Opinion

From Rehearsal Studio to Opening Night Every once in a while, someone comes up to me on opening night and expresses amazement that the costumes are finished, the orchestra sounds wonderful, and the actors know all their lines, music, and choreography. My reaction is usually a silent "Dear God, where have you been doing theatre where opening nights aren't ready?" Of course, there are always bumps along the way. But at South Bay Musical Theatre, getting a production ready for its audience is not something we leave to chance. It is the result of months of planning, hard work, and [...]

Choosing Musicals for Today’s Audiences Boy, do I love musicals. It's a good thing, too, because as Artistic Director of South Bay Musical Theatre, producing three major musicals a year and soon to expand to four, I spend plenty of nights trying to figure out the right mix for our season. Sometimes the answer seems obvious: pick a Rodgers and Hammerstein classic with a cast full of children and nuns, and watch the ticket sales roll in. I can program The Sound of Music every three years and expect tremendous sales. But that hardly fulfills our mission to pursue excellence, [...]

How do you design a place for characters with names like Queen Aggravain, Sir Studley, and Prince Dauntless to exist and breathe? It all starts, like everything else in theatre, with the story. The characters and the plot of Once Upon a Mattress are exaggerated and fantastical, so the environment they inhabit should probably follow suit. After identifying major locations where the story takes place and speaking with the director, Doug Brook, about his vision for this world, a designer begins researching and developing concepts to make that vision achievable, practical, tangible, and inspired.  One of my jobs for this [...]