Elise Garrett: A Sixteen Year Old's View of The Theater, Past, Present, and Future!

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Sing like nobody’s listening, dance like nobody’s watching, and act like nobody’s business. (Elise Garrett's favorite quote and personal philosophy)

Here she is, World... 

Those of you who follow my blogs know that I’m writing a book celebrating Fifty years of Hello, Dolly! Those of you are discovering me for the first time; I hope you’ll join me on this journey of celebrating the arts and those that contribute to the arts.

A few weeks ago, my agent asked her interns about three of the subjects of my book in order to hopefully get a grasp of who my demographic MIGHT be. Those subjects happen to be Carol Channing, Ethel Merman, and Barbra Streisand. My agent’s interns, all in their twenties, had no idea who any of them are!
How terrible that entire generations are now coming along who only are exposed to a very specific type of entertainment rather than a wide spectrum. I posted the comment as it was relayed to me on Facebook to see what kind of response I would get.

I was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who responded, over 125. Every demographic was represented.  There was an exuberance of love and shock in the responses. I felt that I had finally found a good and loving support through Facebook. Most theatre people have felt the same way that I feel about the arts.
 One Facebook friend suggested that I interview his sixteen year old daughter to get her perspective on the theater. I thought what a brilliant idea. We need to listen to our next generation. I asked for what questions YOU would ask her on Facebook. This blog is the result of both your questions and her responses. Today, I’m celebrating Elise Garrett. I hope you will be as impressed with her as I am.

Elise Garrett is a junior at a school of the arts in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a vocal major and a drama minor. She has considered herself a “Broadway geek” since middle school. Her dream is to be in the Tisch Program at NYU for a BFA in musical theater. She would like to pursue musical theater as a career.

Elise has something I never had, family support! Elise’s parents are very supportive. They pay for her vocal lessons. They drive her to her vocal lessons and dance classes.

She feels really blessed that her parents are willing to support her in pursuit of her dream. She acknowledges that there is no guarantee that she will be successful in this field. The fact that they are putting their extra time and money on the line for her to do this is really amazing according to Elise. She is lucky to have parents who have a love for the theater and affords Elise the opportunity to see LIVE theater from time to time. Some of her classes at school requires that she go see live shows twice a semester and critique them. 

Seussical

Elise is willing to work really hard and to do something every day in that pursuit.

When it comes to reaching her generation, Elise feels that some writers are better than others. This last summer, Elise got to go to New York with her father. They saw the last performance of Godspell on Broadway. At the end, director Daniel Goldstein came out and explained to the audience how they basically rewrote the show daily by going in with the daily papers and incorporating what was topical into the show. Elise LOVED this version. It was wonderful and fantastic and Elise cried the entire second act. She has seen productions of Godspell before where they basically copied what had already been done. She never felt a connection to that show before. The way this production connected ideas with what is currently going on in the world and what she is used to and what she can connect to really made her feel something for that show. She was crying at the end as she was leaving the theater because it was so fantastic. Elise feels that other shows and writers, she hates to say, are copping out.
They are rewriting other people’s material whether they are from a book or a movie that has been written or produced previously. They are trying to connect in that way. Elise would love to see new material written straight for new actors from new writers.

Since she started in theater, Elise’s favorite aspect she gets from the theater is the energy she gets stepping out on the stage, there is this magic in performing where there is no other place to be. Being there in the moment is beautiful. Watching live theater is also amazing to Elise because she gets to see someone taking their entire life and presenting it to us, the audience, through, she can’t even describe it, it is so magical the way that major ideas and thoughts and feelings are brought forth through theater.

Elise desires to go through the emotional journey of a character and want for them all the success and happiness they can give.

One of the first movies that Elise remembers ever seeing was Mary Poppins. She also fell in love with Julie Andrews at that time. As a result of Mary Poppins, Elise started seeking out other Julie Andrews films.
Elise also started to find out about Andrews’ Broadway career which subsequently led into her discovery of Broadway. It has opened all sorts of doors for her. Elise also feels much more accepted when she is with theater kids. She associates much of her happiness with her love of theater.

The entertainer that Elise most admires is Barbra Streisand. Her voice is gorgeous. She is able to act while she is singing so it doesn’t sound like she is randomly singing. Her singing continues the story and brings the emotion of the songs into a new perspective. You can tell she loves what she’s doing.

Elise loves Tommy Tune, who I interviewed on Friday. Tommy told me that while being in a rehearsal studio with Barbara and watching her sing with just a piano, he actually saw a rainbow coming from her voice; “she has the voice of God”.

I asked Elise if she wanted to be an actress or a star. She said, “Who doesn’t want to be a star? However, if I could be an actress, it would be amazing.”

Elise has been taking vocal lesson since she was eight. She has also sung in a choir. This interview was conducted at three PM on Saturday afternoon. I asked her what work she had done that day on her craft.
She sings show tunes every morning. She is currently seeking pieces for college pieces. She had already spent part of Saturday perusing the books that she has. She also is looking for monologues for upcoming auditions.
 
When Elise was in the ninth grade, she was in a production of The Laramie Project. (Incidentally, it was fourteen years ago today, as I write this blog, that Matthew Shepard was attacked on the night of October 6–7, and died at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, on October 12 from severe head injuries.)
The Laramie Project was the first time that Elise had done any work outside of musical theater. It proved to her that she could do what she desires to do.

I asked Elise if she could live without being in show business. She said no. There’s your answer!

 "What would you change about the industry?"
 I wouldn't change anything about the industry because it has been running for so long that it's sort of perfected all of its facets.  The producers, talent, creative, and the union have learned to work together to quickly create a high quality show.  If I could change anything affecting the Industry, I would work with the travel companies to reduce the cost of coming to New York to see a Broadway musical.  What's keeping the average American family from going to New York City to see a show is the cost of travel.  If the producers could offer complete packages with travel on their websites, they could use their volume to negotiate better travel deals for their patrons.  This would allow more families to enjoy the magic of a Broadway show.



Elise is willing to work hard to make her dream a reality.

It’s a different world from the world I entered at sixteen. I asked what was currently happening for her in her pursuit. She just auditioned for an upcoming dance concert for her school. She is awaiting the results of that. I hope she gets it and I hope that all of my Atlanta readers and followers will be there to cheer them on. I asked what she would do to get an audience into that theater. Elise says advertising is important. It takes different factors to get an audience in. There are different audiences based on what they desire to see.

The great thing for Elise about LIVE theater as opposed to sitting at home watching a television show is that it can be different every night.

The first Broadway show that Elise saw was La Cage Aux Folles. She loved that show and thought it was really funny. She loved Fred Applegate, who surprised her. She didn’t expect him to be as funny as he was. She didn’t really think of him playing two roles: ultra-conservative Edouard Dindon and cafe owner M. Renaud. He was able to pull off both characters so well and was amazing.

The role that Elise would LOVE to play right now is Winifred in Once Upon A Mattress. It made a star of Carol Burnett. Perhaps it would do the same for Elise.
If that opportunity presents itself, she’s ready. She practices a lot and she KNOWS the show! She asks a lot of questions when she gets cast from her directors. She is also studying what works best for her. She is still exploring. She is also experimenting with different acting techniques to see which one will be the best fit.

 The ONE show that she wishes she had seen LIVE in the theater is the ORIGINAL Gypsy! Why? “Ethel Merman’s voice revolutionized Broadway.” This voice came out of nowhere. Nowadays, people are being taught a strict way to sing in theater and that’s the way it is going to be. This bright clear voice just cut through air straight to you and crystallized who she was as an entertainer. Ethel Merman revolutionized Broadway. So did Carol Channing, Barbra Streisand, and Bernadette Peters. 


Elise’s fondest memory in the theater involves a show that she was not part of. One of her best friends in school was starring as Marian, The Librarian, in The Music Man. They were doing the footbridge scene. One of the techies had forgotten to lock the wheels on the footbridge. “Marian” is standing on the footbridge singing Till There Was You. She’s hitting the high note at the end and the bridge starts to tip over into the orchestra pit. It was the scariest moment of Elise’s life seeing her best friend’s demise happening right in front of her. She held that note going down and Elise loves her for it! Thank God, this was a rehearsal!

She loves learning about new entertainers and I’ve loved learning about Elise Garrett! Remember that name, she means business!

Thank you Elise Garrett for the gifts you have given to the world and will continue to give!

With grateful XOXOXs ,


Check out my site celebrating my forthcoming book on Hello, Dolly!

I desire this to be a definitive account of Hello, Dolly!  
If any of you reading this have appeared in any production of Dolly, I'm interested in speaking with you!

Do you have any pics?

If you have anything to add or share, please contact me at Richard@RichardSkipper.com.


NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED.  FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!


Please do what YOU can to be more aware that words and actions DO HURT...but they can also heal and help!    
               My next blog will be... My Exclusive interview with Michele Lee (Dolly Levi, Hello, Dolly: Three-city tour of Hello Dolly in 2005. )
Thank you, to all the mentioned in this blog!

  Here's to an INCREDIBLE tomorrow for ALL...with NO challenges!
I'm celebratingPamela Luss on Saturday,October 20th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Pamela with Houston Person at TheMetropolitan Room in NYCJust The Two Of Us and FriendsHope you can makeit. It’s going to be a party! Reserve today ifthat date is available! Call me if any questions!
 Richard Skipper845-365-0720

TILL TOMORROW...HERE'S TO AN ARTS FILLED DAY
Richard Skipper, Richard@RichardSkipper.com                            
 
This Blog is dedicated to ALL THE DOLLYS and ANYONE who has EVER had a connection with ANY of them on ANY Level!

Michele Lee (Dolly Levi, Hello, Dolly: Three-city tour of Hello Dolly in 2005)

To contact us Click HERE
Michele Lee starred as Dolly Levi in a three-city tour of Hello Dolly in 2005 opposite Walter Charles as Horace Vandergelder and under the direction of Lee Roy Reams.

Michele doesn’t remember all the details that led to her starring in Hello, Dolly!, but she does remember that the call came from Lee Roy Reams, who would be directing, and that he wanted her in the role. He certainly knows the play. The thing that Michele loved about Lee Roy was that he gave her time to find her own way and approach to Dolly Levi.
If he felt that she was going a little astray after he gave her the freedom, (in astray, she means that if there were certain laughs that were there…), he would nudge her back, but he allowed her to fool around with it, which she loved. Obviously, people who have played her have found the character, as wonderfully eccentric as she is, and there are so many ways of finding that. Again, Michele loved Lee Roy and so did the rest of the company.

Michele did draw on her relationship with her former husband, James Farentino, for inspiration in playing Dolly, also, on her relationship with her father. At the time, Farentino, was a living, breathing friend of Michele’s. Michele’s father always believed life was more important than suffering. As Dolly finds with her love of her deceased husband, which she can’t quite let go of, Michele responded to totally.  That connection she had with him and the knowledge, ultimately, that she had to let go was really the part of Dolly that Michele responded to most.

If she were to play Dolly again, would she do anything differently? She would not know until she began the process all over again. Michele does feel, and she has found in her career, that as time goes by, your “creative fitness” and its adrenaline take over, you do find other aspects of the character through your own experience living life. She might do things differently, but she would need to be in the process itself going from the book, page one. What Michele does, which she finds very necessary, when she is addressing a project she has done before, is to address it as a NEW project as opposed to what she might have done with it before. She announces to everybody that she cannot be disturbed. She reads from page one of whatever she is reading as if she were the audience. Things will pop into her head, things she had forgotten, as she turns each page, and she starts to feel the character and “her” presence on one level.

Hello, Dolly!" with Michele Lee (second from left) were Tiffany Haas, Julie Kotarides, Brian Sears, director Lee Roy Reams and Kristine Reese. Photo/courtesy of Lee Roy Reams

Michele also starts to see the whole of the piece as the author wished her to see it as the audience.

Michele did not see the original cast of Dolly starring Carol Channing. She did see Carol play the role later on. “Come on, there’s no one better than Carol Channing!”
She’s so brilliantly special in this role, that Michele certainly went out of her way to do everything Carol didn’t do. Most of the other actresses interviewed for this book have had similar comments.

Michele fell totally in love with Dolly. She thinks everyone falls in love with Dolly when they see her. Obviously, there is identification with someone on the outside looking in.
 Dolly, with all her strengths, at first, is on the outside looking in, because she is trying to live life, but she is really held by her past and Michele identifies with that.
She initially fell in love with her when she saw her on stage. When you play her, that arc that Michele is talking about, is so wonderfully freeing. Also, Michele loves her zany ability to be able to move things around. She identifies with that, as well. There is that part of her that is holding on and won’t quite let go until she can move in a new direction, which she certainly does. It is so special at the end of the show when she is dancing with Horace when she allows her past just to be a part of her heart.

If Michele could play any part in Dolly with no restrictions, the role she would want to play is Minnie Fay! All of the roles are so absolutely wonderful. She doesn’t know that she would play Horace. She loves the Minnie Fay character which is so much fun and she keeps gravitating back to that. Cornelius, too, maybe.
Walter Charles was Michele’s Horace. “Oh, My God, he was incredible!” They had wonderful communication as actors. They never got into each other’s way. They knew they had “x” amount of time to learn the roles.

Walter Charles

He had done Dolly before and Michele hadn’t. He was always asking her if she wanted to run lines, which they did often, the speeches are very long. They would look at each other and giggle. He was a “light on the stage.” He was a wonderful Horace.

Michele easily considers Hello, Dolly among the top five shows of her career. “The music! Give me a break!! It’s amazing material.”
What did Michele bring to the production? “Really good legs!”  First of all, she has a voice. Sometimes, people who are playing Dolly don’t necessarily have to have a brilliant voice. Let’s face it. The role is so colorful and so much fun to watch AND act. The music is so divine. If you’re acting it, you’re home free. Michele was able to bring her vocal talent to the role as well as a true connection. Michele does talk to her former husband from the heavens above. That real connection, that vulnerability and love, for her husband is something she brought to it.


Michele continues to tweak her performance after opening in a role and Hello, Dolly was no exception.

Susan Powell was Irene Molloy.  John Scherer was Cornelius Hackl. They both were right on the dime. Everyone who was in this production was so wonderfully powerful, talented, and gifted, really good actors. It’s hard for Michele to remember every detail, but what she does remember vividly is how much she loved this cast.
The significant impact of playing Dolly, for Michele, was the fact that this is such a wonderful role for women to play on stage. She wishes there were more roles like this.

It is a testament of the workings of our brain when it comes to the memorization process.
 You think you will never ever get through it. Somehow, it works. It is always sharpening the tools. Dolly is a difficult role in the fact that there is a lot of dialogue.

The first day Michele rehearsed with the cast, she knew this was going to be a great production.
 Seeing a woman, especially at that time when people were more reserved, going after what she desired, is a reminder that we can get what we set our minds to. Everything can work out if you go after it.
 Other than Carol, Michele also saw Pearl Bailey. “She was a lot of fun. You can’t go wrong with the role.” She didn’t particularly like the connection between Matthau and Streisand in the movie. She has never seen a Dolly that missed the mark. The role is too good.
 Michele’s thoughts on Jerry Herman are that he is one of the best EVER. She loves him. She had worked with him before. He is a musical genius and she cannot say enough about him.
 She’s not saying anything new. She has been to his home. He has helped her with songs. She also did Parade in Los Angeles. In was one of the first things she ever did. She fell madly in love with him. He is a very special person to her.

The title song of Hello, Dolly, to Michele, is too brilliant not to respond to. It became a hit because it should have been a hit with or without the show.
  It is a brilliant song. When you remember the way it’s been done in different venues at different times, it has to be “stand up on your feet and scream.”

John Scherer

When you get married to a cast, and you love what they’re doing, and you’re having so much fun, it’s very difficult to say goodbye. Everyone says, “We’re going to get together”, etc. Some of the people, Michele has seen again, John Scherer once , she went backstage after seeing Walter Charles in a play once,  and Susan Powell. You think you’re going to keep everybody in your life, but you don’t, even if you want to. You fall in love with members of the ensemble. They are so wonderful. Life goes on and you do new things.

Michele would love to do Dolly again, if the opportunity presents itself, especially since she mastered holding her head up with those enormous hats. They had to keep redoing some of the hats. The hats and costumes were incredible. The hats however were so large, and you have to move and sing and whatever. They have to be balanced in a certain way. They have to be balanced, period.
Hello, Dolly reminds Michele of how wonderful musical theater is for our souls and how close we are to losing THAT if we don’t support the brilliant works in our theater. Hello, Dolly is what theater IS.
     
Thank you Michele Lee for the gifts you have given to the world and will continue to give!


With grateful XOXOXs ,


Check out my site celebrating my forthcoming book on Hello, Dolly!
I want this to be a definitive account of Hello, Dolly!  If any of you reading this have appeared in any production of Dolly, I'm interested in speaking with you!

Do you have any pics?

If you have anything to add or share, please contact me at Richard@RichardSkipper.com.


NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED.  FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!


Please do what YOU can to be more aware that words and actions DO HURT...but they can also heal and help!    
               My next blog will be... Ed Flesch (artistic director of The Fireside Theatre in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin on Hello, Dolly)
Thank you, to all the mentioned in this blog!

  Here's to an INCREDIBLE tomorrow for ALL...with NO challenges!
Please contribute to the DR. CAROL CHANNING  and HARRY KULLIJIAN FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
 
Sign The Petition!
TILL TOMORROW...HERE'S TO AN ARTS FILLED DAY
Richard Skipper, Richard@RichardSkipper.com                            
 
This Blog is dedicated to ALL THE DOLLYS and ANYONE who has EVER had a connection with ANY of them on ANY Level!

Ed Flesch (artistic director of The Fireside Theatre in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin on Hello, Dolly)

To contact us Click HERE

Dick and Betty Klopcic built an intimate, sixty by sixty pyramid-shaped restaurant in 1964, the same year that Hello, Dolly opened on Broadway.
That would be the beginning leading to the Fireside Theater. Ed Flesch joined The Fireside Theatre in Fort Atkinson as the theatre’s Artistic Director in 1978. He has produced all and directed most of the more than 138 productions staged by The Fireside Theatre over the years.
 Each year he auditions more than one thousand professional singers, actors and dancers, primarily in New York, in order to cast approximately one hundred roles.
Since times have gotten a little tougher, as it has for most theaters, they don’t bring in as many guest directors as they used to. This still bring in guest directors from time to time.
Philip McKinley and the late Thommie Walsh have both directed there.

As of this writing, Ed is wrapping up his fifth production of Dolly, this one starring Bonnie and Clyde’s Leslie Becker (See my chapter on her).
His first encounter with Dolly was seeing Carol Channing in the original in ’64. He grew up right outside of New York City, in Long Island.
He saw his first Broadway show at age six. It was The Music Man starring Robert Preston and was pretty much hooked on musical theater from that point on.
At age fourteen, he started buying his own theater tickets.
His parents would let him go into the city on matinee days by himself.  This was the beginning of his Broadway viewing life. That was when he saw Dolly.
What struck him most of all was the spectacle; the look of the show was so beautiful. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. He had already seen a lot of Broadway shows by this point, many of them great.
Of course, he remembers Carol Channing. How could you forget her?

He went back to see Pearl Bailey do in 1968 in the all African-American production. He also remembers her more vividly than all the Dollys he has ever seen. He thinks Pearl Bailey was the best. She and Cab Calloway are still vivid in his mind.
The show actually looked fresh. Merrick gave it a kind of face lift. The color scheme of the costumes and set were also a little different. In some instances, it seemed a little more vibrant. But mostly, Ed remembers Bailey. She was everything the character embodied. She was funny and charming and warm. She did some of the best bits that he still remembers to this day. The eating bit was hysterical.
Those are the only two Dollys Ed has seen on Broadway. He has seen a couple of dinner theater productions and regional productions and, of course, there are the four different Dollys he has worked with, he used one in two productions, Jennie May Donnell. Of course, prior to directing it, he had a perspective having seen it twice on Broadway. By the time he directed it, he had read The Matchmaker.
He was now familiar with the play. What he wanted to bring to Hello, Dolly,

At one time, Fireside also owned La Comedia Dinner Theater in Springfield, Ohio. They bought it from the original owner and sold it six years later.

 (Photo provided, Fireside Theater)

Ed produced Dolly there and Jennie May had already done it at The Fireside. When he mounted it at La Comedia, he asked her to do it again because he thought she was great. That was fun because that is the only Dolly he has gotten to do in a proscenium. Obviously, there are certain things in the show that were designed specifically for a proscenium stage that he has had to adapt in the round.

She was not his first Dolly. His first Dolly was almost thirty years ago as of this interview.

Ed Flesch

All of Ed’s productions have been at The Fireside Theater except for the one at La Comedia.
His current production is beautiful. One of the great things about the round is that it is intimate. At the Fireside, there are seven hundred seats. Because they are on all four sides, the audience really is not far from the stage, even in the last row. It is a real acting medium because the cast and director are not restricted by proscenium movement and turns and keeping open to the audience. Ed has always tried to really zero in on and bring to life what the characters and Dolly are all about. That is informed by productions he has seen and also by Wilder. Michael Stewart was extremely faithful when he adapted it.

Ed wishes that he had done The Matchmaker, but he hasn’t.

There is a personal reason why Ed always returns to Dolly. It always sells tickets.
He thinks it always sells tickets because of the message, not just because it is a well known story and has some great and wonderful songs and dances. The story and character of Dolly really speaks to all of us who sees someone who celebrates life. She is someone who enjoys life, with one or two exceptions, when she reveals in the show that she has gotten kind of lonely. Everything to her is an adventure. Everybody she meets and everything she does, she is manipulative, but she does it with love.
Everything she does, certainly she has her own agenda.
Certainly, she has her own self interest. Along the way, everyone she touches and everyone that is affected by her is better for it. To Ed, that sense of life and hope and adventure and positivity is what she and the show is all about.
When Ed is casting Dolly, he is looking for a certain quality. The great Dollys have it. There’s got to be some individual quirkiness, something that makes each Dolly unique. Dolly is the kind of person that when she walks into a room, she owns it. The force of her personality fills the room. Obviously, he looks for someone who is a good actress and who can sing the music. The music is great and not everybody can really deliver it. It doesn’t have to be the same quality in all. As a matter of fact, every Dolly Ed has seen and/or worked with has been different. They all brought their own individuality to the piece.

They all have that quality of immediately making you smile and immediately making you feel that you are in the presence of someone benevolent, and good, and who has such a life energy that you cannot help but being caught up in it. The mark of a good Dolly is when you are sitting in the audience and finding yourself grinning involuntarily just because of what she brings to the plate. As most casting directors will tell you, you can’t necessarily quantify that.

She’s got to be a great belter and a great dancer. There is that element that when you see it, you know it. Without it is just a good actress/singer doing a role.

Regarding his most recent Dolly, Ed knew she WAS a Dolly as soon as she walked in the door to audition. He can’t say that as she walked in that  he knew that she was HIS Dolly at that point.
He knew that she had all the elements. On the call back, as soon as she got up and read a scene, he saw more of what he was looking for. They talked and she read the scene again. At that moment, he went”Yes. That’s it.”   No one else who is coming in can touch her.
 His Horace Vandergelder in this production was Michael Halls. Ed has known Michael for many years and he has done a lot of work for Ed over the years as well as working in a lot of other theaters. He was based in Chicago for a long time. Vandergelder is a “comic villain”, but he is not a villain. He’s gruff. He’s short tempered. He’s stubborn. Yet, there always has to be that glimmer of the man inside that deserves Dolly.
The thing you always have to have in a Horace Vandergelder is the quality that when he and Dolly are together, the audience feels truly satisfied that they are together. If he is too much of one thing or another, the audience will accept it because it is the end of the show, but they won’t really go, “Ahhhhh….that’s wonderful.”The audience should really be hoping from the very beginning that they should be together.
You have to have an actor who can play that gruffness without losing that sense of the heart that’s underneath. That is one of the things that Michael does really well.
Ed admits that he is one of those directors that gives pep talks to the company. He likes “speechifying” when he gets the chance.
Not after they open, but he’ll have something to say to the company before the first performance.
  They took the whole first week to stage the show and it very well. He knew that everybody was going to be great, but Ed knew that was going to be a great Dolly when they did the first run through, he got that feeling, when he first saw Dancing and the other numbers such as Put On Your Sunday Clothes. He was actually being engaged emotionally with what was on stage. When they did the final run through and they did the title number, it totally blew him away.
THAT’S when he knew this was going to be a great Dolly.   

What are the future audiences for Dolly? That is an interesting and hard question for Ed. He hopes to prove that younger people coming in to see the show will have the same reaction and be charmed in the same way as all audiences. In fact, in the first week, Ed had friends coming in, one a seventeen year old girl. As of this interview, he was very anxious to see how she felt about the show. He does feel that anyone at any age who is open to the theater going experience is going to feel everything that every audience feels when they see Dolly. The problem is not necessarily how younger audiences feel about Dolly. The problem is how they are going to feel about LIVE THEATER.
Fort Atkinson is a fairly small town. There is a girl who works at the local grocery store, The Century. Ed talked to her before they did Legally Blonde earlier in the season. As soon as it was on their season, she was so excited and couldn’t stop talking about.

Leslie Becker

She had to see it. It was her favorite show.

She had seen the movie. She had seen it on Broadway and just loved it. It was a fabulous production. She saw it at Fireside and loved it.

When Ed mentioned Hello, Dolly to her after it, she said she never heard of it. “That’s an old show. Isn’t it?” Ed says if he can’t get them in at The Fireside, they will become customers. If they come in, they will be as enthusiastic as any audience. The challenge, and this is the challenge of ALL live theater, and especially those in regional theaters, is in encouraging younger audiences to come to the theater.

Who could play Dolly today in a Broadway revival and sell tickets? The only marquee names now on Broadway are film and television people. Ed no longer feels that there are now Broadway stars who sell tickets to the common theater goer or tourist.

Leslie Becker

Of course, they are not as familiar with those names as previous theater audiences were with Broadway stars in the fifties and sixties. So now, the Broadway stars of today are, once again, those film and television stars who come to do shows. That being said, it is difficult to pick a Dolly from the current crop.


Ed does feel that Hello, Dolly is among the top five best of his career.

The last time Ed directed a production of Dolly was in 2003.
 Every time he revisits a show, he discovers new things and comes up with new things.
Some of the staging, they’ve adapted a bit. His choreographer is the same choreographer he worked with in 2003. She has actually choreographed a few productions for Fireside. He is using some of the same staging as previously.
 Every time he revisits a show, he discovers new things and comes up with new things.
Some of the staging, they’ve adapted a bit. His choreographer is the same choreographer he worked with in 2003. She has actually choreographed a few productions for Fireside. He is using some of the same staging as previously.
Leslie plays a warmer, more intelligent character that truly connects with the individual people on the stage in a different way from the last time and his last Dolly was fabulous.
She was just in another direction.

Like any good director, especially in musical theater, your work shouldn’t be obvious to an audience. There are some directors who pull attention to themselves by doing something clever in the staging.
That doesn’t always serve the piece. That doesn’t make for good directing. Ed brings his concept of the show, his sense of pacing, and takes it in a direction that has been discussed earlier here.
It is a sense of an audience getting and seeing what each actor is bringing into the piece. It is Ed’s job to make sure that all of that works and goes out to the audience and is invisible to the audience.  That is what he brings to the table as the director. He has been successful with that.

He doesn’t tweak a show a lot after a show opens beyond taking notes. He comes in once a week or maybe every two weeks for a note session, but by and large it’s a fairly short run.
It’s only a nine week run. Most of what needs to be done is a little bit of policing, especially with a show that has a lot of slapstick and that type of humor. That is the job of the production stage manager more than it is of the director.
This makes sure that the show doesn’t get away from its honest core. There are some directors who, if they don’t watch the show and come back in a few months, they get crazy because things change. Things always change, little things. It is a big mistake for a director to come in and discourage people from growing. He doesn’t think people should be allowed to get too big.
They need to be consistent. Thing are going to grow however, and some things are going to be a little bit deeper. Actors are going to discover things that perhaps were not discussed with Ed. The director really has to sit there and put the go aside. The director has to sometimes say, “That’s fine. It works in the production.”

The Fireside Theater is a little off the radar for some outside of Fort Atkinson and Leslie Becker may be off of the radar of some of the people with Fort Atkinson’s borders, but here’s hoping both change that paradigm.

They do so many shows at the Fireside and there are so many good shows out there. It’s a privilege to do the classics. If Ed was a director of Shakespeare, he would feel the same way about the times he would direct Hamlet or Julius Caesar or any of the other real classics of the theater. As a director or as an actor, some people lose touch when they are in a show, like Hello, Dolly! or Fiddler or Fair Lady, that they are truly doing the masterworks of American musical theater. It always increases your zeal of the art when you’re working with a show that is so well crafted. It is an appreciation of the art and your learning how to do your work better and well is always uplifted by great works.

Ed’s first production of Dolly was in 1981. Dolly, for Ed, has a particular ability to speak directly to an audience in a way that some other shows don’t have. Directing the show, and especially directing it the first time, and not just because it’s  very presentational and the characters break the fourth wall occasionally, but you look at a show like Fiddler or Oklahoma!, which are wonderful shows, but they don’t reach out and embrace the audience in the same way that Dolly does. That was certainly a lesson to Ed in exactly how to do it and that he could apply to other shows.  Dolly is pretty bullet proof.

The Fireside Theater is a twenty by twenty stage but they have excellent Broadway quality dancers. His choreographer, Kate Swan, is fabulous. She is an award-winning union choreographer and director of musical theatre. 
As a director and choreographer, she has worked Off and Off-Off Broadway, in LORT houses, dinner theatres, universities, and summer stock. Obviously, there are certain things you cannot do on a twenty by twenty stage just by virtue of the fact that you can’t go leaping like you would over a forty foot proscenium.
There are still no liabilities or weaknesses that they have to adhere to. The Fireside is really known for having really strong casts all the way around from time to bottom. They always operate from a position of strength.

The Hello, Dolly number, itself, always stops the show because it is a “formula piece”, but it’s the piece that invented the formula.
You lead up to it. You start to lead up to it in the first act. You lead up to it in the second act. Dolly is almost always on stage in the first act and then she disappears.

So there is a feeling, even though you’re enjoying the Waiter’s Gallop and everything that precedes that, of “Where’s Dolly?” You want to see her again. By the time you get to it as an audience, as she comes in in one of the greatest entrances of all time, and down the staircase, and then you have this really terrific number.
 If you really listen to the number from beginning to end, there is a build; there is an orchestral build, there is a build in the music, it is just so wonderful, you cannot help but be excited at the very end with that kick line. You would have to be dead to feel that.
Ed’s job is to interpret the show. He doesn’t desire to impose anything on it that isn’t there. His job is to bring out what IS there and present it to an audience in a way they can truly relate to. He doesn’t believe in taking something like Dolly and saying, “I think I’ll set it in civil war time.” Since starting to go to the theater at six years of age, the biggest change that Ed has seen in the theater since then is now a Broadway show has to be an “event.” People go to the theater now as a tourist attraction. When he was growing up in New York, there were plenty of people who would finish work, call their ticket agent, and see what show they could go see that night.
Ed remembers very often just going into the city and walking around on a Saturday afternoon and deciding what show he would want to see. Theater was an industry for people, for theater-goers. You didn’t have to plan six months in advance. Shows could stay open without having to sell out at one and two hundred dollars a ticket.

The biggest change Ed has seen in the musical theater is the transition from going to the theater and having a wonderful experience to people going to the theater now to see Spiderman as opposed to Bonnie and Clyde.
The theater, once again, has become an “event” and has to be more dazzling and spectacular in order just to stay viable.
That is not to say that some of the great shows that are selling tickets now are not great shows. They are. Some of them are terrific shows. The nature of musical theater and Broadway has changed.  

When he directed the first Dolly, they were a very young theater. It was also non-Equity at the time.
They had younger actors playing the roles. His Dolly was terrific but she was way too young to play the role.

Ed loves Barbra Streisand.
He thinks she is amazing. She is one of his favorite entertainers of all time, but he doesn’t think she is a Dolly.
He also thinks she read too young and she was “Barbra Streisand.” She wasn’t Dolly.

Ed loves Jerry Herman. The Fireside has also done Mame. They have not done any other Jerry Herman musicals, although Ed would like to and hopes to someday.
The very first Herman show that Ed saw on Broadway was Milk and Honey in 1961, he was eleven.

He thinks Herman is clever without being “smartass”. His lyrics are really excellent without drawing attention to them. They are really natural. He writes songs that come out of the characters and the scenes. He is one of the great composers of the American musical theater.

Hello, Dolly, to Ed Flesch, embodies what musical theater is capable of. He believes, as an artist, his job is to make people feel better about the human condition, about what it is to be a human and have human relationships.
Of all the shows that he has worked on and that he knows about, Hello, Dolly does it better than any other show.

Thank you Ed Flesch for the gifts you have given to the world and continue to give!


With grateful XOXOXs ,

Check out my site celebrating my forthcoming book on Hello, Dolly!
I want this to be a definitive account of Hello, Dolly!  If any of you reading this have appeared in any production of Dolly, I'm interested in speaking with you!

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If you have anything to add or share, please contact me at Richard@RichardSkipper.com.

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