Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

Fucking musicals.

This thought runs through my head as I sit backstage after a particularly labored scene.

“Are we overthinking this?” someone asks. Energy is waning. Some of our tried and true bits are falling flat. People are slumped around the backstage space of The Hypocrites’ new office/rehearsal space, recently dubbed The Horn.

It is late August. It is humid. There are seventeen actors sweating and singing and dancing and guzzling water from paper cups and water bottles. Outside, it is 80 degrees. In The Horn, it is probably 112. We bought an AC unit, but quickly found out that it blows all the fuses when you turn it on. Sweet.

Kurt Ehrmann’s white shirt is completely soaked through with sweat. So is mine. Robert McLean’s is pretty damp, too. It’s like a middle-aged wet t-shirt contest. No one wants to see this.

Some people are backstage, poring over their lines, looking for clues to parts that aren’t working. Some are talking things through with each other:

“That bit is totally not working anymore.”

“I thought we cut the spins in the opening dance…”

“And remember, there’s a karate kick now before the slap.”

During the next scene, director Sean Graney laughs loudly at a bit, then moments later, as I’m delivering a line, he rubs his hand all over the top of his head and scribbles a note. I have known Sean for eight years and ten shows. This is not good. Garrrrr.

Musicals are not supposed to be this hard.

Not that we’d have known. The Hypocrites has been around since 1997 and The Threepenny Opera is our very first musical.

Some parts of our production are working astonishingly well. The songs and themes of this show are so powerful and cutting and entertaining. There are fantastic performers and some great iconic characters.

There are also parts that aren’t working. And it’s a week before we open. Some of these parts will be cut. Our gentle audiences will never be subjected to them. It’s a long enough show as it is.

But most of the rough spots will be fixed. Most of them are tantalizingly close. Many have worked at least once before. And we have fantastic people working on the show…Hypocrites, non-Hypocrites and practically half of the House Theatre of Chicago. These are talented people. These are smart people. These are funny people.

This show is exciting and terrifying and new and…hot. Really hot. In so many ways. Yowza.

Are we overthinking this? Yes.

We will make it work. We will entertain you. We will make theater. Musical theater.

We hope you will come.

This entry was posted by Greg Hardigan on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 10:57 am and is filed under The Threepenny Opera. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.