On what it take to make musical magic real, and why possible outshines correct.

This is part two of my series on my adventure as a first-time music director at American University, where I normally serve as an Adjunct Professor of Voice. The show is As You Like It, the musical by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery, a setting of As You Like It, the play by William Shakespeare.  You can read Part One here, and I hope you will. The show is over, but I had requests from so many of you who aren’t in the DC area to hear more about how it went, for me and for the students. Spoiler alert: it’s a happy ending.

An inevitable thing happens when rehearsing a musical, no matter how much you love them: you remember that they’re hard. All that blithe bursting into song and dance takes real work, radically hard work.  And if you’re doing it with students, their need to learn fights with your my need to perfect.  You forget all about “yes, and…” Growth is a process, and sometimes an uncomfortable one; the process takes time. And time is something musicals never seem to have. 

The process of a musical is not unlike Jacques’ famous “Seven Ages of Man” speech from the play; we older hands know that a show progresses somewhat predictably - it’s slow, measured, when you first begin - you learn, you love it - but then all of a sudden you’re in the deep end, juggling fire while you play the castanets and hoping your show shoes fit.  And then it’s over, and you can’t quite remember how it all came together.

In the first weeks, our young cast wanted all the answers - they are eager to take it all in and get it done - what do I do in this scene, how do I get to my guitar for the next number. They want the work to push into the next step before its time, chafing against the limits of each moment. They gain in wisdom as more responsibilities are layered in - choreography, scenery they must move (while singing!!), their violin part - but they’re also bowed by the requisite balancing act, by the radical difficulty and by long hours in the last weeks. Oh, and there’s actually acting - telling the truth of the story, not just playing at it.

The pressures of being a full-time student, learning harmony, stage managing for the first time (like pros, I might add) and worrying about the state of our world are real: what happens after graduation? Does anyone out there care about climate change? And will I know what I’m doing if I have to go on in my understudy track? No wonder they’re tired. 

From the other side of the table, we, too, are pressured; Arden is sometimes less than magical. Did I teach that section properly, or did they forget what to sing when the choreography was changed?  What happened to that perfectly-balanced four-part harmonic loveliness? Rhythmic patterns fly out the window with the addition of a new prop. This process is part of life for any theater performer, and I should know. But I too chafe against my seven ages, wondering how it’s possible to sprout four new gray hairs on a Tuesday, why thirty-one students suddenly sound like only seven today, and am I pushing too hard for clear diction? (Answer? No. “Yes, and…” absolutely does not apply to diction.)

“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”

- As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 1

We remind the students constantly when a moment goes well - don’t let it go backwards from here. The point however, is not just to learn the number correctly. The point is to know the number or the scene or the song so well that you can perform it as if you don’t know it at all, so that the moment unfolds for you just like it unfolds for the audience. This is a scary proposition on stage and in life, this not-knowing, this “no-going-back,” but it’s also beautiful to behold. The joy of discovery can keep us moving forward, even if we are in the discomfort of the deep end.  

So often, the culture of the right answer is more highly valued than the exploration of it, and our young people have absorbed this - there’s a correct answer, a correct test score, the right school, the right career.  While “correct” is necessary for many things in life, “maybe” is the watchword for art. I crave certainty too, and the pursuit of knowledge is a “why” of school. But so is exploration, so is possibility. 

Like Rosalind trying on Ganymede for size (come see the show), trying on a new point of view teaches compassion for the other and the beauty of difference. Trying music directing leaves me bursting with new ideas and hopes for my performing life. To stay vulnerable and open to discovery, to be challenged and even uncomfortable, to learn to love the process instead of always pursuing the “correct” lets our young people prepare to move in the wider world with open hearts and minds, with bravery and new ideas. And I dare say we are much in need of their perspective. 

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

-As You Like It, Act 2 Scene 1

Our story is about romantic love, but also love of parent and child, siblings, friends, community: love that is discovered, or rediscovered, once the characters have had a little time in Arden to work it out. The “nothing-happens-in-Arden” nonsense is a fallacy. Their time in the forest is actually a time of radical change; the characters find love, love that breeds respect, forgiveness and ultimately transformation. 

Director Aaron Posner likes to say that As You Like It is about love at the very level of its DNA; he’s right of course. It’s true of most artistic endeavors, when you think about it, and maybe of most things in life, if we let it be. People come to the theater to see themselves on stage and to better understand how they might move in the world. To love the not-knowing how it will turn out, to jump in the deep end ready for discomfort is part of our why as performers. If not just our students but our audience can leave Arden with “yes, and…,” then we will have done our jobs. Because despite all the things that threaten to tear us apart and the fear we live with in uncertain times, still, still, we will love. 

“Love makes magic real.”

-As You Like It, Shaina Taub

And still we will do musicals, even though they are so stinking hard: it’s a marvel to see the students transform so radically. I watch eagerly, greedily from the house as all this time brewing in magical Arden, um, bears fruit (sorry!!). They explode with possibility. As we rounded the corner into tech week when everything is afoot all at once - sound, lights, costumes are thrown in and our student stage managers learn to orchestrate it all on the fly - the show became a thing of deep beauty. These young people take my breath away with how far they have come as artists - the numbers are joyful! - they have the harmony down! - and the band is jamming like professionals! I observe these thirty-four-plus-on-and-offstage individuals in amazement. They break my heart wide open. They made the magic very real.

I was so sad to leave our forest, but I am so very glad I said “yes, and…”

A postscript of possibilities

One more bit of magic happened for us. For the first time in AU Theatre, there was a dedicated understudy performance. Having been an understudy so many more times than once, I can attest to their importance, and also to the importance of learning to be one. Despite the As You Like It understudies not getting much rehearsal - there just wasn’t time for that in the process - this performance was insanely good! Yes, it was full of missteps (meant literally) and dropped lines, forgotten harmony and all the rest, but who cares??!! It was also spectacular in honesty and joy; the storytelling was immediate and the love was tangible. Everyone helped out with open hearts: leads sang in the ensemble, the assistant director played percussion (expertly) and the costume designer had fab outfits at the ready for all. And because our student pianist was also covering a speaking role, I played keys with the band. (Imperfectly, I might add - but I did it, I loved it, and I have something to work on. Thank you Manny!!! Also I had the cutest overalls!)

The moral of this part of my essay is that if you’re at a show and an understudy is announced, don’t schimpf. You might see spectacular.