Open Forum

Hello friends, 

    Original plan for our drama program was to present MAN OF LA MANCHA for our Spring 2019 production.  Band director and I are on, but our vocal director is not.  Show has not won him yet.  He worries about being able to fill parts (although many on here have touted the flexibility of casting), and he is concerned about the show's appeal.

   So we are looking again at other options.  A couple of our criteria include a pit similar to the one we had for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (2013 version).  It allowed for many more students (brass, percussion, winds, reed) to be involved as opposed to a small ensemble or rock pit.  We want to be able to use this group again.  Another criteria is lower production cost show.  La Mancha has one main set.  I don't have to rent tons of backdrops, build tons of set pieces, or rent tons of costumes.  With that said, low-production cost musicals that appeal to us may be few and far between.  We've done some pretty huge and expensive shows recently (Les Miserables, Phantom,  Cinderella, and even Footloose brought some costs in how we presented the show). 

    One show we're looking at, despite potential costs, is Camelot.   We noted it requires string parts.  Are the strings, for anyone who has done this show, doubled elsewhere?  We're not opposed to hiring out for strings, but we'd prefer to use students as much as we can.

  So any advice, thoughts, based on the above smorgasbord of questions would be most welcome. 

------------------------------
James McCulloch
Drama Director of Mariner Drama
Marine City, Michigan
jmcculloch@ecsd.us
------------------------------

I don't have a great deal of experience with this show, but I hate to see your post without any responses so I will share my thoughts about Camelot for whatever they're worth.

I was in the ensemble for "Camelot" at a local community theatre when I was in college. It's a lovely show with gorgeous music, and it's obviously a classic for a reason, but I remember thinking at the time that it would be a difficult one to do in a high school setting. 

The entire show relies very heavily (almost exclusively) on two strong leading men and one strong leading lady. There are a few secondary and minor characters, most of whom are male, but it does not have very many musical numbers for the chorus (and only one which really requires dancing -- Lusty Month of May). There's just a lot of down time for the ensemble (especially the female ensemble). I think most of the time this is the exact opposite of what many HS programs need, but every program is different.

One of the things that makes casting difficult is that you need two pretty equally amazing men to play Lancelot and Arthur. I remember that one of the problems that we faced in our production was that we had an absolutely amazing King Arthur in terms of singing and acting, and he had wonderful stage presence and charisma. Our Lancelot, however, had a gorgeous singing voice, but was not as strong in acting and was a little stiff on stage. It made the Guinevere/Arthur/Lancelot triangle difficult to believe. (I think it's hard to understand why Guinevere chooses Lancelot over Arthur under any circumstances, but it makes it even more difficult if you don't have a strong actor and singer in that role.)  
 
Of course, the casting make-up (two men, one woman as leads) is not unlike The Man of La Mancha (although Lancelot and Sancho require very different kinds of actors) that you said you had been considering, so you probably have already looked carefully at all of that.

Every program is different and every director is different. Maybe you will be able to find ways for your ensemble to do more. If your program can pull it off and it's something that you want to do, I think it will be a beautiful show. It would be a lot of fun to explore the King Arthur legends and stories with your students.

I think you could do it fairly inexpensively if you wanted.When we did it we had a pretty simple set. It was kind of a generic "castle" set and then we brought in different simple furniture pieces, tapestries, trees, rocks, etc. to indicate the change of setting. I would try to concentrate on having more elaborate and  beautiful costumes, if you can. 

I don't remember a lot about our pit orchestra, but I believe they used some kind of electronic music to help boost the sound of the orchestra (to make it sound larger and more full than it really was) and it worked. I don't know any details though.  

Sorry I'm not very helpful, but best of luck!

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Emily Olson
Theatre Arts Teacher and Director
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-17-2018 09:11
From: James McCulloch
Subject: Camelot, Selecting a Musical, and Strings

Hello friends,

    Original plan for our drama program was to present MAN OF LA MANCHA for our Spring 2019 production.  Band director and I are on, but our vocal director is not.  Show has not won him yet.  He worries about being able to fill parts (although many on here have touted the flexibility of casting), and he is concerned about the show's appeal.

   So we are looking again at other options.  A couple of our criteria include a pit similar to the one we had for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (2013 version).  It allowed for many more students (brass, percussion, winds, reed) to be involved as opposed to a small ensemble or rock pit.  We want to be able to use this group again.  Another criteria is lower production cost show.  La Mancha has one main set.  I don't have to rent tons of backdrops, build tons of set pieces, or rent tons of costumes.  With that said, low-production cost musicals that appeal to us may be few and far between.  We've done some pretty huge and expensive shows recently (Les Miserables, Phantom,  Cinderella, and even Footloose brought some costs in how we presented the show). 

    One show we're looking at, despite potential costs, is Camelot.   We noted it requires string parts.  Are the strings, for anyone who has done this show, doubled elsewhere?  We're not opposed to hiring out for strings, but we'd prefer to use students as much as we can.

  So any advice, thoughts, based on the above smorgasbord of questions would be most welcome. 

------------------------------
James McCulloch
Drama Director of Mariner Drama
Marine City, Michigan
jmcculloch@ecsd.us
------------------------------

Camelot has a really long running time. I remember seeing several productions that lasted 3 1/2 hours. The score is expansive with a tremendous amount of music underscoring and interludes.  

There are also so few roles for women and a lot of roles for men.  Making it a lop-sided casting situation.

While the music is beautiful, it is not really very rousing in terms of giving your chorus a fun and fully immersive experience.  I find the chorus roles to be relatively limited as many of the songs are solos and used as dialogue more than mood setting or crowd pleasing.

I really like the show and have since I was a young kid. I love King Arthur stories and the whole knights of the round table is fun.  I think the set and costumes you can create could lend itself to some fantastic creativity.

I just know that every time I have seen it the two most common comments I have heard from other audience members is that it is really long and boring.

In my humble opinion Tams needs to work with the Lerner and Loewe estate to create a shorter version of it to make it more high school friendly.

Good luck with your show selection.  

(I am having a challenge finding the right play to direct for my spring show.  So much reading and analyzing and agonizing. Not a fun part of my job right now).

------------------------------
John Rutherford
Groves Performing Arts Company
W.E. Groves High School
Beverly Hills MI
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-17-2018 09:11
From: James McCulloch
Subject: Camelot, Selecting a Musical, and Strings

Hello friends,

    Original plan for our drama program was to present MAN OF LA MANCHA for our Spring 2019 production.  Band director and I are on, but our vocal director is not.  Show has not won him yet.  He worries about being able to fill parts (although many on here have touted the flexibility of casting), and he is concerned about the show's appeal.

   So we are looking again at other options.  A couple of our criteria include a pit similar to the one we had for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (2013 version).  It allowed for many more students (brass, percussion, winds, reed) to be involved as opposed to a small ensemble or rock pit.  We want to be able to use this group again.  Another criteria is lower production cost show.  La Mancha has one main set.  I don't have to rent tons of backdrops, build tons of set pieces, or rent tons of costumes.  With that said, low-production cost musicals that appeal to us may be few and far between.  We've done some pretty huge and expensive shows recently (Les Miserables, Phantom,  Cinderella, and even Footloose brought some costs in how we presented the show). 

    One show we're looking at, despite potential costs, is Camelot.   We noted it requires string parts.  Are the strings, for anyone who has done this show, doubled elsewhere?  We're not opposed to hiring out for strings, but we'd prefer to use students as much as we can.

  So any advice, thoughts, based on the above smorgasbord of questions would be most welcome. 

------------------------------
James McCulloch
Drama Director of Mariner Drama
Marine City, Michigan
jmcculloch@ecsd.us
------------------------------