The Cast of a Show is More Than Just a Group of People

At a recent cast party after one of the performances of Grosse Pointe Theatre’s The Music Man, I had a nice talk with my friend Bruce Maters. He’s the real-life husband of Anne Maters, who played our Mrs. Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn – the mayor’s wife. He mentioned how difficult it is to mount a production like The Music Man; the sheer numbers alone would make a sane man go crazy. That’s why we got Don Bischoff to direct. Wait, I think that came out wrong.

Anyway, there were four distinct age-groups in this show. If any one of which is sub-par, it will bring the whole show down.  

• You have to have a good Winthrop – the lisping, shy kid (famously played by Ron Howard in the original movie) – and a good Amaryllis, Winthrop’s puppy-love interest    
• You have to have good teenagers as actors and dancers
• Your leads have to shine and be in their thirties *cough* (forties.) 
• And then there are other townspeople of, umm, older ages – I think I might be getting myself in trouble here, so I’ll stop.

And we pulled it off!

Our Winthrop and Amaryllis played perfectly by Andrew Fleming and Elaina Calisi stole the show every night. So much so, that during the “Shipoopi” dance, the normally peaceful Jennifer Jones (Our Marian the Librarian) joked, “These kids are too cute. No one knows we’re on stage with them. Let’s toss them into the orchestra pit next time around!”

It’s true. Don mentioned, it doesn’t matter what the rest of the cast is doing during that number, the audience will be watching Andrew and Elaina. It’s the old W.C. Fields line, “Never work with kids or animals.” At least I had a couple scenes where I got to talk to Winthrop, so the audience noticed me at some point.

Our teenagers were mostly students from Grosse Pointe North and South. There were South alumni as well. Me for example, a 1982 graduate!  And Anne Maters, 19xx—um, see the above comment.

We come from (mostly) near, but many from far as well. A fun show like this can bring in new members from across the metro area, as far away as Rochester, Macomb and Novi.

With such a wide variety of people, there is the worry that the cliques will form. Well for whatever reason, The Music Man was clique-free. We were very lucky.

In fact, we developed the bonds consistent with becoming a family. 

We worked long and hard for two and a half months to put together something... – OK, I was going to get sappy and say “something magical.” Well, in many ways it was. Try telling the kids in the show that it wasn’t magical. Our dozen little ones were realizing that “Summer Camp” was ending and suddenly all these children from 1912 Iowa were exchanging cell phone numbers and Facebook pages while tears streamed down their faces. 

Our next production, The Trip to Bountiful, has a cast of only eight. Eight!? We had eight people on stage at all times during Music Man! OK, maybe not. But a smaller cast has its own set of problems to overcome. They have the potential to become so close that Christmas dinner might have to be at the director’s house.

Hmm. Don? How do you feel about Christmas for 57 this year?

Tim Reinman portrayed Professor Harold Hill in Grosse Pointe Theatre’s successful – and Sold Out – run of The Music Man, which closed October 2.  GPT’s next show The Trip to Bountiful opens November 6^th at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial’s Fries Auditorium.  Call (313) 881-4004 for tickets or on-line at www.gpt.org.