You see them in the hallways of the Walgreen Drama Center or in the lobby of the E.V. Moore Building. They’re usually fresh from class or a rehearsal, weighted down with shoulder bags crammed full of a change of clothes, sheet music, textbooks, bottled water, protein bars, gum—whatever it takes to get through a long day with few breaks. An equal mix of males and females, they’re often singing or laughing. They greet each other with hugs. From all outward appearances, they’re a family, brothers and sisters banded together in the midst of a bigger School set in the midst of a huge University.
They’re the musical theatre kids, and a family they are.
“You can always hear us coming long before we enter a room,” says Gavin Creel (BFA ‘99), star of musicals on Broadway (Thoroughly Modern Millie) and London (Mary Poppins). “There is nothing quite like a group of young actors who love to sing and dance. Call it obnoxious, call it a zest for life.”
And yet, in this notoriously competitive business, they cheer each other on—during their four years at Michigan and long after—sincerely happy for each other’s successes. And those successes are legion.
You see their names on marquees, both on and off Broadway. They’re in regional theatres or on tour with major productions. Some go on to careers as librettists or songwriters, as producers, music directors, concert singers, or casting directors. Others teach, carrying the art form forward for future generations.
Watch for them at the annual Tony Awards ceremony, either on stage in a scene from a current show or in the audience, nominated for awards.
It was Paul Boylan, at the beginning of his twenty-year tenure as dean, who proposed the idea for a musical theatre training program, still a new concept at the time. Twenty-five years ago, you could count the musical theatre programs at colleges, conservatories, or universities on one hand. Broadway hopefuls made their careers the old-fashioned
way: they bought a one-way ticket to New York City, got a room at the Y or the Rehearsal Club (for “lonely girls”), and waited for their big break.
The program at Michigan was launched when Robert Chapel (BA ‘67, MA ‘68, Ph.D. ‘74, theatre) came in as acting director in the fall of 1983. After a national search, Brent Wagner was hired as director, a position he took up in 1984 and holds to this day. When it came time to choose the spring production that first year, Wagner opted to showcase the students in an original revue, I’ve Heard That Song Before: The Music of Jule Styne. Jerry DePuit (BM ‘72, piano), who was making it as a freelance musician and arranger in New York, was called in to help shape the show.
“Once the program was up and running,” Boylan says, “Brent made some very wise decisions. He started out with a variety show to feature the talent he had—and, happily, in those early days we had some exceedingly gifted kids. And then, of course, nothing speaks more powerfully to a program than the success of the students.”
Wagner was just into his second year when Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof) proposed the idea of premiering his new musical A Wonderful Life, based on the Frank Capra movie, at Michigan. The notion of bringing in professionals for the leads was considered but quickly dismissed; this would be a student production.
“I was very nervous during the whole process,” admits Wagner, “because we were so new. But I knew we had to do it.” Harnick and songwriter Joe Raposo of Sesame Street fame came to Ann Arbor to work with the students. The Ann Arbor News called A Wonderful Life “a magnificent, rollicking, tear-flowing, belly-laughing wonderwork that revitalizes a vanishing American art form.”
Andrew Lippa (BM ‘87), now a Broadway songwriter and lyricist (The Wild Party, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown), was cast in the lead as George Bailey, the Jimmy Stewart role in the movie. From the safety and distance of 25 years, Lippa can now say, “During the four months of rehearsals, I was carrying 18 credits. I didn’t get sick. I didn’t get scared. I didn’t get lost. And the reason why? I had no idea how big it all was.” As it turned out, “I had the most thrilling performance experience of my short life.”
The following year, the spotlight found its way to musical theatre once again, when the Kurt Weill/Alan Jay Lerner musical Love Life was revived for the first time since its 1948 Broadway run right here in Ann Arbor. Because of an ASCAP strike that year, no cast album had been recorded. A dusty boxful of scores and scripts arrived from the Weill Foundation. Jerry DePuit, by then a member of the musical theatre faculty, set to work reconstructing huge sections where parts were missing. Lys Simonette, Weill’s longtime rehearsal pianist, on hand to witness the resurrection, gave Love Life her imprimatur, deeming it “even better than the original.”
As student enrollment continued to grow, Boylan could justify allocating funds to hire faculty specific to musical theatre. After Jerry DePuit came Tim Millett—Zach in A Chorus Line on Broadway—hired as resident choreographer.
Now big dance numbers could be introduced into the repertoire. A Chorus Line, in fact, was staged in 1988, directed by Millett, using the original Broadway choreography. “That production was just smashing,” Boylan remembers, “and, I think, with the dance component, the program really came of age.”
Musical theatre at Michigan was on its way.
Now more stage time beyond the annual Power Center production was needed to accommodate the young talent coming through Ann Arbor for training. In 1987, a fall production in the 700-seat Mendelssohn Theatre was added to the annual roster, opening up possibilities for more intimate works. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. A Little Night Music. Sunday in the Park with George. Oh, Coward!
Yet a third production was added, some ten years later, this time at the Trueblood Theatre in the Frieze Building (replaced by the new Arthur Miller Theatre), where “black box” productions and experimental or new works could be tried out. William Bolcom/Arnold Weinstein’s Casino Paradise was the first, premiering in 2000. This fall, Ella Minnow Pea, a musical based on the novel of the same name, was workshopped in the Arthur Miller Theatre to a sold-out house.
Productions over the years in all three venues have been carefully selected to represent all styles—from the classic On the Town to the revolutionary Weill/Brecht The Threepenny Opera to new works, offering students full exposure to the types of productions and experiences they might encounter after graduation.
“The students coming out of Michigan are really well-rounded and well-educated actors, not just people who can sing and dance,” James Lapine, theatrical director (Into the Woods).
Rachel Hoffman, a musical theatre grad (‘99) who now works for Bernard Telsey + Company, one of the top casting offices in New York, concurs. “It’s definitely an advantage to have a U-M musical theatre degree on your resume.”
With a staggering 600 applications just last fall, selectivity can be high. Being possessed of the raw talent is assumed—if not a “triple threat,” then at least very, very strong in two of the three prerequisite areas: singing, dancing, and acting. If you’ve got that together, then you apply to the University of Michigan. Last year’s grade point average for incoming freshmen at SMTD was 3.56.
Next come auditions. Those who make it that far are remarkably
good. “You can identify the skills,” says Wagner, “but you’re also looking at potential. At 17, the voice is still young; the imagination is still developing.”
Applicants with an attitude need not apply. “It’s very important to us to admit students who are supportive and take pride in each other’s accomplishments,” Wagner says. “If competition enters the classroom, it can be extremely detrimental
to the growth of the artist.”
Once admitted, it’s time to get down to the work of honing and crafting your talents. The schedule is rigorous. Along with classes in singing, dancing, and acting, students take a year of music theory, a year of piano. They take theatre history and analysis, a year-long introduction to musical theatre, another on the history of the American musical theatre, still a third on the vagaries of a career in musical theatre, everything from audition protocol to how to survive between shows. These students are trained.
Along with the core curriculum, all musical theatre majors are required to take 30 credits of academic electives—anything and everything from political science to English literature to art history.
“I felt focused in my craft,” says Erin Dilly (‘94), Tony nominee for Broadway’s Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang, “but still had the freedom to enjoy a football
game and take wild electives. My 18-year-old self groaned at having to pore through the Sunday New York Times every week, or having to break down a lyric, or having to know the history of the shows and songwriters.”
“Now the Times comes to my home. The lyric is always the first thing I read when I learn a new song; it holds the story. And I know the history of shows and creators cold when I walk into a room to audition.”
“In the end, it’s all about the training,” says Danny Gurwin (‘94), Broadway star of Little Women and The Full Monty. “I’ve never worked so hard in my life. You become a versatile dancer, you become a great singer, you become a real actor. In all honesty, I think I learned who I was. Michigan gave me the chance to fall down a million times, and triumph now and then, too.”
“You’re asking people to be vulnerable and open, as themselves, as artists,” Wagner explains. “That alone creates the need for a family atmosphere. Students bring respect to the work and to their fellow collaborators; they bring joy to it. It’s not always easy, but it’s something the entire faculty must commit to and encourage. It informs everything we do.”
Doug LaBrecque (‘88), now enjoying a thriving career as a concert singer after a phenomenal run on Broadway (Show Boat, Phantom of the Opera) right after graduation, concurs. “There are no divas with Brent,” he says. “He doesn’t give out the star treatment because it’s really not appropriate when you’re 18, 19, 20 years old.”
Nor are rose-colored glasses standard issue. Acting Professionally: Raw Facts about Careers in Acting is required reading. “You get into a show, the show ends, and you have to audition again,” Wagner says. “How many fields ask that of a person? Once you become a doctor, you don’t have to go from job to job and live with the unknown. This is not a field in which one necessarily finds fairness in the course of a day.”
Alex Gemignani (‘01), Les Misérables, Assassins, Sweeney Todd, says, “The program is full of people who really want to teach. And I think it’s a testament
to Brent that he hires people who are NOT like him. It’s not a department of Brent Wagners; it’s a department where each faculty member brings something unique.” There are now six full-time faculty members in the Department of Musical Theatre
With the odds so stacked against them, they keep applying, those hoofers and singers and actors with a destiny that won’t be denied. Since 1995, Senior Showcase, a revue of the talents of the graduating class, has been held in New York each spring before an audience of casting directors, agents, and producers. It’s an essential step in jump-starting careers.
So when you see those musical theatre students in the hallway, bonding together as they pursue their dream, you might understand why they are such a close-knit family. And in the audience each year at the Showcase, there will be musical theatre alumni, from all years, cheering on the new class.
— Betsy Goolian, Michigan Muse