Deana Muro and Joe Jackson accept the challenge of staging a beast of a musical for Front Porch
By SHARON EBERSON
Music director Deana Muro called the prospect of Bandstand terrifying. So she had to do it. Director-choreographer Joe Jackson, after three years at the University of Mississippi, was looking for the right project to return to Front Porch Theatricals. He heard Bandstand, and he and Muro were off and running.
That was a year ago, and they have both been busy ever since, preparing for the Pittsburgh premiere of Bandstand: The New American Musical, which opens this weekend at the New Hazlett Theater.
and Marnie Quick as Julia, in the Front Porch Theatricals’ Pittsburgh premiere. (Image: Chris Sichi for Front Porch Theatricals)
While wrestling with the orchestrations, Muro was gathering two groups of musicians – a 12-piece orchestra, plus her on piano and conducting, and the six-piece Donny Nova Band, named for the show’s protagonist – World War II veteran Donny Novitski, played for Front Porch by David Toole, in a role originated on Broadway by Carnegie Mellon alum Corey Cott.
The emotional story tells of a handful of veterans in 1945, struggling to fit into their old lives while dealing with post-traumatic stress, survivor’s guilt and other lingering effects of war. With the widow (Marnie Quick) of a fellow soldier, they form a band to compete in a national patriotic radio contest in New York City
“It’s a serious piece, and there is a connection between the characters of Donny and Julia that Dave and Marnie play, but I don’t want the audience to feel like this is a love story. It has to be a redemption story. It has to be all of this group of people fighting for respect and fighting to be seen and to be honored. And from that fight, they find this connection with each other,” Jackson said.
That’s a lot of exposition to say that Bandstand is a bear of a show to corral, and then unleash. It’s a show that swings, dances and sings, and celebrates the healing power of music.
“It’s scary,” Muro says, “but once you crest that hill, it’s like the orchestrations for me are the star of this show. For people who don’t maybe know what orchestrators do, they make Broadway sound like Broadway. And this is the peak example of what an orchestrator can do for a show. They’re just out of this world. It’s just such high octane, exciting, big band, swing music, all night long.”
The orchestrations by Bill Elliott and Greg Anthony Rassen were Tony Award-nominated and won the Drama Desk Award. Choreography honors for both went to Andy Blankenbuehler, to add to his Hamilton hardware.
That’s where Jackson comes in. The performer, director, choreographer and educator had left Sewickley Academy to return to Ole Miss, his undergrad alma mater, as an Instructional Assistant Professor of Musical Theatre Dance. In the meantime, he and producers Bruce E.G. Smith and Nancy Zionts have been looking for a return collaboration with Front Porch, after he choreographed Fun Home for them in 2019.
Bandstand presents many challenges that have been on Jackson’s mind since he accepted the job, and he was well into rehearsal as he spoke, just days away from a sold-out opening night.
He came to Pittsburgh with the entire show blocked on paper, and sequestered himself getting ready for rehearsals.
“I can breathe now,” he says. “The show is in a great place.”
While Muro was off finding 18 musicians – including those who could act and sing as the part of the Donny Nova Band (Patrick Breiner, Chris McGraw, Mike Mackey, Dylan Pal and Kamran Mian) – Jackson was looking for dancers who “can just improv swing, because there’ll be moments in rehearsals where I say, ‘OK, at this transition, I need you to improv for eight counts. Go.’ And so that’s kind of what we did with the auditions.”
All of the Front Porch cast and crew members either live and work in Pittsburgh or have a place to stay here. So when Jackson would tell the dancers to pair up, and then switch partners, many had worked together previously.
(Image: Chris Sichi for Front Porch Theatricals)
“It was so much fun,” says the director, who uses that word a lot, despite the arduous work from start to the finish line.
On Sunday of this week, Muro could not hold back big smiles while conducting the sitzprobe – literally, a seated rehearsal – of Bandstand, in which musicians and vocalist performed a runthrough together for the first time.
They were all in one place, in a City Theatre rehearsal room that mirrored the size of the New Hazlett stage. That will change in the move to the North Side.
“One of the reasons it’s so terrifying is because I have 18 musicians playing through two floors of the theater. There’s five up top playing and there’s 13 down below playing, including me, who’s also conducting,” Muro explains. “So technically, it’s a beast. And that’s why the first thing you do when you find out you’re doing Bandstand is make sure you have Broadway Angela – I call her Broadway Angela [Baughman] now – running sound.”
Baughman, a stalwart Pittsburgh sound designer, recently made her Broadway debut as assistant sound designer for the Tony-nominated musical Water for Elephants.
The original Bandstand was performed on a wide proscenium stage, unlike the New Hazlett’s thrust, which also presents a different set of challenges – or perhaps, opportunities – to rethink the choreography and design of the show.
“My goal has been to really put that production out of my head as much as possible, and try to find how our production can work,” Jackson says of the 2017 production, which was captured for the screen and is available on YouTube.
Jackson understood that most people who have an impression of Bandstand will have it from that perspective, but he has to see it differently.
“It feels at times very limited with our spacing, trying to get literally 18 people on that stage dancing and singing at the same time,” the director and choreographer says. “So I used the original as a little bit of motivation and some inspiration, but then I had to be able to take what our production is, let it grow, and let it have its own life.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Front Porch Theatricals production of Bandstand is at the New Hazlett Theater, North Side, August 16-25, 2024. Tickets: https://www.frontporchpgh.com/copy-of-tickets .
HONORING WWII VETERANS
For the producers of the show, one of the main attractions was a chance to tell a story about veterans, their struggle and their perseverance, and honor those who serve, and who served. There will be a lobby tribute to WWII vets, and six from our area will attend or be represented at various performances. They are:
- Betty Digby, 100, WAVE (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), from Upper St. Clair.
- Joe Dressel, 100, represented by his daughter, Mary Jo Dressel, originally from Dormont.
- Guy Prestia, 102, a liberator of the Dachau concentration camp, from Ellwood City.
- Warren Goss, 99, who took part in the D-Day invasion, from Sewickley.
- Emily Drake, 99, WAC (Women’s Army Corps), from Aspinwall.
Besides recognizing those in attendance, veterans can access discounted tickets using the code VETS45.
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Company, Our Posts, Preview, Venue
Leave a Reply Cancel reply