turnout, we agreed the initial auditions would include only 16- to 32-bars singing with vocal range checks, and we’d deal with directed monologues or other acting work during callbacks.

Prepping for Callbacks

On a separate worksheet in the French scene spreadsheet (look for the discussion here), I built the true required vocal range of every sung part so we could later match it up against our candidates.  In community theatre I generally assume auditioners aren’t singing regularly and so trust that with regular warmups and rehearsing we can extend each range by a few half steps as needed.  We took this in to consideration as we generated the callback list.

From our initial ≈60, we invited 34 actors to callbacks.

Saturday. Callbacks

Thank you very much for coming to our callbacks; I’d ask that starting now you stop listening to any commercial recording of Sweeney Todd. For those of you selected for the cast, I ask that you continue not listening to those recordings for the duration of our production.

<internal monologue>Yeah, I should have found a better way to say that.</internal monologue> As clunky as that (paraphrased) opening speech was, I did mean it.  I really like the 2005 John Doyle revival recording; I certainly appreciate the 1979 original Broadway cast album; and I get why people want to listen to Johnny Depp and Ali G singing about swinging the razors.  But until I’m working with those people directly, I don’t want their performances intruding on our production.  (This goes for any show I’ve music directed.)  We want to put on our own production with our own idiosyncrasies and our own breathing and our own pacing and our own inflection and our own crazy pronunciation (?) and … and … our own everything.

For our actors, that should be freeing (and I hope they see it that way) … it’s a chance to put their own stamp on a character. This show is a great opportunity for that because none of the characters are stereotyped. With the right preparation and direction, all of our actors could find their own voice to present, and that is ever so much more satisfying than doing it, say, DiMarzio’s way.

Our initial plan for callbacks proved too ambitious for the amount of time we had in the theatre.  For each role, we wanted to teach a solo and a duet passage from the score so we could get a sense of characterization (through the solos) and actor interaction (through the duets).  It’s Sondheim so of course some of it is hard to learn (especially during fifteen minutes when you’re still trying to earn the part) and I spent more time than I’d scheduled working on the solo portions.  Happily we did get a chance to hear everyone on those, but when it came time for the duets we were up against the clock.

We decided we had enough information from the solos and let most of the actors go, keeping a couple to learn the selected duets between Anthony and Johanna and between Todd and Lovett.

After hearing each of those pairings, we packed up and headed to the Selection Supper, where we made our choices (some easy, some hard) and crossed our fingers that those we selected would be willing to be selected.

Why Are You Here

As I wrote, we had our own reasons for expecting a decent turnout, but part of me really wants to know what drives local talent to come audition for community theatre. If I had the luxury of an extra ninety minutes free from rehearsal, I would sit down with the actors we’re working with now and ask them for their candid thoughts: Why did you want to be in a show?  Why this show?  What are you bringing to it? What are you getting from it?  Are you here because you like the show? the idea of the show? Are you here to hone your craft?  If so, are we helping you with that? Are we giving you the level of (vocal, character, dance) instruction you feel you need to improve?

My intent wouldn’t be to judge motivations, but for those who want it, this shouldn’t be just about this show… it should be about improving or practicing the art, and I’d welcome feedback on how well we’re satisfying that. And besides, I’m nosy.

Why Do We Want You Here

Thus far in my music life I’ve been blessed with three mentors.  One of them, Dr. Browne, gave me something I’ve carried for almost twenty years.  I was accompanying auditions for our school’s touring choir and had just played for someone who had auditioned for this group for three previous years and never earned a spot.  As this was his senior year, it was his fourth and last chance to make the group, and this year, he got in.  I had seen how the audition went, felt there were others more qualified, but Dr. Browne explained there can be different reasons to choose someone. He didn’t elaborate on why he chose this person in this case, but over the years I’ve applied my sense of his philosophy and generally felt it has guided me well.

Some times it isn’t simply singing (or dancing or acting) ability that jumps out at us.  Maybe it’s your stellar backstage attitude, or the way you work with others.  Or maybe you have a unique skill we really want to include in the show. Maybe we want the chance to try to draw something more out of you.

Or maybe you were absolutely the best choice and we counted our lucky stars you came out for our show.

Peace…

jdw

This production of Sweeney Todd is like a live painting with many moving parts. The actors are very physical and the songs are incredibly demanding. Creating costumes that allow the actors to move well and still sing takes nimble fingers, a creative mind and close relationships with the actors.

I have to put myself in each role. How would I move? How would others react to me? Bringing the director’s vision to life is the easy part. My challenge is making that vision work for each performer. This is the part where I get to be creative; Tighter pants for a sleeker image, higher cuffs to accommodate period boots, flowing fabrics for the character’s evolution from the gutter all build to create small “frames” for each portrait.

And then, there is the blood. Gallons of blood.

Are we doing fresh shirts every night!?!

Don’t be fooled by the concept of community theater. There are few limits that can’t be resolved with a little imagination. Working closely with the special effects team, we’ve come up with designs to make sure the costumes can be used over and over again with minimal destruction to the integrity of each piece. Pieces are being fitted to each body, movement is examined, cohesion with the other actors or deliberate contrast is evaluated.

Developing the look and feel of the costumes began months ago. At this point, a month ahead of opening night, the clock is ticking.

This is my second time doing Sweeney Todd and while there are some similarities, there is a unique spin on this show that adds a new layer to the gritty underbelly of late 19 century London. My biggest concern is making the shaving scene believable.

This show brings to life the “worst” in people and carrying that over into the visage to complement the dark, twisted plotline is a welcome challenge.

The talented cast and crew of this production will be a joy and I’m  collaborating with the other team members to make this a reality.  With one month to go, this is where the lighting, costume and make-up crews team-up to build the visual effects.

Developing the look

We are at the point in the show where I can take my observations and begin the make-up laboratory. Learning about the actors’ development of their characters, studying the unique features of each actor, and how they move all factor into creating “the look.”

Creating each look for the actors is an intimate project. Depending on how the actors are to be made-up during the run of the show, laying out a color-by-numbers palette for each actor is critical to ensuring each performance  is consistent. That means making it user friendly since some actors will be doing their own make-up, and each look has to be conveyed to the back of the theater.

Next: Background research.

I am honored to have be chosen to direct this production and work with Brooke Howells again and Jim Watson for the first time.  Combined with Keith, Joe, and my loving wife Sweetie, I feel that we have assembled the best production team possible.  Couple this with an excellent cast and an amazing crew and you have a director’s dream.

One major challenge to this play, aside from the extremely difficult music of Sondheim, was to put an original spin on it.  We have taken some liberties while trying to remain true to the spirit of the production.

Sit back and enjoy what has been over a year in producing and effort and, tonight, give a nod to Sweeney Todd.

Even though the production staff for PTP’s Sweeney Todd began forming almost two years ago, I couldn’t seriously begin preparing to music direct the piece until a few weeks before auditions.  Fortunately, the PTP Board agreed to contract an extra month of the entire score from MTI, a substantial cost for community theatre but from my perspective quite worth it.  (Thanks, PTP Board!)

But before casting, before getting a chance to delve in to the score with purpose, there was a lot of prep work to do.

What are we going to play?

MTI licenses two sets of orchestra instrumentations: the standard eighteen piece (with two to four doublings on each of the five reed parts) and the alternate nine piece (no doublings).  I had to decide which one we would use before we could place our contract.  (The alternate instrumentation, by the way, has nothing to do with the 2005 John Doyle revival, where the actors played the instruments. That is yet another instrumentation (and orchestration, actually) which is, I believe, unavailable for traditional licensing.)

(For the obsessive reader: the commercially available vocal score references a twenty-seven piece orchestra.)

This is a big choice: it affects a lot, and the decision had to be made basically blind.  Ideally, of course, we’d use the standard set.  This would give a richer sound, deeper textures, and be closer to the original production.  On the other hand, what if we couldn’t, e.g., find a reed player to double on clarinet, Eb clarinet, flute, and piccolo?  And where do we fit eighteen players plus the conductor if we want to play outside the pit?  And what about our budget?  (For this production, our musicians will basically earn gas money, but … gas money for nine or eighteen?)  Would the volume from eighteen musicians force the sound designer to mic all the actors?

I decided on the nine piece instrumentation: primarily because I was comfortable I’d find players to cover all the parts, scheduling would be less hectic, and our space would be better apportioned.  Trusting that the arranger Did The Right Thing while cutting the size in half, we would still achieve much of Sondheim’s aural vision.

When are we going to play?

One frequent tack for organizing rehearsals is by a production’s French scene breakdown.  Finding those breaks is usually rather straight forward… read through the libretto and cut a new scene each time the characters on stage change.  For some reason, finding the FS breakdown for Sweeney Todd was challenging.

A few weeks before we received the official materials, I set out to build the French scene plot so I could then start to plan music rehearsals — once the show was cast, we’d be able to use the plot to know which actors to call when practicing each song and we could match it against the actors’ schedule conflicts to maximize productivity.

With no official materials, my best resource was the commercially available vocal score (absolutely worth its list price).  The CAVC has the added benefit of declaring “This score has been prepared from the composer’s piano copy [...].  Insofar as discrepancies in the lyrics are concerned, this [...] is to be considered correct.”

So, given the numerous discrepancies (lyric and note) in the rented materials, I’ve used this as the Official Copy to answer all related disputes. 

With fingers crossed in hopes that the CAVC would match the materials coming from MTI, I spent  hours entering and validating a spreadsheet covering entrances and exits for all characters across almost 400 pages of music.  For my purposes it mattered if someone was in a French scene but not singing — they wouldn’t be called for a musical rehearsal, so I took care to code singing and “present on stage” differently in the spreadsheet.  In the end, we have a nicely colored plot with almost fifty French scenes.   Now that we are deeper in to the rehearsal process, we use the breakdown less rigorously, but it was extraordinarily valuable for planning what to work on during casting callbacks and for scheduling the first five or so weeks of rehearsal.

How much are we going to play?

In the perfect musical theatre world, you play every note of every song.  Doing less is like cutting dialogue (which, by contract, is verboten).  In some productions, however, you find it necessary to drop a few things — sometimes because of a director’s artistic choice, or maybe for choreography considerations; sometimes you cut for length.   (Song 11 Johanna, sung by Judge Turpin, was dropped in the original production because of time.)

In rarer times, though, you’re able to include more.  Doing South Pacific? You can now include My Girl Back Home, which was cut from the original production.  Camelot?  Ditto Take Me To The Fair and Fie On Goodness. With Sweeney Todd we get the option of song 27A  Searching Part II (Insert), originally added in the London production, which exposes more of the Beggar Woman’s character.

But beware!  Sometimes it isn’t just Todd’s customers under the knife!  The alternate instrumentations do not include song 10A The Contest Part II.  Yes, the tooth pulling has been pulled from any one playing the nine-piece.  I maintain it’s simply an oversight… perhaps there is a way around…

Furthermore, the alternate instrumentations have only the 1980 West End transposition of song 10 The Contestwith its introduction in Ab.  This is a stretch for many community theatre actors as it puts Pirelli singing a full C5 instead of the F5 he’d have in the original key.

Next…

With preparation done, it’s time for auditions!

Until then, peace….

jdw

The backstage work and rehearsals are well underway for the Port Tobacco Players’ Production of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

We are embarking on set construction and painting (straight and artistic/detail).

Lots of you expressed interest in helping out, and we welcome all volunteers.  Our master carpenter/set designer, Bob Asman is bringing a lot of new ideas and can use any assistance you can provide. 

If you are crafty, great!  If not, that’s o.k., too as oftentimes, help holding something up, banging nails, carrying/hauling/getting materials, and straight painting, for example, is a HUGE help.  Every bit counts on a set as detailed as ours will be.

Bob is looking for assistance beginning this week.  Particularly, starting on Wednesday any time from about noon to 6:30 p.m.  He will initially need help hauling and laying planks and readying one side of the pit to begin with.

Any amount of time you can donate – even an hour – is helpful.  Beyond Wednesday, we’ll look at Thursday (to 6:30 p.m.), Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (start-times on Th, Fr, Sat, and Sun – to be determined).  Beyond this week, we’ll continue to monitor what type of assistance is needed and reach out as necessary.

Please let me know if you are interested in helping and if so, when.  If you have any specific skills or talents, let me know that as well.  The goal is to use your time and talent(s) wisely.  Please reply directly to me (propschickkmk@yahoo.com).

The theater has tools and materials, however, if you do bring your own, please make sure that you mark your tools as yours so you get them right back (things could easily get mixed in while in the thick of the creative process).

If you know anyone else that would be interested in helping with the set, please pass this information along and have them get in touch with me.  New and not-so-new volunteers welcome!

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide!
Karen “Sweetie” Kleyle
Producer, Sweeney Todd
Port Tobacco Players
www.ptplayers.com

For those of you who have an interest in theater production and specifically this show, we are going to bring you updates from members of the cast and production crew along the way.

From this point on, enjoy the show!