by Lola Furbee
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve gotten around to writing one of these, and it’s been almost a whole year since the first edition of this series, so to reintroduce myself, my name is Lola Furbee, and I really love theatre. I’m currently in my junior year of studying my double major of Communication Studies and Theatre: Directing & Dramaturgy Track, and I’m going to be completely honest, it’s been rough. My first semester of junior year started off with a bang, and it seemed like I never got the chance to recover from all the hustle and bustle that the first half of the semester brought. When one thing was completed, another thing seemed to follow right after. Thankfully, though, that semester is over now, and with that, I finally have the chance to talk about one of the many pursuits that was keeping me so busy: The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!).
That wasn’t some crazy typo, The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) was (you guessed it) the musical that I had the pleasure to assistant direct and dramaturg for. It was the first production in the North Central College Theatre Department lineup last semester, meaning that rehearsals took up a large chunk of my schedule. Since our closing performance, I’ve had a few months to reflect on my time with this production. It was, no doubt, a stressful and chaotic time. I think this was my first time in my college career where I truly felt overwhelmed with what I had committed myself to. I’m definitely lucky that it took so long for this feeling to wash in, but it was frustrating for me to realize that I didn’t have all the time or energy in the world to put into this craft to which I’m so dedicated. Regardless, I managed to push through and became content with what I was capable of, given the restraints. And with that, I’ll walk you through some of the highlights I had with this production.
Assuming you’re not familiar with the show, Musical of Musicals is a parody piece. The show consists of five mini “acts,” with each act mimicking the style of an iconic musical theatre composer from the twentieth century. As a certified Theatre Kid, I couldn’t imagine a better show to dive into. It had so many fun references I got to make fun of, and it was so enjoyable to work on a show that was directly inspired from some of my favorite composers in the musical theatre repertoire.
The production was directed by Sarafina Vecchio, a guest director and working actor in the Chicagoland area. Her big idea of this production was the “show within a show.” Anyone who’s ever worked on a theatrical production before, knows that there are always crazy shenanigans going on behind-the-scenes. Whether it’s the inside jokes backstage, making fun of your fellow castmates while they go on stage, or any other gimmicks that inevitably happen when you’re stuck in hour-long rehearsals, with the same group of people, for weeks on end. Vecchio wanted to capture that exact essence. So, with this directorial vision and design elements meshed, NCC’s Musical of Musicals became a depiction of the “backstage” or “behind-the-scenes.” Our actors threw on whichever costume pieces were nearby to create their different characters, used random objects to serve as their props, and so on–to then perform the same story in five different ways.
Like I previously mentioned, I served as the assistant director for Musical of Musicals. This was my second time assistant directing a production at NCC (if you want to read about my directing debut, feel free to check out this article), but it was my first time delving into directing work on a musical. As much as I love all types of live performance, musical theatre will always hold a special place in my heart as my favorite type, so it’s kind of shocking that this was going to be my first time working on a musical in this capacity. It was especially exciting to watch the music and choreography develop throughout the rehearsal process, as those are obviously not present in a play. Vecchio also gave me the opportunity to better my skills in blocking. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, blocking is how the actors move across the stage from one spot to another. This is obviously a very essential aspect of any theatrical production, but one that I hadn’t had much experience in in the past. I was grateful that I had the chance to hone these skills under Vecchio’s guide.
However, the biggest help my assistant directing role played throughout this process was the work I was able to accomplish with the understudies. Musical of Musical, while a small cast of four characters, is a taxing show, as it is almost entirely sung and danced through. With this, Vecchio found it was best to have an understudy cast, along with the overstudy cast. The understudy cast consisted of Daniel Sarmiento (Billy), Gabrielle Kaprak (June), Kayla Norris (Abby), and Brandon Luna (Jitter), and I had the great privilege to spend most of my time in the rehearsal space working with them. In a way, simply due to time constraints and the fact that Vecchio couldn’t be at two places at once, I was able to serve as the director for these actors. It was such an honor that I was able to fill such a position for these actors, and that they trusted me to guide them in that way too. Plus, it was invaluable, hands-on experience that you often wouldn’t receive to such an extent in an assistant directing role.
To now touch on my dramaturgy experience, it was enjoyable work that I got to dip into my more creative side for. In layman’s terms, a dramaturg acts as a theatre advisor. But dramaturgy is such a vast area of work that it can be hard to pinpoint all that a dramaturg might do within the production they are working on. For Musical of Musicals, a lot of my dramaturgy work involved finding production history of the musicals we were parodying, researching the unique styles that each composer dives into, and all details that would support the actors in understanding their characters better and help the design team focus on what archetype they were to emulate in each act.
To go along with my research, I chose to create a website and a poster board to represent my work. The website (linked here) contains: an overview of the production itself, a brief production history of Musical of Musicals, an analysis of the character archetypes the musical tackles, background information of the five composers featured, and a list of all of the musicals that have a direct parody in the show. It was super fun creating the website with all of the information I had gathered about this show during my research, and I’m pretty proud of the way that it turned out.
I created a poster board pop-up too, and it sat in the lobby of the theater for audience members to see when they walked in. It now lives in a featured tab on the website, since the board itself is, obviously, no longer in the theater. But it gave audience members the chance to match over forty different musicals to their respective composers. I thought it was a fun activity audience members could participate in to test their knowledge of different musicals, and it was a nice way to integrate them into acknowledging that different musicals were going to play a key role in our own. Plus, I got to see how familiar NCC audiences were with different musicals each night, with a surprising number of the musicals consistently being correct after each performance. My dramaturgy work on this show allowed me to fulfill my creative side, and I think it paired really nicely with the technical work I persuaded within my assistant directing role.
Reflecting on my time with this production now, without the stress of deadlines or homework running through my head, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities it gave me. Because musical theatre has held such an important role in my life, I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect musical for me to get my start (I mean, a musical about musicals, it’s perfect), and I hold nothing but appreciation for this experience. Going forward, I hope this semester is a little less chaotic than my last one, so I’ll have more time to write these articles. I may or may not have indulged in a lot of theatre last semester that I haven’t been able to properly dissect yet, so definitely be on the lookout for those updates in the future!
