1943 Production of OKLAHOMA! replicated at North Carolina School of the Arts- Page 2

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 5/6/11 at 4:35pm

How's there Jud?

[h6p8gv]

Posted: 5/6/11 at 6:03pm

Who playes Jud? Also how is there Annie?

[Enjolras77]

Posted: 5/6/11 at 6:12pm

I don't know about the Jud or Annie -- but their Will Parker, Charles Osborne, is a product of the performing arts high school here in Charlotte. He was fabulous in the three high school productions I saw him in: Ragtime - Younger Brother; Les Miserables - Valjean; Pippin - Leading Player.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/6/11 at 7:18pm

This just looks better and better, every time I look a the photos.

I love the idea of a young, fresh, "new" cast. They should film it, yes, but also think about a transfer to Broadway for a limited run.

Posted: 5/6/11 at 9:16pm

Wow so it might get a public showing on video? This is VERY exciting!

[JustAGuy]

Posted: 5/6/11 at 10:09pm

Michael....thank you so much for posting this. Oklahoma was the very first musical I ever performed in...way back in 1968. Since then I've always had a soft spot for it. I would have loved to have seen this production.

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 5/6/11 at 11:06pm

Why on EARTH hasn't anyone done this before?! I'd love to see this!!!

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/6/11 at 11:19pm

It hasn't been done until now because so many of the elements from the original production were in complete disarray- the original orchestrations were a mess, the original costume designs were kept in a warehouse that burned down, nobody knew what happened to the original scenic blueprints. It really took the vast resources of major university with four departments and several researchers working closely with the Rodgers and Hammerstein organization to be able to recreate something lost 50 years ago-- no regional theatre could have invested the time or money to pull it off-- for that NCSA really is to be deeply commended.

I understand some rather VIP New York producers and press are flying out to see the show this weekend-- at the very least I hope this attention means the recreation has future life in some way- somewhere

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/6/11 at 11:48pm

Below is a report from Bruce Pomahac's blog at the R&H organization. Bruce was in charge of restoring the 1943 orchestrations- a job that took over a year...

UNCSA re-creates the original Broadway OKLAHOMA!
Posted May 03, 2011
By: Bruce Pomahac

Last week I was lucky enough to be at the Roger L. Stevens Center in Winston-Salem for the premiere of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s OKLAHOMA! This was a carefully wrought and hugely successful recreation of the original 1943 Broadway production, the first time in almost seventy years that the original scenic and costume designs, the Broadway orchestrations and Agnes de mille’s seismically significant choreography all combined to give OKLAHOMA! a radiance and a power most of us have only been able to read about. But this was not an old-fashioned take on a classic musical. The cast, directed by Terrence Mann, the orchestra, conducted by the brilliant John Mauceri and the dancers, recreating the original steps under the direction and supervision of original cast member, Gemze de Lappe, brought a new exuberance to a show I didn’t know could feel as young and as revolutionary as this OKLAHOMA! does.

 

I know I’m gushing, but you had to be there. From the moment the Overture began the entire audience was in musical theatre heaven. I believe this is what can happen when the creative team and the performers trust the original material enough to allow it to do its job. Only then can the old and the new assimilate each other in a way that makes a classic seem brand new all over again and relevant in ways we no longer thought might be possible. And if there was any way to make the opening night any more joyful than it already was, the cast was joined onstage at the Finale by both Joan Roberts, the original Broadway Laurie and Celeste Holm, the original Broadway Ado Annie. For all of us there, it was one of the most historical and exciting moments we’ve ever spent in a theatre.

 

This successful production is the first to use our restored edition of the original script and orchestration. (These will be available to our customers in 2012.) OKLAHOMA! has been a part of our national heritage for decades. But to see and hear it as it is being presented in UNCSA’s thrilling new recreation is to see and hear it for the very first time. Yeow!!!

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 5/6/11 at 11:50pm

Thanks, MB!

Posted: 5/7/11 at 12:10am

It's such a massive undertaking. Plus there still exists a prejudice I think in the theatre community by those who see such recreations as going against the very purpose of theatre--particularly when the common wisdom with a show like Oklahoma is that it's taken a new production to truly find the drama in the piece, something which I'm glad has been clearly disproved, as such endeavours usually do.

Posted: 5/7/11 at 12:15am

That blog post is amazing--although saying almost 70 years is kinda an exageration--didn't the original production essentially exist almost into the 60s in various productions?

Interesting he mentions the restored script will be available--I didn't realize the version you could license had been significantly changed...

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/7/11 at 12:25am

Thats an interesting point Eric- I think for so many years or decades most revivals were at least based on the original productions that by the time the 80s came around, everyone was really happy to see the old classics reimagined. But

I think a lot of the early revivals which were based on the original elements, but were diminished copies did some damage to the legacies of those original stagings. Still I think it's a case by case evaluation- though perhaps equally fascinating, probably not every production given a complete recreation would be as fresh or as exciting as what has apparently been pulled off here. I think OKLAHOMA has become a property fallen lay to such 'literal' treatment in recent productions that seeing the bold color and abstract designs of the original is especially eye opening.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/7/11 at 12:31am

The last time The show was based on the original production was when OKLAHOMA was brought back to New York
In 1953 -- but that staging was based on the touring production and even in those days, show designs were usually simplified for the road- costume changes eliminated- sets modified- orchestrations reduced.

They speak in one of the NCSA videos about one of the difficulties in this recreation was in sifting through all the changes that had been made for the tours to get back to what had actually been done on Broadway...

Posted: 5/7/11 at 12:51am

That's a great point--and yes it definitely is a case by case situation (I wonder what the view would be of a similar take on Carousel, to use an obvious example). I mentioned on the first page how this reminded me of the St Petersburg recreation of the original production of Sleeping Beauty in that much common held wisdom--that the original production would seem strikingly old fashioned, that the costumes and design were garish and had been improved in later productions, etc--were nearly all proven wrong. Critics spoke with amazement about how so much about this original production just felt undeniably *right*

I definitely think thatr the way important Broadway shows are revived to explore new aspects in them is more than valid, and while I tend to be a traditonalist and prefer the "original" I would never want recreations to take over as the way to do revivals. But there's definitely room for both approaches, and often I think going back to the original can often illuminate things about the original work that have been forgotten or taken for granted over time.

Oklahoma is an interesting case too because often, I think, people don't really think of musicals as a director's medium until later on with directors like Prince, Bennett, Fosse and Robbins. There seems to be a belief that earlier pieces had the director as the least important figure in the creation and success--even when he was a fairly well respected figure like Mamoulian (sp?) This of course can also be said about the designers, and choreographer (although DeMille's role in Oklahoma's success has never really been devalued or underplayed, it's true).

Posted: 5/7/11 at 1:00am

And you have a great point about how these productions do (did?) often get watered down through constant touring, carbon copy productions that start to miss the "heart" for lack of a better term, etc. It prob does take some time away from them to really try to recapture the original magic. I do think, say, West Side Story started to suffer from this (although I was thrilled beyond belief to see, even with a so so cast, the recreation of the original production done in London 12 or so years back--and I think Laurent's last production proved that the show really still works best when done as it originally was--from the full ballet o even the designs).

But yeah the hardest thing to do is do these recreations but not allow them to become a museum piece--something it's obvious this Oklahoma has managed to extremely successfully avoid. While I know some A Chorus Line traditionalists were unhappy, I thought that revival did a great job (mostly...) of recreating the original but making some worthy and well thought out changes (I know I'll get arguments against this, but the overhaul of the orchestrations which kinda were a hodge podge originally is one thing I liked).

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 5/7/11 at 7:13am

I go to this school and while I haven't had the chance to see the production just yet, I've heard it's phenomenal. From what I hear, they're filming it this weekend for the archives and they usually sell copies to the actors and crew involved, at least, that's what they did for our similar production of West Side Story three years ago.

I'm hoping the production is commercially available, though. It could give our school a nice boost.

Sorry to offend anyone, but I've never been a huge fan of the show. The music is great, but the story is a little too silly for me and the dream ballet just seems to go on and on. Still, I know how hard the students worked and it would be a shame for their work to only be seen for two weeks.

Hell, I even auditioned, but opted not to go to the dance audition. Ooops! I had been feeling sick that whole week and just barely made it in for the singing/acting auditions, but it seemed I had a damn good shot. I'm actually a film student and was called back over many of the theatre students. That made me feel like I had done something right. Just the idea of auditioning for a legend like Freedman was astounding and something I'll never forget.

If anyone's in the area, go see it! The theatre where it's playing is gorgeous, too!

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 5/7/11 at 11:16am

Every ten years or so, UNCSA puts on a large musical extravaganza that utilizes as much of the school as possible...D&P, music department, dance and theatre departments. This is in contrast to the yearly Senior class musical which is just the theatre majors, D&P, and some of the musicians from the music department for the orchestra. They pump a ton of money (that they usually don't have) into these productions, put them on in a huge theatre called The Gianinni, and charge a lot for tickets. They usually sell out at a loss and how they get the money back is very "don't ask, don't tell".

The two productions I saw--WEST SIDE STORY and BRIGADOON--recreated to a painstaking degree the original productions...blocking, choreography, etc. While the choreography always holds in there (It's DeMille and Robbins, fer cripes sake.), the productions themselves, as polished as they are, had a whiff of taxidermy about them. Of what benefit to the actor is it to go through someone elses blocking, someone elses choices? Of what gain is a student scene designer supposed to get from recreating someone elses sketches?

Oh, and this will probably never make it to NY. UNCSA is very much about "You're not ready for New York" until they graduate. You'd have to go down to Winston-Salem, which is a very charming little city.

Posted: 5/7/11 at 9:23pm

"
The two productions I saw--WEST SIDE STORY and BRIGADOON--recreated to a painstaking degree the original productions...blocking, choreography, etc. While the choreography always holds in there (It's DeMille and Robbins, fer cripes sake.), the productions themselves, as polished as they are, had a whiff of taxidermy about them. Of what benefit to the actor is it to go through someone elses blocking, someone elses choices? Of what gain is a student scene designer supposed to get from recreating someone elses sketches? "

That's the eternal argument against doing recreations--and one I think misses the point. Obviously this shouldn't be the only experience--but as the web videos of the making of it make clear, there is a ton of knowledge and experience to be learned in finding out how these original productions were done, working out how to recreate the designs, figuring out WHY things were blocked a certain way, etc. I doubt I'll change your opinion one bit, but I just don't buy the argument that somehow learning the original choreography isn't a worthwhile learning experience, for example. Especially since this production seems to have made great pains to not just imprint an existing production onto the students, but to let them discover and work out why things were done as they are.

By that argument it could be said that an actor shouldn't even bother going into an existing Broadway show or a tour because they're being told to do someone else's blocking (which I'd argue is the director's not the actor). While as a big dance fan I think I agree with you that the choreography is often more important and revelatory than other elements in these recreations, it could be argued that imposing old choreography on new dancers is just as wrong headed and lacking in benefit as figuring out with the actors why the original blocking was used. Or take it a step further--why sing the music that more often than not was changed to accomodate specific actors voices or written for them. Or howabout the dialogue? Why not change that for each production too? (Yes I'm exagerating, but...)

Updated On: 5/7/11 at 09:23 PM

Posted: 5/7/11 at 9:26pm

I was also under the (perhaps wrong) impression that Brigadoon and WSS weren't the full on recreations this is. Of course WSS's basic original production has existed in various forms for ages--even a fairly recent N American tour so it wouldn't be nearly as difficult as OK to recreated--I thought some of Agnes DeMille's amazing dance work in Brigadoon was completely lost, but they could easily have gotten a dancer who had done it to help out...

[LizzW]

Posted: 5/7/11 at 11:29pm

Ado Annie, an unbelievable graduating senior, Jennifer Webb-a great comedy talent. Jud--Braxton Molinaro, graduating senior, dark, menacing. small with a wonderful big voice. I have never blogged before, but am amazed at all of the misinformation. UNCSA does not and cannot sell archival copies of anything. Archival means just that. Surely UNCSA does not have the rights to sell same to anyone. You guys would make terrible producers. OK! is being filmed by a Raleigh TV station for broadcast in NC--date to be determined--and the rights probably revert to R&H after a certain number of showings. Regarding WSS-- which I also saw--had Gerald Freedman directing who directed the book scenes in the original, and choreography recreated by someone approved by the Robbins estate- whose name escapes me. It was as close to the original dramatically/musically as you can get with no changes in script or lyrics-- also conducted by Mauceri who worked with Bernstein for 20 years or so. Costumes not original, but based on original colors and concept. Gemze DeLappe was at UNCSA for Brigadoon too. The design students on OK! have learned the craft of painting drops which is going to be lost soon to projections and computers. A classic is a classic. And Show Boat, OK!, Porgy, should not be lost to the ages by updating, re-writing, etc. As the great George Abbott said "trust the work." New productions-sure, recreations also valid. I hear the Rodgers family was there today and where knocked out by this production.

[alba]

Posted: 5/8/11 at 10:00pm

I was so intrigued that I flew down to see this production, and am so glad that I did. Truly extraordinary. The sumptuous quality of the physical production reminded me of the Lincoln Center South Pacific -- with that many musicians and stunning costumes, it's hard not to be blown away. The quality of the cast was beyond anything I had dreamed: it's unfair to single anybody out, but...I will! The Curly, Kyle Guglielmo, possessed what was probably the finest musical comedy baritone voice I had ever heard. (Closest I can recall is Ray Middleton on the 1966 AGYG recording?) Jud (Braxton Molinaro) was appealingly menacing and possessed the perfect voice for it. The Will Parker (Charles Osborne) was a fantastic, homespun song-and-dance man, and the Ali Hakim (Adam Levinthal) was a WONDERFUL comic actor. Truly a standout. Jennifer Webb, the Ado Annie, was marvelous (Her line, "The spitting image!" is stuck in my head.) Drama professor Caroline Kava made a solid Aunt Eller, too. All the chorus members were handsome. I cannot tell you what it was like to see that curtain go up and see such brilliant color. Perhaps the greatest revelation of this piece was that it was so colorful and bright -- far from the flannels you'd imagine. I love the idea of cowboys in neon. It was a truly wonderful time -- far from being taxidermied, I think this proved that sometimes it's best not to try to jazz up these pieces because they might be better unstretched... Loved every minute of this. One thing, though: it lasted past 11:15 on Thurs night (and nearly 11:30 on Fri. night). It didn't drag, but it definitely felt longer than usual. Overall, though, this was one of the finest productions I've ever seen. Such great stuff going on. The Golden Age lives!

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/8/11 at 10:15pm

Someone mentioned it was filmed for Broadcast? Is that going to happen?

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/8/11 at 10:37pm

Wow- thanks for the great post alba-- I wish I could have flown down there with you!

Addressing the length, of course its worth noting that it was not at all uncommon for shows in the 30s and 40s to be well over three hours long (with a curtain time starting at 8:30 to boot!)

I think one of the documentary videos mentions that 'as written' the original orchestrations were played a little bit slower than in recent revivals- and along with everything else they were going to attempt to recreate the original tempos. I believe the original also included some additional dance music that is often cut from current productions.

Posted: 5/8/11 at 10:43pm

One of the scenes (the dress scene) had frequently been cut until the Nunn production. Also don't forget the tempi were infamously sped up for the cast album partly to fit more on each 78rpm.