2008-08-28T17:48:01Z Christina Copyright 2008, Christina SPHPBLOG
Forgive my lack of eloquence but I am not blog savvy and have no idea what is best said and not said!! I will start by saying I am thrilled to be a part of the LOOK 2008 season and I am eager to get to Tulsa and start working.

My dear friend Brian Cheney e-mailed me sometime last season and said, “Hey, wanna audition for a production of Candide?” Naturally I thought for less than a nanosecond before replying “YES.” Glitter and Be Gay was the first aria I learned in college and from that moment, I was hooked, and have been patiently waiting to do the entire role of Cunegonde. From what I have read in my colleagues’ blogs, we are all eager to do a production of Candide and I believe that can only enhance the experience for the cast and audience alike.

Now, as for Gilbert & Sullivan, who doesn’t like a little Pirates of Penzance in the summer? Like many of my colleagues, G & S has been a regular part of my life since embarking on a singing career. Eric’s concept for this production is intriguing and refreshing and I think we are all in for a some fun!

I look forward to seeing you all very shortly.

Diana McVey
]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry080428-101541 2008-04-28T00:00:00Z 2008-04-28T00:00:00Z
I am really excited to be back performing with LOOK again this summer. There are many reasons but the most meaningful for me is to have an opportunity to perform my first Candide. Not only is the music some of the most glorious ever written for musical theater, but the version that Eric has chosen is perfect for LOOK. My best friend and mentor, Jerry Hadley, worked very closely on this piece with his mentor, Leonard Bernstein. Candide was the last role I learned from Jerry before he died and I feel so lucky to have that first hand knowledge on how Bernstein wanted the role to be sung. So I am thrilled to be doing it!

I also have to say that I feel so fortunate to be working with such phenomenal colleagues this season. Not only will these productions look great but they will sound amazing.

So folks, hold on to your hats because we are going to blow you all away this summer! Ok, now back to memorizing my lines...how did I do?

Brian Cheney]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry080425-100756 2008-04-25T00:00:00Z 2008-04-25T00:00:00Z walking down the street, riding the subway, or having coffee while
holding on a seemingly lengthy conversation with absolutely no one!
Well gentle readers, as the LOOK season approaches, I am that man. As
I sat on the subway today, I noticed a small child looking at me with
a mixture of horror/amusement/befudlement. Did I have something on my
face? Was I having a bad hair day? Alas, no. She was merely reacting
to my muttering, raising of eyebrows, and tear-laden eyes. Surely she
feared for her life. Little did she know that I was merely running my
lines for Into the Woods. Something I have been doing a lot these
last weeks. How many others have I scared off I wonder? I hardly
realize it anymore. It is these "crazy in the street" moments that I
come up with my best ideas of how to play a scene.

And what scenes there will be! I am so excited about this season at
LOOK. The 3 mainstage shows are all shows that I have been itching to
do and the casting is fantastic. The LOOK ensemble is like a family
and I am looking forward to seeing many familiar faces and getting to
know some new ones. The process of putting up a show is a crazy time
of trying out all those different ways of delivering lines you dreamt
up while mumbling through the City streets. Some work from the start
and some, well, need more thought. Regardless, diving into a new
character is a wonderful process of searching your memory and soul
for moments that you can call upon to help tell your story. For "Into
the Woods" the connections are pretty clear for me; I have loved this
show since a teen and relate to many of the issues that The Baker and
his Wife will face. In Candide, I look forward to the challenge of
playing three separate roles and making them all completely different
from one another. For the Pirate King, I am filling my "actor's
toolbox" with everything from classical interpretations, thoughts of
accents, and images of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean in
preparation for LOOK's imaginative updating to modern day piracy! A
special treat for me in Pirates is to be able to work with my long
time best friend Melissa Parks as Ruth! We have both performed all
over the US but rarely have the chance to perform together! I know
that LOOK audiences with love her!

But for now, I am putting in my earphones and hitting the streets as
I have more lines to learn! But in parting I offer a plea; for the
next few weeks when you catch a glimpse of someone talking to
themselves at Panera, don't be frightened! It may merely one of the
LOOK family! We are harmless creatures. But feel free to leave money,
if you wish!

Ron Loyd
]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry080424-113057 2008-04-24T00:00:00Z 2008-04-24T00:00:00Z
Melissa Parks]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry080424-112337 2008-04-24T00:00:00Z 2008-04-24T00:00:00Z
Oh, Coward! will be preceded by different opening acts each week. Eric Gibson and Cathy Venable have agreed to re-mount their “I Love A Piano” cabaret from 2006; Jenna Harris and Kyle Dougan are putting together a collection of recent, off-beat musical theater with other members of the ensemble; and I’ll be performing a cabaret that you, the audience, will help write! How will that work? You’ll have to come and find out…but by the time we’re done, you’ll be able to create your own performance of love songs and black humor.

Stay tuned to find out more about these intriguing evenings…

Andrea Leap
]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry080424-112152 2008-04-24T00:00:00Z 2008-04-24T00:00:00Z
I have always wanted to do a season that tied all three shows together with a thematic concept, a design concept or a casting thread. I think we are accomplishing that this season, certainly with the stage designs that I have seen so far. Central to the physical productions will be a large pie-shaped platform that lives in the center of the Williams Theatre stage. It will break apart; think of it like a large Trivial Pursuit game piece, but with the ability to make different shapes, creating various environments on the stage. It is also slightly raked, so it will be fun for the actors to climb all over, and with a simple pull of a handle, stairs will pop out of the sides. It is going to be very interesting and challenging to put it all together.

From what I can tell, the singers seem to be most excited about Candide, probably because it is so rarely done. For many of them, it is their first staged production of the piece. Most of the younger apprentices have leading roles in Into the Woods, so it will be exciting for me to work with all of these budding talents on this phenomenal Sondheim piece. Certainly one of the best productions we’ve done recently was last season’s Sweeney, and I think it is a certain commitment that Sondheim’s work draws out of an actor. People love to perform in his shows!

Candide has had an interesting journey for me. I initially thought LOOK wasn’t going to do it at all because it conflicted with another production, but when that hurdle was cleared, we went for it. Candide has been revisited, rewritten and retooled many times after an initial, tepid premiere on Broadway in the 50s. We landed on a version that was produced by the Scottish Opera and directed by Jonathan Miller in the 80s. However when I took a more extensive look at the script and read more about the 1973 Chelsea version produced by Harold Prince, I had serious, horrible second thoughts about my choice. Choosing Candide was a risk anyway, and to do the wrong version would be a huge mistake. Both for the company and for the audience.

So, after much discussion with the actors, James Bagwell and the LOOK staff, we did land on the Chelsea version to produce at LOOK and I’m very happy about it. I just saw Candide at New York City Opera on Friday night, and although they produce the fuller opera house version with more of the music intact, the scripts are very similar. LOOK alum Kyle Pfortmiller was Maximillian and the production was very zippy as it was originally directed by Harold Prince. It was a fantastic evening. The only thing was that even this version seemed to kind of slow down (just slightly) in Act II. Those are the scenes cut from the Chelsea version – so I really know now that I picked the right script!

We are busily prepping Candide (and Woods and Pirates of course) and we hope you enjoy this best of all possible seasons! Enjoy the blog – we’ll talk to you later!
Eric
]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry080423-164929 2008-04-23T00:00:00Z 2008-04-23T00:00:00Z
In preparing for rehearsals there is a great deal of mundane behind-the-scenes work that must be done: orchestra scores must be studied and marked, tempos must be decided, and Eric and I have many discussions about such issues as pacing (always pacing) and how to deal with transitions in a given show. These discussions generally begin sometime in early January and will continue almost until opening night, and even beyond. I believe that a few may still be going on. Most of all, though, there is that wonderful anxiety of beginning something new again. Of the three shows that we are producing, I have conducted only The Pirates of Penzance; the rest are brand new. This is maybe the best part of my job, because in some ways learning a new score is quite close to meeting a new and (hopefully) interesting friend. You find what you like and what you don’t like. There is the discovery of little quirks that are endearing at first, but maybe slightly abrasive by the time you have faced them ten or twelve times. Then there are those perfect friends: South Pacific, Sweeney Todd, and The Mikado, friends that, even if you have not seen or spoken to them in a long time, reward you with their presence.

James Bagwell
]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry080417-143902 2008-04-17T00:00:00Z 2008-04-17T00:00:00Z
Hello!

I'm Andrea Leap, an artist and Ensemble Director at LOOK 2007. Eric has
asked me to contribute to the LOOK blog and to explain a little about what
I'm doing to prepare for the season.

This year, LOOK has asked me to create four different cabaret concerts,
which will be paired with Trial by Jury as a double bill. Since the season
centers around "Men Behaving Badly," we've chosen some relevant themes to
frame our cabarets:

"Women Behaving Badly"
"Let The Punishment Fit The Crime"
"There Oughta Be A Law."
"Law & Order: Operetta Unit"

Earlier this year I received a grant to attend an arts retreat in Northern
Minnesota, and for the past week I've been up here in the rural prairie
arranging songs, writing skits, putting ideas together - trying to do as
much advance planning as possible while my brain is still [relatively]
clear. Of course, all the planning in the world may get thrown out the
window if an off-hand comment from an ensemble member inspires us to go in a
completely different direction.

Tracking down the songs and ideas that we use, figuring out how they go
together - it has become one of the things I enjoy most about preparing for
LOOK. It seems like every year I find more interesting and clever songs
than we can possibly use, like this one, by Tom Lehrer, called "The Old Dope
Peddler," which has a music box sounding accompaniment:

"He gives the kids free samples,
Because he knows full well
That today's young innocent faces
Are tomorrow's clientele."

Alas, I still can't find a home for that song in this season's cabarets, but
having found "Driving in Tulsa is Driving Me To Drink," "It's a Lovely Day
To Be Out Of Jail" and "Smut," I'm looking forward to other possibilities.
I hope you'll come and see what we produce!
]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry070424-113115 2007-04-24T00:00:00Z 2007-04-24T00:00:00Z
There are many people I'm very excited about this summer, including a plethora of new ensemble artists. LOOK is always searching for "characters" on stage -- meaning people who can be a ham, or bring any type of "walk-on" or supporting role to life. These people are born with a talent to "grab" the attention of the audience the minute they walk on the stage. You can't teach that...you're born with it. We have a couple of those people this summer. There is an exciting new baritone, Peyton Crim, who is coming from Oklahoma City who is playing the "fop" Louis in Marietta. I think he'll be a scream. Returning to our stage who I think will be terrific also, are Pete Brennan, a natural ham (and from TU), and Kyle Dougan. Both of these gentlemen will be knock-outs in Music Man, but we'll see a different side of one of them this summer too....

Kyle Dougan is a funny man, but we're giving him the opportunity to play it serious this summer with Tobias in Sweeney Todd. Sometimes actors get "fached" or "typed" into roles. Kyle is very funny, but at his audition this year, he proved he could create the pathos and the sincerity needed for the young man in Sweeney who "adopts" Mrs. Lovett as a maternal figure in his life, and then later kills for her once our title character harms her. It will be fascinating to work with Kyle on this show!

LOOK has a bevy of amazing young women in the company too. I'll talk more about them later....But suffice it to say, we have probably collected one of the best companies we've had in years!

Talk to you soon! Eric

]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry070423-210244 2007-04-24T00:00:00Z 2007-04-24T00:00:00Z
This is an exciting time of year. We are about 8 weeks to the start of rehearsals. We are solidifying our casting and we are in the design stage process. The productions are really starting to come together.

Since this is our 25th Anniversary Season, we are trying to present interesting repertoire in productions that are as provocative, fresh and exciting as theatrically possible.

One of the things I've had the most fun with so far is figuring out how we are going to do Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. Broadway audiences have seen productions that are very literal and realistic, which is the standard the original production set. More recent audiences saw a very stark, cut-down, revisionist approach that completely set tradition on its ear.

Both approaches are valid and interesting. I can't wait to share with you more about what Light Opera's approach will be. I can guarantee one thing right now, it will be terrific! We have been able to put together a cast of very exciting people this season. Terrific singing actors who will be able to breathe life into each and every character they play on the LOOK stage.

To tell the truth, we based our casting this year on doing Sweeney. It takes a special performer to do a Sondheim work. A performer who can not only "deliver" on the music, but who can deliver emotionally and bring those intense characters to life! Once we found those people who could do Sweeney, it was fun to place them in the other shows (Music Man and Naughty Marietta).

It is a very exciting process to say the least!

More later....Eric]]> http://www.lightoperaok.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry070323-174823 2007-03-23T00:00:00Z 2007-03-23T00:00:00Z