With every reason to be loud and proud, there’s a quiet stillness this morning. It’s the winter white haze hanging frigid in the sky over the Fox, the gem-like icicles on the balcony railing, and…gratitude. We spectacularly navigated through opening weekend of The Producers, the most technically and creatively challenging show Paramount has done yet! The physical demands alone are daunting for the crew backstage and the actors onstage, let alone delivering on the performance of Mel Brooks’ brilliantly comic satire. Comedy is the hardest thing to do. It’s “serious business,” as the saying goes. At Paramount, it’s an Olympic feat! With all the grand scale moving scenery, lights, sound and costume quick-changes, the voicing of words and songs, the dancing in tap shoes and heels, it’s potentially so full of things to go wrong and yet, this team effort, this company, makes it look easy and elegant; smooth, even slick! How did I get to be in the director’s chair in all of this? This is what it means to be humbled by all the goodness around you. While none of us is perfect, something magical happens when we are working together. Alchemy. Synergy. When we all move together on accomplishing something, there is this kinesis. An almost scientific equation. Something bigger than its parts. Yes. Something divine!
The physical demands alone are daunting for the crew backstage and the actors onstage, let alone delivering on the performance of Mel Brooks’ brilliantly comic satire.
Gosh, I’m getting heavy this morning! It’s part of the realization that all that laughter in that packed palatial house on Saturday’s press Opening Night, the diversity of challenges met by a diversity of skills and applauded by the diversity in our audience cheering and whooping it up together; I can’t help feel we are being guided somehow. Like it’s all meant to be. It’s all happening as it is supposed to. To keep moving forward to August Rush, to the new School of the Arts, to next season, the new Copley Theatre, and more new works! So many surprises ahead! But for the present, come to Paramount and see The Producers, our loud and proud Broadway blockbuster filled with a dynamite design, cast, crew and orchestra, and Olympian performances!
Love and thanks,
Jim