Taking Cues from the Audience

Summer Lyric Theatre stages a season of crowd pleasers

If the idea of staging three different foot-stomping, roof-raising Broadway-style musicals in almost nine weeks sounds daunting, Michael Howard will assure you: It is. "It's absolutely back-breaking, but it's the summer stock tradition," says the artistic director of Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre.

Howard oversees the organized chaos of putting together sets, cast, crew and orchestra for a new show every two and a half weeks each summer. A typical production involves 35 dancers and actors, 20 set, lighting and stage workers, at least 28 musicians in the orchestra and countless others involved in make-up, costuming and props. Cast and crew have just two weeks of practice spread over 10-hour days before dress rehearsals start with a full orchestra.

"We have a formula and you can't waste a single minute. Granted, sometimes people are back there sewing on a curtain while the audience is waiting to get in. But when it's all done, the audience really will see a pretty polished production,” Howard says. “I'm sitting there backstage with my nitroglycerin pills all the time … but it's a process we do."

For its 42nd season, Summer Lyric will present "Oliver" starring Ricky Graham, Stephen Sondheim's "Company" and Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific."

Summer Lyric specializes in musicals and Howard sticks with tradition in picking shows. One is always a kid-friendly, family-oriented show ala "Oliver." Another must have "a contemporary flair" in both music and staging. In this year's case, that show is "Company," which is about a bachelor celebrating his 35th birthday with five married couples. Originally staged in the 1970s, "Company" was among the first musicals to tackle adult problems in a realistic way. "It’s smart, it’s young, it’s about relationships (and) it’s saucy," Howard says. "Even though it is years old, it still is very much considered on the cutting edge of musical theater."

Lastly, Howard always chooses one of the great American musical classics. While Summer Lyric Theatre has performed "South Pacific" twice before, in 1971 and 1998, he couldn't resist revisiting the work, which is playing a successful revival on Broadway now.

"It's an American classic," he says. "We usually never repeat a show within 10 years. I felt like it was just a phenomenon in New York. Our audience just loves that music. The music is incredible."

Pleasing the audience weighs heavily on Howard's mind as Summer Lyric is funded primarily through ticket sales and patron donations. Roughly 60 percent of sales come from season ticket subscribers. While Tulane University provides theater space, staff and back-office support, Summer Lyric must fill seats to pay production costs.

Typically, shows can cost $125,000 each run with production rights alone nearing $10,000, Howard says. Summer Lyric pays more to secure rights to shows than other theaters in town because Dixon Hall's 1,100-seat capacity puts it in a more expensive, large-theater performance category. Summer Lyric pays some of its lead actors and all of its musicians, who  come from the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, but most of its actors and crew volunteer their services.

"A lot of people think that we’re rolling in money," Howard says. "We aren't. We barely squeaked by last summer. It’s a very expensive project. If we sell 95 to 100 percent of our tickets, we can pay for it. We have 1,100 seats. If we only sell 950 tickets, the place looks full, but if we do that for four nights, we have lost money. That’s how much we depend on ticket sales."

That pressure explains why Summer Lyric never extends shows to an extra weekend or plans for longer runs each year. The theater can't risk a sparsely attended night, which is also why Howard tends to stick with familiar shows. "The main criticism from some people is that we do (the mainstays). But music is like art, you can't just show modern art, you have to show the masters as well," he says.

Howard isn't opposed to doing more recent Broadway shows but says it's hard to secure their performance rights because most tour the country for years after closing in New York. Rights to works such as "Hairspray" and even "Les Miserables," for instance, aren't available, he says. Summer Lyric's stage and seating at Dixon Hall is too large to pull off more intimate off-Broadway hits like "Altar Boyz" that have gone to Southern Rep or Le Petit theaters. And the shows have to pass muster with Howard, who is also an associate professor of music at Tulane.

So, what are the chances of Summer Lyric doing an edgier show like "Rent"? To illustrate his thoughts, Howard leaps from his desk chair to the grand piano in his office and strikes the opening chords of "Age of Aquarius" from "Hair," which recently opened on Broadway. "I just saw this in New York and I would do it in a second," he says. Then, he lifts one hand from the piano and pokes at single keys to play the opening bars of  “525,600 minutes …" from the theme song of "Rent."

"It sounds like warmed over Karen Carpenter,” he says. “It will not last as in the art form. 'Hair' will."

Showcasing musicals with full orchestration is part of what makes Summer Lyric special, he says. Few theaters, even in New York, retain that old-fashioned amenity. "You don’t hear that on Broadway for $136 (a ticket). You hear synthesizers and artificial sounds," Howard says. "There is a difference. I think people in New Orleans —  lovingly so — almost take it for granted at Summer Lyric." •

This season, Summer Lyric Theatre will stage "Oliver"(June 18-21), "Company" (July 9-12) and "South Pacific" (July 30 – Aug. 2). All performances are at Brandt V.B. Dixon Performing Arts Center on campus at Tulane University; Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. For details and tickets call 504-865-5269 or see http://summerlyric.tulane.edu/index.cfm .
 

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to OnStage »