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I
still can’t believe it took me so many years to get around to Pippin,
which was one of my favorites among the shows in which I performed as a
child. In 1983, when I was 12 years old, I played Charlemagne in the
spectacular Camp Natchez production directed by the incomparable Ce
Schafler. I learned almost all I know about theatre from Ce; she was the
director of many shows in which I participated at Camp Natchez between 1979
and 1985, and where she didn’t direct herself she oversaw nearly
every camp production. She’s a brilliant director and a wonderful
woman. I haven’t spoken to her in years; I really wish she could see
what we accomplished at Pontiac from 1998-2006. She would be so proud.
The
camper group that was to be supers in 2006 may have been the best theatre
division I ever had at camp (see, e.g., The Nightmare Before Christmas,
Little Shop of Horrors and Wicked, among others). Even with
some of its members having moved on from Pontiac, I really wanted the
opportunity to do one more show with them, but they would obviously be
unavailable for the upper-camp show due to the California teen tour.
The solution was to put them into the second (middle-camp) show and take
the subbies out, which would give us about the same numbers as we’d
had in recent years, give all eight divisions the opportunity to
perform in one show apiece, and hopefully improve the talent level across
the board. This was really the first time that I could reasonably
anticipate an appreciable number of supers and CITs trying out for a show;
in fact, in retrospect I think Greg Sarafan in Aida was the only super
or CIT to ever be in a show between 1998 and 2005.
As it
turned out, Pippin was a really good show on which to do this, given
the role the ensemble plays in the story of Charlemagne’s eldest son
searching for the meaning of life through love and war and everything in
between. The play-within-a-play gimmick of Roger O. Hirson’s book
leaves open many opportunities for improvisation (as well as having
built-in mistakes to help cover up any real ones), and it is very clever in
how it lets the ensemble in on the joke but not the main characters.
The script is also rife with small speaking roles for the various ensemble
players, so there would be plenty for everyone to do.
We got
a great turnout for auditions here; a lot of the inter boys and girls who
had been in The Simpsons the year before came out for this show.
Most impressive among them was Henry Nwaru, a born showman who had wowed
the camp in talent shows since he arrived in 2005. When one of the super
boys, who I had in mind for the part, decided to pass on this show, I was
disappointed that I wouldn’t get to work with him again but it opened
up an opportunity for Henry to step into the Ben Vereen role as Leading
Player. This casting coup also helped solve another problem, as Kacie
Friedman had informed us that she would be unavailable for the Visiting Day
performance but we really wanted to cast her, so we split the
Leading Player role between her and Henry, and had Henry learn and perform
the whole thing for Visiting Day.
The
rest of the main cast consisted of talented, reliable theatre veterans, the
young people who had made the Pontiac theatre program so special to me over
the past several years. Milan Lipstein impressed again with his audition,
and was a clear choice for Pippin, while Mark Hartenstein took my old role
as his father, Charlemagne. Amanda Cohen played Catherine, Pippin’s
love interest, who unfortunately doesn’t appear until the second act,
but she had the best voice for the part (the “Love Song” in Act
II was eerily reminiscent of “As Long As You’re Mine”
from Wicked, which Milan and Amanda had performed together the year
before). Kacie, of course, is included in this group as well. Returning
this year were now-CITs Amanda Mondre as conniving stepmother/gold-digging
vixen Fastrada, and Rachel Greenfader as Pippin’s kindly yet…
active grandmother Berthe. And,
happily, we had a great non-singing role for David Galimidi, performing in
his record ninth show: Pippin’s flamboyant, narcissistic
half-brother, Lewis.
Also making
a notable return to the Pontiac theatre on this show was Jan Ford, who
worked with me at camp in 2000 and who for years I had been hoping would
return. As I noted in the reviews for that year’s shows, Jan is an
incredible dance teacher and choreographer, works wonderfully with children
and is also amazingly resourceful when it comes to things like costumes,
props and stagecraft. Jan arrived just before we finished How to Eat
Like a Child and joined what was already turning out to be a top-flight
theatre staff. Jan and Julia made fast friends and worked brilliantly
together on choreography, costumes and props (not to mention shopping for
same), saving me a whole world of time, stress and concern. John took care
of most of the set-painting, although Julia painted the sun and stars on
the backdrop, and Howard Scoffield generously built and painted for us a
pair of wooden castle turrets which we placed on either side of the
forestage.
Pippin
was challenging from a technical standpoint,
particularly the “fire trick” at the end which is the climax of
the story. I considered using pyrotechnics for this show and for Spamalot,
but most of the experts to whom I spoke advised me against it due to the
low ceiling, combustible building materials, and proximity of the audience
to the stage in the Pontiac Playhouse. The solution was to use an electric
“flame lamp” (simulated flame using light, silk fabric and a
vertical fan), which we placed on the floor inside the opening in the
upstage platform (whose unfortunate dimensions actually worked to our
advantage this year on both Pippin and Spamalot). The lamp
was quite a bit smaller than I would have liked, but the multi-colored glow
was bright enough to fill the entire space when the opening was uncovered,
with the actor doing the trick standing behind and over it, and the effect
looked very good from a distance.
For a very
brief moment, when the Leading Player tells Pippin that he must do the
trick “for real,” we had an actual burning citronella torch brought
onstage by one of the ensemble players. I knew this would make everyone very
nervous, but I also knew that the dramatic effect would be
incomparable. Needless to say, we took all the necessary safety precautions
and then some. We rehearsed the scene very, very carefully, first
without lighting the torch, then repeatedly practicing lighting and capping
the flame, keeping it away from the curtains and walls, clearing a path on
and off stage with every person in a specified location and moving the torch
along a precise line, having stage crew standing by with fire extinguishers
on both sides of the stage, and practicing for an evacuation in case,
heaven forbid, anything went wrong. We could not possibly have been more
careful. Of course, thankfully, everything went as planned.
The
fire trick wasn’t the only spectacle we created on stage for this
show. In keeping with the show’s medieval mystical motif, we had a
starry-sky/Ouija board backdrop on the upper part of the upstage wall, with
a large stylized sun right-of-center. We also pinned glow-in-the-dark
stars, moons and planets to the stage curtain and lit them up with a black
light placed on the floor at the lip of the stage. We used lighted candles,
always a beautiful sight, for the choir in the song “Morning
Glow.” Jan and Julia designed some inventive set-pieces using
furniture, fabric swatches and props, including many of the artificial
flowers we had amassed for Little Shop of Horrors in 2004. The
individual ensemble members contributed all sorts of tricks and stunts for
the opening number, “Magic to Do.” All told, Pippin was
visually spectacular; it may have been the best-looking show we ever
did.
And it
was great fun to put on. With the older cast members providing their usual
superb solo performances, and the younger kids forming a spirited and
energetic ensemble, Pippin was a blast and an unqualified triumph. I
guess it was worth the wait.
_____
Pontiac Players present
PIPPIN
Music and Lyrics by STEPHEN SCHWARTZ
Book by ROGER O. HIRSON
Principal Cast
MILAN LIPSTEIN as Pippin
HENRY NWARU and KACIE FRIEDMAN as Leading Players
AMANDA COHEN as Catherine
MARK HARTENSTEIN as Charles
AMANDA MONDRE as Fastrada
RACHEL GREENFADER as Berthe
DAVID GALIMIDI as Lewis
JUSTIN HENDLER as Theo
Directed by JAY BRAIMAN, JAN FORD,
JULIA GEMMELL and JOHN McNEISH-HASTINGS
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