A ‘GRAND’ RETURN
Goodspeed kicks off live performances with a cast-driven show that brings representation to Rodgers & Hammerstein
The Goodspeed Opera House’s grand return to live performance with “A Grand Night for Singing” is intended to celebrate the past, acknowledge the shuttering of theaters for most of the past two years, and look to the future.
For one, it intends to knock a lot of hoary old musical theater traditions on their head by having classic love songs sung by same-sex or multicultural couples, casting the show with performers less likely to be cast in the musicals they are honoring here.
“A Grand Night for Singing” consists of songs from the legendary duo of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist/ librettist Oscar Hammerstein
II. The shows it draws from include “The King and
I,” “Oklahoma,” “Cinderella,” “Flower Drum Song,” “Allegro” “State Fair,” “Pipe Dream” and
“Carousel.” It also has numbers from “South Pacific,” the show that Goodspeed was about to open in 2020 when the COVID pandemic first hit Connecticut.
It has been postponed twice more since then.
Rob Ruggiero, the director of that bereft “South Pacific,” is now helming “A Grand Night for Singing.”
“It became clear that bringing 22 people for ‘South Pacific’ was a lot of people to manage,” Ruggiero says. “Doing a production that big was a big risk. So Donna Lynn [Hilton, the Goodspeed’s artistic director) and I had a conversation about doing something small. It’s like doing this, a celebration of Rodgers & Hammerstein, would have a connection at least to what we couldn’t do.
“We wanted to make sure we do it through a 2021 lens. Four of the cast are BIPOC, the other white. It’s a beautiful balance of ethnicities and ages, and they
are all so talented.
“Also, looking at it in 2021, it’s a celebration of R&H, but also a celebration of love and life. We had to tie in the reemergence of the theater.”
Some songs have been updated, as when the stepsisters from “Cinderella” are seen swiping profiles on dating sites.
Representation, reinterpretation
A lot of the fresh interpretations were developed right in the rehearsal room with the cast, despite a truncated rehearsal period of three weeks. A few of the changes “we knew in advance,” Ruggiero says, “and some we discovered in the room. Jesse Nager sings “Love, Look Away!” (from “Flower Drum Song”) in his own voice, with his own vibe. Jasmine Forsberg plays guitar. She’s young, just out of school. I wanted a ‘discovery.’ ” Also in the cast: Mamie Parris, Diane Phelan and Mauricio Martínez.
Martínez, an established Broadway actor as well s a pop star and TV star in his native Mexico, is known to Hartford audiences for his portrayal of Gloria Estefan’s husband Emilio in the musical “On Your Feet” when it played The Bushnell in 2018. In a phone interview last week, Martínez says that musical not only got him his Equity union card but his green card. Ruggiero’s vision for a multicultural “A Grand Night for Singing” is “why I said yes,” Martínez says. “We are living in a time when representation matters more than ever.”
Martínez says Ruggiero saw him when he was co-starring with current “A Grand Night for Singing” castmate Parris in the Andrew Lloyd Webber revue “Unmasked” at the cabaret club 45 Below in New York City. “He offered me a part. I’m working with
some wonderfully talented people, all different voices and ages, singing beautiful music that I usually never get to sing. There’s gender swapping of the songs, gay relationships . ... Times have changed so much. I even get to sing in Spanish. We’re all bringing our own style.”
Among Martínez’s numbers: “Honey Bun” from “South Pacific” (I never thought of it as a song a man would sing”), “Maria” from “The Sound of Music” (not as a nun but “about a girl I met”) and “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” (in a jazzy new arrangement).
“I love classic musicals,” says Martínez, who will have a concert special airing on PBS in October
and will be recording his new album right after his Goodspeed run is over. “I wish I had more opportunity to sing them.”
‘We shouldn’t call it a revue’
“This show was defined by the cast,” Ruggiero says. Even the two standbys — performers who step in if a main cast member is unable to perform — are also encouraged to “be themselves. They’re not playing characters.”
The first indoor public event at the Goodspeed Opera House since January 2020, Ruggiero wanted “A Grand Night for Singing” to unmistakably signal
“a shift from darkness to
light” as the venue reopens. He says the show “starts as a completely black nothing. Then a performer steps out onto the stage. The space comes to life, opens up as the show progresses. We wanted this to be about hope and optimism, how we’re all taking a deep breath and moving forward.”
At the same time, the director says, “I’m not someone who pushes a concept too strongly. I know this work and love this work. I’ve done four of the five major Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, some of them several times.”
He describes staging
“My Little Girl,” a section from Billy’s “Soliloquy” in “Carousel” that “A Grand
Night for Singing” rolls into a medley of songs about parenting. “I used my understanding of ‘Carousel’ to explain that this was not about a little girl but about the obligations of fatherhood, and how it can be different with a daughter than with a son.”
“A Grand Night for Singing” is a collection of songs from a variety of different shows, but Ruggiero insists “we shouldn’t call it a revue. It is, but ... it’s more of a celebration of R&H, a song cycle that’s linked by a simple narrative. The songs connect to each other. I carried a lot of anxiety about this early on, because I’m a story guy. I said to the cast ‘This takes a leap of faith. We will need to connect the dots.’ We needed there to be a fluidity, as well as a tone that’s very authentic to the world today.”
“A Grand Night for Singing” runs through Nov. 28 at the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 6:30 p.m. (The Sunday evening performances end on Oct.
24; Thursday 2 p.m. matinees begin Oct. 28.) Call for ticket prices and other information; tickets are not currently being sold online. 860-873-8668, goodspeed. org.