Interview: Of Country Music Legends, Children's Theatre, and Community: MSMT Opens A PEEK BEHIND THE CURTAIN Series

"We wanted to go big and grand. We knew we had Christine [Mild] with her powerhouse performance and Charis [Leos] so we wanted to play it large and create an environment that would support them. The production concept we came up with turned out to be a wonderful envelope to wrap around the show and the entire staging fell into place."

Co-director/choreographer Marc Robin was talking about his and Curt Dale Clark's vision for their new staging of Always, Patsy Cline, which opened Maine State Music Theatre's 2017 season on June 7th. Robin was part of a panel that also featured Patsy star Christine Mild and stand-by Heidi Kettenring, MSMT Charge Scenic Artist Sean Cox, and MSMT Board Vice President Kristine Ganong. The discussion on June 14th, moderated by Broadway World Maine editor Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold was the first in the now four-year-old summer series of free public forums, A Peek Behind the Curtain, held at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick. The series, designed to give theatre-goers insight into the creative processes of producing each of the summer main stage shows, featured a lively and far-reaching conversation about Patsy Cline, MSMT's Theatre for Young Audiences program, and the theatre's burgeoning role in the community.

Continuing with his description of the his and Clark's all-new staging of a show which had last tread the boards in Brunswick in 2010, Robin explained that "when we sat down to do it, we knew we wanted to do something different from what had been done before in Maine and also to make it different for these two actresses who had already done many previous productions. We wanted it to be unique and special for this audience. In all research we did, everything went back to Patsy Cline's career at Grand Ole Oprey. In the original New York production there was a header way in back that said 'Grand Ole Oprey', but it was like a sign - not like a location. When we talked to designer Bill Mohney, we said we want you to take this element that enveloped her life in such a big way and make that decision the basis, and that dictated everything else."

Robin said that because both actresses bring a great deal of previous experience to their roles but had never worked together, the challenge for him as director was to help them "build a new relationship between Patsy and Louise." He pointed out that "the play is really about the friendship between two women who have common interests, rather than between a star and a commoner. Louise looks at Patsy as a star at first but realizes in the course of that magical evening that she is a very real, down-to-earth person, and they become friends for the rest of Cline's brief life."

Always, Patsy Cline star Christine Mild described her long association with the role. "My association with the character has deepened over past ten years. This is a show that keeps coming back to me, but I am a totally different performer now than I was at twenty-five when I first learned it." She tells how initially she "listened over and over to get Parsy's sound into my DNA. Then, once we start doing the show, I try to let it just go and to use my sense memory. I try to hear her and line up what is coming out of my body with that sense memory of Patsy. I have also worked with the way she stood and held her body, so once I click into the sound and the stance, it starts to flow naturally for me." Mild also talked about recreating Patsy Cline's unique vocal sound "with its scoops, growls, cry and that catch where the notes jump. I have to alter the way I sing and I had to learn to produce that sound in a healthful way so I could do eight or nine shows a week." For Mild "Patsy's sound is unique and she remains a towering musical presence to this day. Any country artist today will tell you she is their inspiration and 'Crazy' is still the number one juke box song today."

Playing a well-known icon is always a challenge, Heidi Kettenring concurred. Kettenring, who is a nationally acclaimed award-winning leading lady in her own right, is serving as the stand-by for both Patsy and Louise for this production. She talked about her method of preparation for a role that has had legendary predecessors. "I am a natural mimic so if there is an iconic performance, I try to avoid listening or watching because I will involuntarily fall into the trap of subconsciously mimicking that performer. When I did Fanny Brice (Funny Girl), for example, I knew to watch Barbra Streisand only once to get an idea of what was going on and then erase it from my mind. I did read books about the real Fanny Brice or about Anna Leonowens (King and I), but then I just try to bring to the part who I am. I believe if I am honest, I will be able to tell the story in the best way."

Kettenring, who has delighted Maine audiences with her Millie in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Fantine in Les Misérables, and Electra in Gypsy, among others, drew applause when she talked about her experience understudying Mild and Leos in this show. "The main challenge in learning both roles was that I had to do it in a vacuum because I was working in another production at the time. I had played Patsy fifteen years ago, so relearning her music wasn't that difficult, but learning Louise was much harder." She went on to share the special place this musical holds for her. "I have a deep love of this show because it is tied to a memory of my beloved Mom just before she passed away. When she was very ill, my best friend and I went to visit her and she gave us tickets to see Patsy which had just opened in Chicago. This show is about friendship, and it is tied to my mother's memory, so it always holds a special place in my heart." Dismissing the misconception that understudies are dying to go on, Kettenring said "For me that is not the truth. I am pleased to get to watch these masters perform. Christine and I go back more than a dozen years as friends and Charis and I more than seven, so as understudy, I find myself enjoying two beloved friends do a beloved play. It is a singular honor to get to watch them every evening."

Charge Scenic Artist Sean Cox, who worked on Always, Patsy Cline at the Fulton and now here at MSMT, joined the discussion describing the technical challenges of bringing the scenic designer's drawings and models to life. "My task is to take the ideas in small scale and execute them full scale." He recounted how changes are often made at the very last minute in tech. "In this show once we got all the scenery on stage we realized that the walls which come in and out to create Louise's house would be better detached from each other, so we removed the double hinges and touched up the paint at the last moment, and it worked ever so much better." Cox's job also involves leading his paints department crew, who are often college students serving as interns or apprentices at MSMT. "They are so passionate about what they are doing. MSMT has unquestionably one of the best intern programs in the country."

Pursuing the theme of scale, I asked Marc Robin how, as a director/choreographer, he shifts gears from staging an intimate show like Always, Patsy Cline, and then returning later this season with what will be according to Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark "the largest dance show in the history of MSMT,' Disney's Newsies. "I love the intimacy of the smaller shows and the grandeur of the bigger ones. But the choreographer in me loves the challenge of a big dance show. However, a big dance show brings its own sert of skills to the process. Jokingly, he described his preparation for Always, Patsy Cline: " I showed up and said 'Girls, what do I want to do. And Christine would say 'I do this,' and Charis would say 'I do this,' and I said 'Why don't you do that together?' But for any large scale musical like Music Man here a couple seasons ago, I have to have all my homework done and show up with all my ducks in a row. I come knowing the concept I want, and having worked out all the dance charts."

"Newsies is a mega show," he continued. "We just opened it at the Fulton last week, and to prepare for it I had spent over a month in a dance studio dancing the choreography and working with a chess set. I showed up to the first rehearsal with eighty-nine pages of dance charts."

Christine Mild commented on Robin's method. "All directors are not as together as Marc and this is why he is as successful and beloved as he is and why everyone wants to work with him. He gives you the tools to succeed. He is clear, concise; he knows what he wants and he tells you, and as a performer that gives you confidence and you can flourish" - a statement that Heidi Kettenring seconded.

Seguing from this discussion of working on large and small shows, I drew Robin out on the subject of switching genres from main stage musicals to creating and mounting shows for children, especially apropos of the production of MSMT's Theatre for Young Audiences' Sleeping Beauty, which had just had two performances that morning and another upcoming on the weekend. The original musical version of The Brothers Grimm tale was written by Robin and Curt Dale Clark and directed/choreographed by Clark, and is one of a catalog of fifteen such musical plays for youngsters the team has created over the years.

Robin credited his interest in children's theatre throughout his career - he created successful programs in Chicago and Lancaster - to his own experience as a child. "When I was four, I was Toto in The Wizard of Oz, and I became hooked for life. There was no question in my mind that I was born to be on stage! When I was six, my parents enrolled me in a professional theatre training school and I later went to a performing arts high school in Fort Lauderdale." He went on to recount how he was asked, when he wasworking at the Drury Lane Evergreen Park in Chicago, to direct a production of Jack and the Beanstalk. "The script was terrible; it was condescending, and I hate talking down to kids. I want to talk TO them. Jokingly I told the artistic director, 'I could write something far better and for free. And he said,'Okay.' And that was the beginning. Curt and I wanted to make sure that the family series we were writing had not only entertainment value, but also a message. Kids listen for life. As a child I took away the things I believed from the productions I saw and kept them in my heart. We wanted to do the same and also to create an adult awareness."

Robin continued,"Sleeping Beauty (written twenty-two years ago) was the first grand statement we made. Our version takes place in the land of colors, and it is a story about inclusion, acceptance, discrimination. Another example is our Cinderella which is really about child abuse and has a scene where the kids actually get to come up on stage and help Cinderella fold the laundry and tidy the house so she can go to the ball. Then when the stepmother comes and destroys what's been done, the kids in the audience are angry too. And when Cinderella says 'No' at the end, they applaud because they recognize that they can say 'stop' if they are being treated badly or if someone else is being shunned. It's a great artistic release."

The theme of introducing a new generation to the theatre was echoed and amplified by Kristine Ganong. Ganong, a long time Brunswick resident and Bowdoin College graduate, began her association with theatre in the college's Masque and Gown program and continued her lifelong love by serving on the MSMT Board and attending productions for more than two decades. "She said that she is "thankful for the gift that MSMT is to the community and for the opportunity the theatre affords to introduce new generations - especially the younger generation - to live theatre.

"I had the privilege of joining the Board when our two wonderful leaders, Stephanie Dupal and Curt Dale Clark, started working together. The two of them have made this company blossom. MSMT has been part of the fabric of this community for fifty-nine years, but today it does so much more than just put on four main stage shows, children's theatre, and other events. They are in Portland with their co-production at Portland Stage; they are out in the community with countless outreach opportunities." Noting the numerous improvements to the Pickard over the years - many spearheaded and paid for by MSMT - Ganong applauded the upgrades as part of "a professional company's commitment to deliver a completely professional product and to perform on a par with the leading regional theatres nationwide." She also cited "the incredibly talented people who come to MSMT each summer - actors, technicians, designers, interns" - and the recent blockbuster seasons MSMT has been delivering, summing up her assessment: "This theatre is a jewel to be appreciated and never to be taken for granted."

MSMT's A Peek Behind the Curtain Series is free and open to the public and will continue on July 5 (Guys and Dolls), July 25 (Grease), and August 16 (Newsies) at noon at the Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick, ME. For information, please visit www.msmt.org

To post a comment, you must register and login.