Download My Week at the Broadway Teachers Workshop The Broadway

My Week at the Broadway Teachers Workshop
The Broadway Teachers Workshop is run through Broadway.com and the fearless leaders are Pam
Pariseau and Gordon Greenberg. The format is that 100 or so theatre teachers take three days of
classes and see four Broadway Shows. It was the best week of my life.
Sunday
Debbie Thompson, the Upper Dublin High School Theatre Director, and I arrived via train to Penn Station
and bravely hoofed it with our luggage to the Broadway at Times Square hotel
(http://applecorehotels.com/broadway-at-times-square-hotel/) . I highly recommend this hotel. It has
a supreme location for theatre goers, was very reasonable for the location, and had an extremely
friendly and helpful staff.
We grabbed a bite at the Eurpoa Café, a fantastic and reasonable chain where you can get healthy food.
Then we saw the closing night of the Off- Broadway show, The
Most Happy Fella which is an oldie by Frank Loesser but a goodie if
you love opera but don’t want to read subtitles. The basic plot is
that a waitress agrees to be the mail order bride to a rich Italian
farm owner and he promptly has a near-fatal accident, so, even
though she’s about to hook up with his farm hand, she has an
emergency wedding to the Italian and then sex with the farm hand
in the same night. It is not very unlike the Bunheads pilot which
stars my favorite Broadway ingénue, Sutton Foster. In this play,
she eventually falls in love with her husband and there’s a lot of
singing…as it is an opera…
One of Debbie’s past students was in the ensemble and everyone
was extremely impressed with the depth of talent in this cast.
They used no amplification and really didn’t need it because these voices were soaring.
Monday
Groups:
I felt like I was going to the first day of camp. I was even nervous to meet new people and felt
underdressed. After check in, we divided up into middle and high school groups. It was great to
network with other middle school teachers. They gave me some good ideas for if I ever need a straight
play.
Newsies Dance Class
I am a Newsies child. I am obsessed with all things newsie and had/have a massive crush on Christian
Bale from the movie. Nothing better than singing and dancing boys. I know all the words and can play
all the songs on the piano. I rewrote the lyrics to “Santa Fe” to be about Cyrano de Bergerac’s white
plume for a school project.
I was very excited to take my Newsies Dance Class (we danced to “Seize the
Day”) from Jess from So You Think You Can Dance Season 8. He is nineteen
and as an incredible amount of energy. He is truly a “theatre kid.” He taught
us the routine for about forty-five minutes and was a great teacher. He did
not seem at all intimidated to be teaching a group of adults. He answered
our questions for about fifteen minutes at the end. He went to public school
and said that SYTYCD was great experience because it gave him the
opportunity to watch himself on tape and really critique and change his
form. Plus it was really a test of his skill. He was very humble and sweet. We all enjoyed him.
Creative Mind
After Lunch was the workshop, “The Creative Mind: Forging New Paths On and Off Broadway.” The
speakers were:
Kate Wetherhead: many Broadway credits including The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and
Legally Blonde. She also married very well. Her husband designed the lights for Peter and the
Starcatcher.
Ed Dixon: Broadway veteran and author
Sarah Saltzberg; co-creater/writer of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee creating and
originating the role of Logan Schwartzandgrubenairre which I had the honor of seeing at the Circle in the
Square theatre during its Broadway Run.
Pictured below includes Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Sarah (with her mouth puffed up), and
the next speaker’s sister, Celia Keenan-Bolger. Other cool people too.
Andrew Keenan-Bolger: in a lot of Broadway stuff…including Crutchie in Newsies. Let’s
soak him for CRUTCHIE! (I love Newsies) He was in Seussical too, which is cool. With
Kate, he works on a webseries called “Submissions Only.”
Sarah really had the best quotes:
“Get inspired by your real life.”
“Anybody would do anything. It all depends on the circumstances.”
“Your hobbies are just as important as your career. They keep you balanced.”
Advanced Directing with Scott Schwartz
This was never mentioned in the workshop, but Scott is the son of the man, the legend, composer
Stephen Schwartz. Love. Him.
Scott directed Bat Boy which is one of my off-beat favorites. So I like him.
Scott was interesting. He’s currently working on a musical of A Room with a View, which is a book I
haven’t read and I movie I really enjoyed. He led us in a demonstration of how to do table work. Really,
that is not “advanced” for anyone with any directing training. But, it was interesting to watch a
professional director work.
Some memorable quotes:
“The best direction is that which inspires others to bring their very best work to the table.”
“The director is the lead storyteller.”
“You have to fall in love with it while you’re working on it.”
“Give actors options.”
“The director is in charge of everything but in control of nothing.”
Peter and the Starcatcher
Tie for my favorite musical. I loved it so much I bought the script, had it shipped to me, and had it
waiting on my doorstep when I got home. I honestly am planning of doing a staged reading in my living
room Friday night to the delight of my guests. I will need some rubber gloves and a rope. Ruby, my cat,
will be playing the cat and I will be playing all the other parts. It was inventive, creative, heartwarming,
and truly hilarious. It also doesn’t hurt that Peter Pan is one of my favorite stories because it is both an
adventure and a haunting tale. In our talk about it the next day, we discussed how it was very
impressive because it answers the question, “What can I accomplish ONLY on stage?” Peter wouldn’t
work as a movie—it could be a brilliant movie but it would bear no resemblance to the play. This was a
PLAY. It was fun. I laughed loudly and often. I cried a little at the end.
My favorite part: The first lines.
Boy: When I was a boy, I wished I could fly.
Prentiss: Me too.
Scott: So did I!
Boy: Out the window and over the trees—
Smee: High as a cloud and lighter than air—
Molly: --then loop the loop and up to the stars! I dreamed about flying all the time. What? Girls dream.
Boy: Up to the stars—I like that.
Molly: Me too.
Aster: Eventually, of course, we dream other dreams.
Prentiss: We change.
Ted: We grow up.
Aster: It always happens. Nothing is forever.
Boy: That’s the rule.
Molly: Everything ends.
Stache: And so our story begins.
TUESDAY
Playwrighting
Playwrighting with John Cariani, who wrote Almost Maine, which I will now read, was our most useful
class. I will do a separate document which details all of his exercises. He gave me some fantastic ideas
for ideas to incorporate more creative writing into my English classes.
Some quotes:
“Kids know how to love and lose because they’ve done it before for the first time and remember it
best.”
“Non theatre people’s stories are more interesting.”
“Writing is doing.”
“Stand up and write (on the wall)”
“Saying you’re a playwright is not saying you’re a writer. Playwrights write actions. Writers write a
singular, lonely experience.”
“You can’t write a play until you know the ending.”
“Old people have funny names to young people.”
“The more rules the better. Rules create creativity.”
“Trick kids into writing by making them play.”
“It’s ok not to like something we read. But ask kids to tell you why and find the solution.”
“Dialogue is the most interesting way to present information.”
“Direct address makes me want to punch dramaturgs.”
“You don’t have to be a good speller to be a writer” LATER HARVEY FIRESTEIN SAID THE SAME THING!
“You’ll write ten pages and keep one.”
“Make plays that a sports fan, not a play fan, would like”
“Be sensitive to the audience. The moment is all of us together in a the room”
“Write something that makes people not think about the things they have to do.”
Peter and the Starcatcher talk back
Wiiiith:
Roger Rees: He is the director of Peter. What I failed to realize until he walked
in the room is that he is also the Sherriff of Rottenham from Robin Hood: Men
in Tights, one of the greatest films of our time. He’s also in the movie version
of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which we watch in class every year and did a
lot of work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has a Tony for Nicholas
Nickleby so we know he’s brilliant.
Rick Elice: it wasn’t mentioned, but he and Roger are married. They are a
pretty amazing team. Rick’s credits include working as an ad man for a long
time and wrote Jersey Boys which is a pretty big deal. Also he wrote The
Addams Family, which my cousin Sean gave me a mug of completely
inexplicably as my secret Santa gift this year. My favorite mug.
Anyway. They gave an inspirational talk.
Quotes and notes:
“The audience is, collectively, always the smartest person in the room.”
“Theatre is negotiation by tantrum.”
“Change of character doesn’t matter in a novel because there’s more time. But you want to see
someone change in a play.”
To come up with the story, Rick called upon my best friend, Joseph Campbell’s monomyth…because
that’s the best thing ever.
To make Molly a more interesting character, Rick wrote her in his head as Judi Dench which is hilarious
because the actress, good old Celia Keegan-Bolger sounds just exactly like the great Dame in her British
accent. He also reread some of my favorites: Little Women, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Anne of Green
Gables to find a female who is not the supporter of a boy’s story but is equally important to the story.
James Barrie gave Rick some free tricks to spice up the dialogue of his play:
Alliteration
Puns
High and low humor
Anachronisms
Irreverent contemporary references
Rick feels like the two authors of the novel and James Barrie wrote the play together in his mind. AND
that’s EXACTLY how it felt watching it. One minute Captain Hook was quoting the novel, the next we
had a modern allusion.
Fun exercise: Write a postcard that makes me laugh.
“Perfection is a moving point.”
Jerome Robbins said, “You’re never finished (with a play). You just run out of time.” They said you have
to then forgive yourself for the inevitable dissatisfaction that follows from that. And then Roger said he
was going to the theater to rehearse with the cast this afternoon…
Roger said regarding the incredible movement and timing of the show that they formed it with a
“corporate” or community based approach in which no one is the tyrant, in fact the best idea in the
room wins. The playwright was always in the room. Actors have minds of their own, believe it or not,
and the movement creation was an organic experience.
“What scenes do in plays is different from what scenes do in musicals.”
Rick said something that I also find to be true of myself: “Half the words I know, I know from Sondheim
lyrics.”
If you don’t know a reference or word in a play, “you have something to go home and look up and talk
about. “
“Kids don’t have a problem believing a stick is a sword.” Adults do.
“I like knowing the play written now.”
Start with interesting characters and then make them interesting to each other.
“A script is like a score but you don’t instantly know there’s a pause.”
Punctuation dictates rhythm and is just as important as words.
Roger, “The most wonderful tool for the actors is the…………..pause.”
Team building exercise:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Everyone memorizes “Shall I Compare Thee…”
They sit in a circle
Share around the room
Share it backwards
Notice the repetition
Write your own sonnet
The exercise teaches the cast how to listen to each other.
Rick’s favorite moment in the play is when Peter jumps off the ladder into a fireman’s net which the rest
of the cast is holding. It’s his favorite moment because it is all about trust. And it’s the only time that
Peter Pan, in all of theatre, actually flies (no wires). To teach the trust, the actor went up one step every
day. And Roger did it once to show solidarity.
Their advice to our students:
To thine own self be true.
To be a director, start at the bottom, assist people, and work up.
It’s a rough world out there in theatre because it’s based on fashion. It’s volatile.
It is not always an upward climb to glory. You will be loved and hated.
“If you’re on your own in the end (not famous), it’s okay because you did what you came to do.”
Write, read voraciously, and listen. See as many shows as you can.
“The world is moving. Hear the vocabulary. Support the community.”
In Conversation: Broadway Legend Harvey Firestein
Most of what Harvey said is not fit to print…But here’s what was:
“Life only changes when you say yes. If you want your life to change, keep
saying yes.”
“The key to success is not how you deal with failure but how you deal with
success.”
He doesn’t hold onto memorabilia or watch a show he’s written a million
times. He says, “Walk away. Make something new.”
“It’s a good play if everything you know up to that point is on the page.”
In his house, he moves his art around about every six months because he
gets used to seeing it in a certain place and therefore doesn’t see it anymore.
“Good directors give the person the right role. They edit and guide positively.”
“Don’t tell me I do something great. I’ll never do it again.”
Regarding judging work before you’ve done it, “How do you know what you have til you have it? It’s like
signing your fetus up for college.”
Apparently he’s received hate mail because “Patrick’s Mother” no longer appears in Newsies. The cast
did their own version. Here it is from the Paper Mill Production:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRRoBJ0cMNI
“Movies are stories. Theatre is ideas.”
Alan Menkein, when told he had to re-write a song which had a beautiful melody, “I s--- gorgeous
melodies.” Harvey had t-shirts made up. Best quote ever.
To the actor, “That role is yours. You are part of a machine. Every other actor on that stage…you have
an energy of your own.”
Be present on stage because, “You don’t know who I’m looking at. I could be looking at the fourteenth
kid to the left.”
To the writer, “Everyone has a story to tell. The only person to tell it is you. Do the work.”
Harvey started a game with Hairspray which he continued with the cast of Newsies. It’s Survivor-based:
the last one to miss a performance and use his understudy gets a prize.
“Anything is material.”
“Being an artist is trying until you find something so true that it’s true for everyone.”
War Horse
War Horse was at the Lincoln Center. I always wanted to see something at the Lincoln Center and ,
truly, the space is amazing.
War Horse is the most manipulative piece of work I have ever seen since that one episode of Futurama
which I can’t even begin to talk about. The premise of the show is that there’s this boy, Albert, and his
horse, Joey. They are best friends forever and, when Albert’s dad sells Joey to soldiers to take to battle
in WWI, Albert enlists and goes on a mission to find his best friend.
The horse is a puppet. The baby horse is so freaking cute:
And the actors running the horse are so skilled and in tune with everything that the horse seems real
from the get go. It BREATHES!
So naturally, I started crying. Because all animal stories make me cry. And I know the dang horse is
going off to war and, if he doesn’t end up dead, will be in for some peril. So, Act I made me cry.
The grown up puppet looks like this:
Very, very lifelike.
Here’s someone RIDING it:
He’s actually riding the puppet! The actors inside (you can see there’s three of them) are RIDICULOUSLY
buff and the riders have very strong cores.
I never doubted the horse was real. I sobbed quietly into my sleeve for most of Act 2. The last scene
was physically painful.
Was the play good? VERY. Was it an amazing spectacle of staging and ingenious creativity? Absolutely.
Do I ever want to see it again? No. Would I recommend it? Yes, but know that it is exceptionally
violent, loud, and upsetting. The elements really come together to create a sensory experience. The set
is simple and based almost entirely on actor movement. The sound design is brilliant in that it makes
me feel what the characters are feeling and sometimes that feeling is “Oh no, I’m probably going to die
now. Time to panic.” Not everyone makes it. This is not a Disney horse story. But the visual elements
were simply brilliant. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen. It takes the brilliant puppetry of The Lion King
musical and takes it up one more notch. Never did the animals seem to be humans pretending to be an
animal. That horse was real.
After the play, I got some Tasty DeLight because I was very emotionally raw. It was good.
Wednesday
Spiderman: Inside the Web
Spiderman: Turn off the Dark is one of the most widely maligned musicals ever. I initially wanted to see
it because the incomparable Julie Taymor was the helm. When all the press went down and she was
fired, I knew that this show was perhaps not what I was hoping (Lion King II). Our speaker was
Christopher Tierney, who famously fell headfirst off the stage:
Fall at 0:43, but the whole story is good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDV43VTjUJY&feature=related
This dude has no fear. He is a stuntman with dance training and really supports the show.
He talked about the harnesses and safety precautions that go into the flying aspects of the
show.
We also heard from two of the set designers who explained some of the amazing stage
tricks.
One of my favorite parts was seeing some of the costumes and hearing about the work
that went into them. Here’s the Green Goblin:
After the speakers we got to watch some of the tech call before the afternoon matinee. Sadly, we didn’t
get to see any of the Spideys fly, which really made me sad. But we did get to see the dizzying lighting
effects and the impressive moving stage. Below is one example. The stage is made of really strong plexiglass like material and they light it from below:
Porgy and Bess
At the Tonys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XDnTV-TMoA
Porgy and Bess won for best musical revival this year and the genius that is Audra McDonald won, yet
again, for acting. She is a record breaker…even though Harvey Firestein contends that he has more
Tonys but all in the same category where as she has the most in different categories…anyway.
The plot isn’t all that much unlike Most Happy Fella. A trampy girl gets taken in by a nice, older cripple
but she has to come to grips with her looser former life. Also operatic in vocal style, the ensemble of the
piece was outstanding. The leads were spectacular, of course. Sadly, Audra did not come to talk back,
citing “vocal rest,” but the rest of the cast was nice, gracious, and very willing to answer all our
questions.
The only thing that really bothered me about the show was the set. The rest of the show relied on
organic movement, talented actors, and simple, functional costumes. The set was lumbering, not
efficient, and overly fussy. I couldn’t find a good picture of it, but basically, it was all yellow and brown,
with distressed wooden planks and a working water pump. In the picnic scene, a large sheet was
carelessly dropped over part, not all, of the set…in the Broadway setting, I expected more. At the end of
the show, Porgy leaves town and goes into the unknown. In this case the unknown is shown by the set
being flown HALF WAY up…so it’s still hanging there mostly, and Porgy walks toward the brick back wall
of the theatre. Not a good illusion. Especially after the utilitarian spectacle of Peter…and War Horse,
this set really took away from the otherwise brilliant production.
If I designed the set, I’d keep the sheet or skrim and the water pump and lose everything else. The
singing speaks for itself and the simple props could fill the space.
Once
After dinner, we went straight into our last show of the workshop. Once won best musical this year and
I have to say, while I was very excited about it, I didn’t think anything could top Peter and the
Starcatcher. But Once really captured me. I can say the two shows were different enough that I can
have BOTH of them as my favorites.
At the Tonys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb6-HdfvWZQ
Letterman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=cb6HdfvWZQ&v=HGWNJ_3vQ3A&annotation_id=annotation_499403&feature=iv
Once is the musical adaptation of the movie of the same name. The song, “Falling Slowly” won the
Oscar for best song and the music can be described as Irish Folk plus some rock.
In the Tony performance you can see that the set is based on mirrors. The purpose of this is so that the
audience can see Cristin Milioti actually play the piano. She learned how to play for this show and is
really delightful as the bird-like Czech immigrant. Steve Kazee won the Tony this year for best actor and
his acceptance speech made me cry. When the audience unanimously stood in a standing ovation at the
end of the show, the actors seemed genuinely grateful to receive that response. That is rare in the overHollywoodized Broadway world lately. They seemed to want to stay and chat during the talk back, each
fighting to add something to his or her cast members’ comments, but the stage manager didn’t let us
stay very long.
Before I get ahead of myself, I have to write about one of my favorite moments of the show, the
preshow. Our seats were, thankfully, in the orchestra, and when we entered the theater, we were given
the option to go up on stage and watch the preshow, which included the entire cast minus Milioti,
singing and dancing to Irish and Czech folk songs. So, not only was I onstage with the Tony winning cast
of Once, but I had the opportunity to look out at the audience and could pretend, even for just five
minutes, that I was on the Broadway stage. In Playbills for each show on Broadway is a page called “At
This Theater.” At this theatre was many impressive plays. But, I want to share with you that I stood on
the stage, the very same stage, as the original cast of Grease. I win.
The show differs from the movie in that the movie is starkly realistic and
the show is highly stylized. I fell in love with the organic- feeling
ensemble transitions which you can see a taste of in the Letterman clip.
I also felt a lot differently about the characters and especially the ending
than I did in the movie. Let’s face it, Steve Kazee is a bit more hunky
than Glen Hansard, even though I do love a good redhead. So, in the
movie, it was easier to believe that the character was desperately lonely
and about to give up. It’s hard to imagine Steve Kazee so lonely. It’s also hard to
imagine the girl not falling for him in the musical because of the chemistry between the two actors and
the fact that we never see either of the characters’ exes fully.
I cried at the curtain call. I made it all the way through the show, which is equally funny and romantic,
but, at the end of the curtain call, with the actors looking so grateful, my knowing that this was the end
of my Broadway week, and remembering Kazee’s acceptance speech, I got a little choked up. I mean,
the Irish music really does tug at the heartstrings, and the cast is so immensely talented all around.
Sardi’s
We wrapped up our epic week at the famous restaurant, Sardi’s. While I didn’t make any long-lasting
friendships with other theatre teachers across America, it was an invaluable experience to get to
collaborate with Debbie and the other teachers. Gordon came and sat with us for a while, eager to hear
how we liked (in my case, loved) everything.
When I got back to the hotel, I was so jazzed I couldn’t sleep for hours. It was the most amazing
educational experience I’d had as an adult. I desperately hope I can swing it next year, because it gave
me back my love of creativity and my zest for innovation. Practically, I got fantastic tips for the
classroom and wonderful ideas for the productions this year at Sandy Run. But, really, getting to spend
a week among “my people” gave me such happiness that I know that I will be able to go back to school
with fresh excitement and drive to have others feel what I do. The thing is, I think I’m drawn to theatre
because it’s a communal way to get everyone feeling the same way all at once. I can see a show and
feel the emotions of the characters and then drag my best friend to the show and say, “Here! Have
some emotions. Feel what I’m feeling. Share this.”
Thursday
We snuck in one more activity. I happened to see that Thursday was the first day of Broadway in Bryant
Park, a program where people can watch little snippets of the shows currently running.
This handsome fella actually went to Sandy Run and Debbie taught him
theatre. The video I took of the performance is woefully bad because
these dang New Yorkers have no manners and kept standing up right in
front of us so we could hardly see. But here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmxmqCqxFgE
The shows that day were:
1. War Horse (Joey rode around the park)
2. Spiderman (that music…is not nearly as good as the worst U2
song)
3. Phantom (AWESOME—and a treat because of the UD connect)
4. Porgy and Bess (minus Audra, sadly)
5. Stomp!
And then we were off. It was a fantastic week and I’m very lucky because I get to go back to Broadway
next month with my wonderful mother-in-law. We’re seeing Newsies, obviously, and then I’m seeing
Peter and the Starcatcher again because I want to see a non-theatre person’s reaction, I think it’s
delightful and want her to see it, and I want to steal more ideas from it. Also it’s so funny and enjoyable,
I won’t mind seeing it again!
Thanks, everyone!