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Arts & Entertainment

2002-10-01 13:43:00

How do you do it?

Wayne Bryan Question:  We enjoy Music Theatre at Century II very much. We have seldom missed a show. I have always wondered, how does one begin to coordinate all the things that need to be coordinated? Or, are all the shows produced and a given market just buys the show, complete with all of its props and performers? Answer:  So glad you've been enjoying our efforts. Music Theatre of Wichita is one of the last summer theatres in the country that creates its shows "from scratch," hiring directors, choreographers, and musical directors who may or may not have had previous experience with a certain show, and then auditioning across the country (during the month of March) to find the perfect actors for each show. Those actors assemble at Century II and in just ten days learn all the staging, music and choreography, and then perform the show just one week. After that, the production, as seen in Wichita, is never seen again (although certain elements may be seen again elsewhere). The casting challenge is complicated further by the fact that we try to hire one resident company of multi-talented young people, who may perform in as many as five different productions. Last summer, for instance, our young ladies began as tap-dancing cowgirls in THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES, became comical secretaries in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS...., Asian wives in THE KING AND I, ballroom dancers in CINDERELLA, and a variety of ethnicities in RAGTIME. Then we bring in Broadway guest stars to work with our resident company. In addition to performers, we annually hire a full staff of backstage technicians (painters, costumers, properties artisans, carpenters, stage managers, etc.) and designers (for sets, costumes, lights, sound) to create the shows. We begin planning the new season before the last one has even finished, but the crew usually has no more than two or three weeks to actually build a show, and the actors only have ten days of rehearsal. (We only have access to the wonderful Century II facility during the summer months, and many of our personnel are involved with studying or teaching at universities during the school year.) Even though each show is created "fresh" for our local audiences, we sometimes do rent scenery, costumes and props from other sources. For instance, many of the key elements in RAGTIME last summer (Model T Ford, most costumes) were from the Broadway/National Tour of the show, but the scenery was augmented with many other elements created by our staff (Atlantic City boardwalk, Morgan Library) to bring the show back up to the size of the original Broadway production, rather than the scaled back size of the touring edition. Conversely, many of the sets, props and costumes we have created (and which are stored in a variety of warehouses ... anybody got warehouse space we should see?...) do get rented to other theatres. We've had PHANTOM, WIZARD OF OZ and JOSEPH.... play on both coasts, for instance, and our DAMN YANKEES costumes were seen in Canada!