Sunday, May 11, 2014

Falsettos at Villagers Theatre – a tale of families, love, and friends

I am so proud and honored to be a part of the production of FALSETTOS, which opened on May 9, 2014 at Villagers Theatre.

We’re ending our first weekend … And you have one more weekend to come see this show (May 16-18). I know that every music director trumpets how wonderful his cast is … Well … THIS CAST is a veritable who’s who in New Jersey community theater.  Visit the site link above to see who are in the cast and production teams.

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Here is a photo from our final dress rehearsal of this AAA+ cast. (Click to embiggen)

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In 1992, Frank Rich published an essay titled, “Discovering Family Values at ‘Falsettos’.” In it he opines about his dilemma of having to decide which Broadway musical to take his two children (12 and 8 years old) to a family musical. He says that his options were The Secret Garden, Les Miserables, Guys and Dolls, or Cats. But he decided – in his words:

All things considered, I decided that the wholesome choice would be “Falsettos,” the William Finn musical in which the hero, Marvin, sings in his first number of his overwhelming desire to be part of a “tight-knit family … a group that harmonizes.”  … Though “Falsettos” offers such traditional tableaux as a Little League baseball game and a bar mitzvah, it is set in an America where, as one song has it, “the rules keep changing” and “families aren’t what they were.”

“Falsettos” is indeed a show about families. I’ve always characterized it as a domestic comedy that tackles the concerns of family, love, friendship, life, and death. It asks some very profound questions – questions that are at the center of our struggles as a human family. Indeed the families portrayed in Falsettos are a microcosm of families we all encounter. And it’s a struggle we still contend with 22 years after Mr. Rich concluded his essay:

Will a show like “Falsettos,” or a dozen like it, sow tolerance, especially at a time when an exclusionary definition of “family values” is being wielded like a club in a divisive political campaign? I have my doubts. My children do not.

We’re still facing this struggle of ‘what is a family?’ all these years after Frank Rich wrote these words.

Theater tells our story as humans, and theater has the ability to transform – to engage our spirit, to challenge us, and to move us.

May Falsettos – and this production of which I’m proud to be a part be a means to engage, challenge, and move us.

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