Long hours for cast, crew in 'Pinafore'

Oct. 21, 2004
By Christine Mastalio
Features Editor

The audience laughed as sailors and women in bright dresses danced on the stage of Allaert Auditorium. Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, “H.M.S. Pinafore”, lasted two hours, but the cast and crew spent five weeks behind the scenes getting ready for the performance

The cast rehearsed six days a week for four to five hours each day. Set-crew came in after rehearsals at 11 p.m. to work on lighting, stage design and other details of the performance.

Musical director Keith Haan said he has spent up to 12 weeks rehearsing a musical, and five weeks is an incredibly short time.

“It was a struggle. It was a commitment. It was a sacrifice,” Haan said. “But every single person on that cast grew as a performer.”

A guest director came from Los Angeles to co-ordinate the performance. Dimitri Toscas has written and directed plays at the Garry Marshall's Falcon Theatre in Burbank, Calif., and performed in operas across the country. He came to Ambrose as a favor to Bill Theisen of the Skylight Opera Theatre, who was originally supposed to direct the show.

“I have worked with a lot of different kinds of directors, some more experienced than others,” Haan said. “He knows the show forward and backward. To work with somebody like that was really fine.”

It was hard to juggle studying, classes and other activities with rehearsal time, chorus member Andy Burman said.

“[Dimitri] put a lot of emphasis on professionalism,” Burman said. “He didn’t understand that we had more things besides this going on. It was definitely a challenge and a once in a lifetime experience I’ll never have again.”

The show’s master electrician, Chris Konrady, climbed a rickety, old ladder above the orchestra pit to hang and focus the lights. Each light weighed between ten and 20 pounds. He also had to figure out how to make light bulbs inside plastic cages look like realistic ship’s lanterns.

“I guess you have to be a special breed of person to be able to do tech work,” Konrady said. “There’s a lot of frustration. You can design a set or design lights and all of a sudden someone will say, ‘No, I want it that way’. Then you have to change things.”

The ship that members of the tech crew built for the sole set of “H.M.S. Pinafore” was originally one foot higher. Toscas decided to change the design after the stage was already built. The crew dismantled the ship and moved the upper deck down.

Tech crew members were not the only ones to deal with change during the five week process.

“Death of a Salesman’ was on stage when we started having rehearsals,” Burman said. “We had rehearsals in classrooms and places not conducive to theater. Then we got on stage and realized that it wouldn’t work. We had to relearn most of the first act.”

First performed in 1878, “H.M.S. Pinafore” is a comic story of love between a common sailor and the captain’s daughter.

“There is a twist at the end where the captain is really a lowly seaman and the lowly seaman is an exalted captain,” Haan said. “The lesson is not to put too much importance on the life into which a person is born and you can make of your life what you want to.”

In order for the fast-paced lyrics to be understood, students had to slow down words, put emphasis on the end of the sentence, and use stronger consonants in their singing, Haan said.

“In a musical it’s very difficult to combine the aspect of dance movement and any type of choreographed movement,” he said. “Then you have the singing and combining the speaking with the singing so that one flows smoothly into the other.”

It was also difficult to time the visual humor on stage with the orchestra score, Haan said.

After all the hours put in before the four performances, Konrady said he is glad “H.M.S. Pinafore” is over.

“On to the next one,” he said.

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