Lessons of Florence

Here is a list of the challenges that were met to put on FITC’s first musical.  And… MY first musical! (I love directing musicals… I get to fantasize I can be in one!)

- no rehearsal space (rehearsed in an apartment more than half the size of the stage).  We lost our rehearsal space that the city had given us because they changed the person who oversaw that and we didn’t have a relationship with her (and learned the other guy was doing us “favors”…. how was I to know???) Note to myself: the maffia DOES exist … it runs all aspects of Florence.
- no stage manager (yet again)
- no costume designer (I now have a new credit for my resume)
- no choreographer (I now have a new credit for my resume)
-  no technical director (I now have a new credit for my resume)
- 8 actors of many different backgrounds.  All ended up equally wonderful and gave stellar performances with:
    1 - young woman (21) who was classically trained singer and resisted me every step of the way on all my direction and guidance (I won in the end)
    1 - El gallo who was Italian, an opera singer/dancer who has never acted text in any language and is not fluent in English.  He has performer instincts, but no acting instincts.  However, I learned that if I speak to him in regards to rhythm, we all get what we want in the end.  He was great.
    1 - Mortimer who didn’t speak a word of English.  You would NEVER know from his performance.
     1 - Henry who speaks somewhat good English but has had too many acting classes in clown work and not enough in stanislavski.  He ended up being absolutely fabulous however…..
    1 - an improv performer/puppet master from French Canada who speaks English as a third language and has never done a musical before.  He now has launched a new career - musical theatre performer.  His funniest moment was the end of “Plant a Radish” closing night when he sang “A very Hairy Vegetarian” (the word was “merry”)
    1 - a Filipine woman who played in “Miss Saigon” in Germany for years before moving to Italy who I had play one of the “fathers” as a sexually repressed mother.  It worked wonderfully.
- then there was my amazing musical director who is a specialist in baroque music, never heard of the show (or any show for that matter written after 1863) and still has a hard time understanding how it is possible that “The Fantasticks!” is done as much as it is when the music is so very challenging (he REALLY worked our actors).  He did an amazing job.

Let’s see, what else?  Well, it was fun directing Mortimer, Henry and El Gallo in their scenes in Italian and watching Alessandro and Riccardo help Rosario with his Cockney accent (remembering that Rosario doesn’t speak English at all)….. arguing why the songs were not to carry more value than the scenes with our two classical singers……(Florence is - if anything - a town of people with very ‘precious’ ideas about singing and vocal practice as well as somewhat… prejudice against the American musical.)  It was… informative to say the least…..

Now…. what did this all add up to?  A truly glorious production that “surprised” the Italians, “delighted” those who knew it and deepened even further FITC’s presence in the community as truly creating high level international theatre in a way not at all presented in this city.  The production was incredibly strong - funny, moving and wonderful to listen to and the set - thank you to our amazing set designer - was imaginative, and great fun to work on.  I had an interesting discussion in the lobby with the director of what is going to be the most exclusive residence (like a time share) for rich people in Florence.  He equated our work and value to his membership as equal to the Strozzi Foundation (a big old palace devoted to contemporary art exhibits then the Uffizi Gallery and international exchange and that has something like a 5 million euro budget and gets grants from everyone) and told me to “hold on” until he was set up in April and he would begin an engagement with FITC.  Our mailing list grew from the production, it was the first time we received a couple of unsolicited donations, we are already talking to someone in Rome who may be interested in bringing the play down there and all-in-all I would say it was a successful event of which I am very proud.  A great deal was accomplished on many levels and I know my Italian colleagues are pleased because they call me “Grande Bari” now which is an endearment.

Here’s the link to the photo gallery on our website….. “The Fantasticks!” photos!

Ragazzi…..I can’t tell you how much I WISH you all could have seen this.  If we do it in Roma… venite?  
Bari