Interview: Andy Planck on the Fort Wayne premiere of ONCE ON THIS ISLAND at Three Rivers Music Theatre

Three Rivers Music Theatre's final show for their 2018-2019 season is the much anticipated Once on This Island, which opens this weekend at Wunderkammer on Fairfield Avenue. The 1990 musical, which some may be familiar with from its multiple Tony nominations and its win for Best Revival of a Musical in 2018, centers around a peasant girl, Ti Moune, who rescues a wealthy boy named Daniel from the other side of her island before falling in love with him. Weaving themselves into Ti Moune's romantic pursuit are the gods of the island who decide to make a bet with one another over which is stronger: love or death. No theatre companies have ever produced this show full-scale in Fort Wayne, so Three Rivers Music Theatre's production will be considered a local premiere. Andy Planck, executive artistic director of TRMT and the director of Once on This Island, sat down with BroadwayWorld to talk about his vision for the production and what he sees as its value in today's world.

Once on This Island will be TRMT's fourth show at Wunderkammer, a mixed-use contemporary art gallery in the heart of Fort Wayne. Because it's not a traditional theatre space, this location provides unique opportunities for the artists and designers involved. Spring Awakening, Dogfight, and Fun Home all found homes here, and for each show, TRMT has found ways to tweak the sound, lighting, and seating arrangements make the most of the environment that the space offers.

In this case, Andy Planck and the production team have decided to stage Once on This Island similarly to its Broadway revival at Circle in the Square Theater, where the show was played in the round. "It's already an unconventional theatrical space to begin with, so you sort of get to set new rules every time you use it. They have the built-in stage there [at Wunderkammer], but we thought we would utilize that space to do tiered audience seating and bring the show into the middle of the room," said Planck. "Our biggest thing is that we just always want to challenge our audiences with theatrical circumstances that they've never seen before. And Wunderkammer really allows us to do that." The art gallery space also allows the company to be more experimental in some of the staging elements that they attempt: last weekend, the musical's crew, along with volunteers, loaded in ten tons of sand into the space to build their island, something that would prove difficult or even impossible in more traditional theatre spaces around town.

Along with the non-traditional performance location, what helps set TRMT apart is their consistent commitment to telling stories of underrepresented people. Their last show, Fun Home, offered a chance to showcase one sliver of LGBTQ+ stories, but stories of multicultural diversity are equally important to support. And in addition to the story itself, what's especially engaging about Once on This Island is its opportunity to promote a cast that is majority actors of color. While northern Indiana is slowly becoming more inclusive in terms of colorblind casting, it's rare that a story calls specifically for such great diversity in its performers. Andy Planck spoke to his enthusiasm about promoting our city's extraordinarily talented artists of color. "It's an underrepresented community, and for that very fact, it's also a community that doesn't feel engaged, so companies in our area often find a great challenge when attempting to produce works with full companies of color. But it's deeply ingrained in our mission to continue to produce works that represent the underrepresented. So it was important for us to engage that community," he said.

TRMT is investing in artists of color not only for the cast of the show but for their production team as well. Planck has brought on Taiwo Adeleye, a Nigerian expert in traditional African dance, as Once on This Island's choreographer. Adeleye focuses on Afro-fusion dance and Afro-modern dance among other specialties, and for this show, Adeleye has choreographed dance routines with Afro-Caribbean influences. "I knew the movement was so integral to the piece, and it had to have authenticity. And this is a story about an island full of people of color, so it was also important for me to make sure that we engaged somebody on our production team who could speak from that point of view," said Planck.

Once on This Island will be a must-see for Fort Wayne audiences. Its universal message, centering around the healing power of love, can find relevance in our current political climate in particular, according to Planck. "I just think it's a really powerful message to not just our community but, I think, increasingly conservative communities at large: that if we lead with a little more love and understanding, we can strengthen ourselves as a whole, as a community, as a people, as a nation, as a world."

The show will star Marsharika Coleman as Ti Moune and Deven Bowers as Daniel Beauxhomme, alongside a talented cast and crew. Once on This Island opens Friday, April 26, and plays through May 18. It runs 90 minutes with no intermission; dates, showtimes, and ticket information can be found on their website.

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