Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
NYTimes.com: What happens when you take a Stephen Sondheim chamber piece — “Sunday in the Park With George” — and produce it operatically, quadrupling the size of the orchestra?
While I am not very familiar with the specific Sondheim show the article discusses, it is very interesting to see how the process of "spectacle-izing" this show went, especially in regard to the size of the orchestra. Orchestra size is something almost all theaters have to deal with, for both artistic and budgetary reasons. In the current economic climate, it's great to see a production use such a large orchestra. The challenges the new orchestrator faced when altering the music for a much larger orchestra were much more complex than I imagined they might be.
As Dan begins to highlight, the role of Orchestrator is often lost in the development of a musical, but they are incredibly important! I love hearing about an opportunity where the orchestrator really gets to shine. I also find it very interesting that this production was funded mostly through public arts sources in Paris. Because it is public funding, I imagine that the theater is able to take more of a chance reorchestrating this piece and doing something that wouldn't necessarily be appreciated by most audiences.
The last line of the new york times article about how the "spectacle-zing" of the production was proof that bigger in this case is better, particularly resonated with me. In the past few years there has been a trend of overstuffing shows with lights, costumes, and set pieces that create a "spectacle" yet have no purpose and actually do a disservice to the plot (spiderman being the most obvious example). In the theater community these "spectacle" shows have given the word "spectacle" itself a bad connotation. I find when a student describes a piece of theatre as a spectacle, they are often also saying it only a spectacle. With shows like once winning the tony award for best musical this year, it is nice to see a production where bigger is done well, as well as subtle.
I find this idea intriguing for a number of reasons that people have touched on above. First the idea of the money; I mentioned this in another post, but it's so amazing to me how much funding the arts have in Europe. In America I feel like we would have one synth player play 20 of those instruments, but something is lost in that. I love the idea of a huge orchestra, though I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of spectacle. There's a certain point where one begins to watch the spectacle even if the story is told well. To me plays are about story telling, and I'm just concerned that with all this, albeit amazing, stuff I'm just concerned that the story might get drowned out.
I often find that spectacle-izing a show is detrimental to the core values of the production. If you're just adding layer upon layer of fluff, then what do you gain? In this case however, they seem to have gone about it in just the right way. Everything seems to have been increased relative to the rest of the play. It's not elaborate costumes on a bare set or a huge orchestra and mediocre singers. Also, they not only added orchestra members but had the ORIGINAL orchestrator re orchestrate for the larger ensemble - that's dedication to the original piece. Sunday in the Park is actually my personal favorite Sondheim piece, so I wish I could see this grander production.
5 comments:
While I am not very familiar with the specific Sondheim show the article discusses, it is very interesting to see how the process of "spectacle-izing" this show went, especially in regard to the size of the orchestra. Orchestra size is something almost all theaters have to deal with, for both artistic and budgetary reasons. In the current economic climate, it's great to see a production use such a large orchestra. The challenges the new orchestrator faced when altering the music for a much larger orchestra were much more complex than I imagined they might be.
As Dan begins to highlight, the role of Orchestrator is often lost in the development of a musical, but they are incredibly important! I love hearing about an opportunity where the orchestrator really gets to shine. I also find it very interesting that this production was funded mostly through public arts sources in Paris. Because it is public funding, I imagine that the theater is able to take more of a chance reorchestrating this piece and doing something that wouldn't necessarily be appreciated by most audiences.
The last line of the new york times article about how the "spectacle-zing" of the production was proof that bigger in this case is better, particularly resonated with me. In the past few years there has been a trend of overstuffing shows with lights, costumes, and set pieces that create a "spectacle" yet have no purpose and actually do a disservice to the plot (spiderman being the most obvious example). In the theater community these "spectacle" shows have given the word "spectacle" itself a bad connotation. I find when a student describes a piece of theatre as a spectacle, they are often also saying it only a spectacle. With shows like once winning the tony award for best musical this year, it is nice to see a production where bigger is done well, as well as subtle.
I find this idea intriguing for a number of reasons that people have touched on above. First the idea of the money; I mentioned this in another post, but it's so amazing to me how much funding the arts have in Europe. In America I feel like we would have one synth player play 20 of those instruments, but something is lost in that. I love the idea of a huge orchestra, though I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of spectacle. There's a certain point where one begins to watch the spectacle even if the story is told well. To me plays are about story telling, and I'm just concerned that with all this, albeit amazing, stuff I'm just concerned that the story might get drowned out.
I often find that spectacle-izing a show is detrimental to the core values of the production. If you're just adding layer upon layer of fluff, then what do you gain? In this case however, they seem to have gone about it in just the right way. Everything seems to have been increased relative to the rest of the play. It's not elaborate costumes on a bare set or a huge orchestra and mediocre singers. Also, they not only added orchestra members but had the ORIGINAL orchestrator re orchestrate for the larger ensemble - that's dedication to the original piece. Sunday in the Park is actually my personal favorite Sondheim piece, so I wish I could see this grander production.
Post a Comment