Boston
Singers' Resource News Bulletin, October 11
, 2006
North
Shore Music Theatre's Associate Producer, John La Rock, talks to BSR
about auditioning skills, current muscial theatre trends, his love for
the art form and his previous experience in opera.
As a student in
the Theater Management training program at the North Carolina School
of the Arts in Winston-Salem, John La Rock studied dance and voice.
But he is quick to tell you that he’s neither a singer nor a performer.
Rather, his love of the performing arts has led to a career that puts
him in the company of some of the best singers and actors in the country.
While at NCSA he interned at Chautauqua Opera, and at the Glimmerglass
and Goodspeed operas. His early professional management work included
10 years with the Houston Grand Opera and summer stints with companies
like Opera Virginia, Opera Omaha and the Society for the Performing
Arts in Houston. Then, in a change of pace, he became part of a production
of Carousel which toured the 50 states and Canada. It was toward
the end of this tour that he became interested in the North Shore Music
Theater in Beverly, MA. He has been with NSMT as its Associate Producer
since 1998.
Two major components of John La Rock’s responsibilities with NSMT
are auditioning for principal and supporting roles, and developing new
works for the musical theater. Both have him traveling regularly between
Boston and New York. He hears and sees potential cast members in other
productions and at nearly monthly local auditions. And he regularly
sits in on readings of works by emerging, as well as established, writers.
We focused on these two things in our conversation with him this past
June. As he spoke, he revealed some insights on the current and future
state of theater arts and of regional theater.
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BSR: Your role as Associate Producer assures you a prominence
in the arts scene of the North Shore. But it is Executive Producer Jon
Kimbell who is the face of NSMT. How do your roles relate to each other?
JL: Jon Kimbell is very much the face of the organization, from
20 years ago and more. One of the strengths of our theater is that the
community sees him as a person and they have some identification ability
with the theater. It’s not just something mechanical that they
attend for entertainment purposes only. But they’re coming to explore
and share his vision of the art form and explore it with him.
My connection to the community is much more in terms of the nuts and
bolts of bringing everything to the stage, as opposed to leading the
parade down the street. I make sure that all the rows are in line and
marching down the street.
BSR: You are a regular member of competition juries and auditions
in this area as well as in New York?
JL: Yes. While Jon’s profile has him dealing on a higher
level of conversation about the art form – funding for the art
form, and how to deal with emerging audiences and emerging artists –
my involvement is much more on a one-to-one basis with the emerging
artist; be they authors, singers, designers, directors or any other
creative personnel, children, staff.
I attend as many local auditions as possible; at Stage Source, for instance.
We have many auditions here, almost monthly these days, for local actors
and children. And in New York City, I’m also busy with auditions
and readings. These readings are really where we find the grassroots
flavor of the art form as it’s manifested by the authors and what
they’re creating and how they’re voicing the stories. That’s
what we’re most interested in; doing new works that aren’t
just candy but have the ability to reference society and what we each
go through as human beings.
Before the fire in July, 2005, we would do at least one new musical
premiere per season. Since the fire, we financially are in a little
bit of a trickier situation until we kind of fix our money problems
through fund raising, and so forth. This is one of the few seasons that
don’t have what would be called a new musical premiere on the stage.
However, we will be doing three readings – one at North Shore and
two in New York City; readings of new musicals – one which we’ve
commissioned and two others which will be selected by us. Then we’re
also going to be producing a show, as we did last year, at the New York
Music Theater Festival. This activity isn’t for anything else but
to let the authors see their work come to life through the actors’
voice and then to be able to collaborate, at whatever level is appropriate,
with the audience; to find out how they react to it.
BSR: How do you bring in the cast for those kinds of readings?
Are they local or do you bring in a cast?
JL: The readings that happen in Beverly will be with local actors
and the readings in NY will use NY actors.
BSR: How would our subscribers learn about these opportunities?
JL: We use our website (www.nsmt.org)
as a primary source of dispersing information to the public regarding
auditions. We also use Stage Source as a primary source. We also send
information to Boston Singers' Resource. And, because we’re an
Equity franchise theater, we have a stage reading contract with Equity.
So Equity also gets notified. In this case, Boston Equity will be notified
and they would post it wherever Equity actors go locally to find out.
Unfortunately, unlike in New York, we don’t have the one or two
trade bibles that we can put something into like a Backstage or a Show
Business Weekly and get an amazing turn-out. We have to do press releases
on our auditions to make sure that we hit enough of the local population
through all the local newspapers. That kind of canvassing is a little
bit grassroots-y. But it’s very important that we make sure we
don’t leave any stones unturned and we appear as welcoming as possible
to the performers.
BSR: Are you successful? Do you get a high percentage of local
performers responding to these postings?
JL: Yes. And we’re finding we’re meeting more and more
new people.
Something that we’re more and more able to do is to increase the
number of local performers in the subscription musical season. Traditionally,
we’ve had about half of the adult cast for our annual production
of A Christmas Carol come from the local community. Now we’re
trying to realign ourselves, particularly in the summer months when
we’re not competing with the theaters in Boston, to include local
actors in ensemble roles in subscription musicals. That was very successful
with Damn Yankees where we had an actor who was from a local
community in a principal role. For Singin’ in the Rain we’re
going to have a local actor in a principal role and we’ve just,
yesterday, confirmed a principal for Cinderella from a local
community.
(NOTE: By local, NSMT means someone in the general New England area.
If that person is outside of a roughly 35 mile radius (Providence or
Vermont) they will house that person – but still consider them
to be local.)
BSR: What kind of supporting materials do you look for in auditions?
JL: Professional resumes and head-shots are always important.
The trend now is for color photography but black-and-white is still
very acceptable. One piece of paper, photo on one side, resumé
on the back, all the recent credits and all the up-to-date contact information.
We (don’t like to) get ten page resumes that look like a book report.
BSR: Do you ever check websites? What about CDs or other recordings?
JL: I don’t do that, no, although the trend in a lot of
the marketing workshops is to push performers to get their websites
and get sound-clips. I’m sure many community theaters in the region
have had to do that because they’re not able offer what we can
offer in terms either of the professional experience, or financially.
The only reason I go to a website is if it’s a star and I’m
not going to be able to audition them.
Recordings or DVDs don’t help me at all because there’s absolutely
no human connection in that format; not like when they’re with
you in a room singing. I may see someone in a show on stage performing
live. That for me can serve as an audition. I may not be enjoying the
show at all but there will be an actor I’m just rapt with and that
I follow through the whole show. I’ll pursue that person afterwards
and ask them to send me a resumé.
BSR: What are some of the mistakes that people make at auditions?
JL: I’ll leave out the people who are very casual, who don’t
know the material. One important thing is to make sure that you’re
matching the style of the music you’ve chosen to sing with the
style of the show. What I see are people who have attached themselves
to one prepared audition piece and they use that regardless of what
they’re auditioning for. That’s really not acceptable because
we need to hear the actor make an intelligent choice based on the genre
we’re auditioning for and then see them interpret that as per the
genre.
The other thing I prefer is just to get some honest personality out
of the actor. It’s very important to us to assemble a company that
really blends well. What we’re doing, in addition to listening
and experiencing a performer at an audition, in addition to just the
raw talent, is trying to get a sense of that person. Are they happy?
Are they secure? Are they not a problem? At the speed at which we work,
we don’t have time for anything in terms of bad attitude or selfishness
or treating any level of staff members poorly. Whatever you can do to
give an honest sense of yourself; that helps.
BSR: What makes one audition stand out from another, in your
opinion?
JL: Versatility. I encourage any person who considers themselves
a musical theater performer to be as in touch with and on top of all
the related skills for theater performance; singing, dance classes,
jazz classes and dramatic classes. Whatever work can be done to make
sure that they are coming in as absolutely desirable as possible as
performers. We can’t hire people just to do the singing and other
people to do the dancing because that is a thing of the past because
of costs. Everybody has to do everything.
Certainly in the regional model you have an ensemble of characters who
are also going to do a lot of roles in the show. So the arc of a show
for a typical chorus member these days is to sing really well, to dance
really well and also to play a lot of little roles. To be able to do
all those in an audition is, obviously, the key. So then what really
sets people apart is their dramatic ability. Pretty much everybody can
learn stage movement and everybody can carry themselves movement-wise.
But it’s the script interpretation and the dramatics that set people
apart.
BSR: North Shore Music Theater offers classes in these areas,
don’t they?
JL: Our Youth Program has really taken off, in the last five
or six years. And we’re just on the cusp of moving into the college
rank to give that range of lessons. Very soon NSMT will be introducing
Adult classes in dramatics and voice. Right now, it’s really just
a matter of space and staff.
(As far as other similar ways of getting this training) all I’m
familiar with is what I’ve read through Stage Source. There’s
so many, you don’t know what to trust. I’m not able to say
“go here and you will be able to advance yourself to a certain
point”. But I can say it doesn’t have to be so much in a classroom
setting. It’s much about just script study and understanding the
links between lyric and book scenes and understanding a character arc
before you come in and sing a song about the character. A little research
can go a long way just in terms of a performer being informed about
who they’re portraying.
What we emphasize here in the round, in our form of the theater, is
story-telling. It’s fine to get up there and belt out a song but
if you’re not telling a story with it then you’ve failed on
our stage - on most stages, frankly. If you can get up and understand
what you’re saying and why it has relevance to the character and,
perhaps, to the audience who share the stories with you then that’s,
to me, what sets performers apart in any venue; their ability to story
tell and get into the laps of the audience.
BSR: How much time might you spend on any one person at an audition?
JL: It varies. Oftentimes, they’re singing one or, at most,
two songs. And then there may be some conversation, there may be some
more exploring at the piano. They may be given a musical side to work
through at the piano. Then they may be coming back to do a dance combination,
or a script side. It can vary from five minutes to an hour. When we
hold an audition we’re looking for everything.
BSR: Would you talk a little bit about any trends you have seen
in recent years: New things showing up at auditions or performance practices?
JL: Here on the North Shore there are no trends per se because
this is still very much based in the non-profit realm. In New York,
however, the trend now is “Marketing first; Art tenth”. It’s
all about product tie-ins and money from, in this case, Hollywood and
Las Vegas. They’ll put money into a show where they expect to sell
as many Broadway tickets as they will DVDs of the original film.
Another major trend is the ‘Las Vegas’ show now. They’re
putting up shows like Spamalot, Avenue Q, and Dirty Dancing but
they’re cutting them to, like, 80 minutes long. They’re turning
them into like a cruise ship review, because they need the people to
be back gambling in an hour and a half.
Also, regional theaters are being eschewed for the dollars you can get
in Las Vegas instead of letting shows tour regionally or get produced
regionally in their full value. It’s about the dollar and about
a controlling interest that’s solely based on profit as opposed
to art. In the larger scale of it Art is dying in the musical theater
realm.
Another thing I’m seeing is that younger performers who are coming
out of college, by and large, don’t show the musical influences
of the previous generations; not Rogers and Hammerstein/Hart, or Sondheim
or any of the luminaries of what is the backbone of musical theater
in America. They’re coming in with much more of a Rent, a rock-and-roll,
sensibility. Or their ears have been tuned to Pop radio so technique
is going out the window. We’re seeing more and more people who
are just raw talent. What American Idol, what Broadway, have assigned
to talent is not the artistic value but the marketability of talent.
BSR: Those are some pretty difficult obstacles to overcome though,
as you say, they seem to have less influence on regional theater here
in New England. As to the style of singing that you are hearing, do
you use cross-over singers from the opera world?
JL: We have, although not for a while. I came here from Houston
Grand Opera. I was there during some very successful years of the Houston
Opera Studio. Joyce diDonato and Suzanne Menzer had just left. Denyce
Graves, Beth Clayton, and Anna Maria Martinez were some of the people
there at the time. I was able to bring a few of them in to auditions
for musical theater.
The trend in the Opera world is, those singers are becoming more versatile.
In the American and national opera art forms are transitioning into
a much more story-based and accessible format. In terms of the new operas
being written, they’re now script-driven as opposed to being more
symbolic. As that trend continues, perhaps we’ll more of that dribble
down. Certainly three years ago when the La Boheme production
was in New York, there was a wonderful cross-over of performers from
both worlds working together. Having three casts to sustain an eight
shows-per-week performance of an opera that was musicalized was very
exciting to watch. Since that, there hasn’t been anything like
that. But I think that will continue to grow.
I’m also seeing, of the new musicals that we get solicited and/or
unsolicited, that there are authors who are dabbling in that art form
(opera) as well and bringing elements of it to the musical theater world.
My personal affinity for opera has led me to try and accelerate our
production of shows like Showboat or Porgy and Bess and
have more Gilbert and Sullivan. But the size and scale of those shows
is prohibitive. We did The Student Prince a few years ago. It
was kind of food for my soul because it was just so celebratory in the
voice. We’ll be able to do more in that world when we have more
fully recovered from last year’s fire and are more financially
flexible.
For more information
about North Shore Music Theatre, auditions, classes, and staff, please
visit their website:
http://www.nsmt.org
Coming next to North Shore Music Theatre:
Hairspray
Tue Oct 24, 2006 to Sun Nov 12, 2006
Based on the 1988 John Waters Film, audiences will journey back to 1960’s
Baltimore and join our hefty heroin Tracy Turnblad, a big girl with
big dreams and even bigger hair.
Winner of 8 Tony Awards, book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, music
by Marc Shaiman, and lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman.
62 Dunham Road, Beverly, MA
Call for ticket info: 978-232-7200.
www.nsmt.org