SLT PROFILE: Brady Smith

Usually at least once after every production, an audience member will excitedly approach me in the lobby and ask “Where did you find all of these performers?  Do you hire them in?”.  And more often than not, they’re shocked to find out that all of our actors, dancers, singers, production crew, directors, choreographers, musicians and designers come from right here in the Upstate.  After all, community theatre should be about providing the “community” with not only opportunities to see quality theatrical productions, but should also provide local talent the opportunity to express that talent and have fun while they’re doing it. 

So here it is: 1) the first in a series of profiles, highlighting some of the people that make the Spartanburg Little Theatre work and  2) a spotlight on the cast of our upcoming production “Thoroughly Modern Millie”.

I first saw Brady Smith in SLT’s Spring 2008 production of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s CATS.  My first thought was “Where is he finding all of this energy?” and my second thought was “Is he going to be able to keep this up for 2+ hours”.  Well the answers, as it is, happened to turn out to be “I have no earthly idea”  and “Yes!”.  With boundless energy, an excellent voice and a spirit that reaches even the last row in the balcony, Brady has been a welcome addition to the Spartanburg Theatre scene:

NAME:  Brady Smith

AGE:  24

OCCUPATION:  Elementary school music teacher

JC (Jay Coffman):  What other roles have Spartanburg audiences seen you in?

BS (Brady Smith):  I played Mungojerrie (of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer) in last season’s production of CATS.

JC:  What role are you playing in “Thoroughly Modern Millie”?

BS:  I’m playing the role of Jimmy, a cocky, spoiled young man who is thrust into the world to find the real meaning of “happiness”.

JC:  What do you think your biggest challenges will be in portraying this character?

BS:  Getting the cocky swagger and attitude that Jimmy puts on.   I’m different from jimmy because I appreciate things and am very humble, hate praise and recognition, and am not as "forward" as Jimmy is.

JC:  When did you get your start acting, singing, dancing?

BS:  I started singing at the age of 4 and acting at the age of 9.

JC:  Well since then, have you had any stage experiences that you would quantify as your “best” or “favorite”?

BS:  CATS!

JC:  I know every actor has a “dream” part that they’d like to play one day (I’m still holding onto Rolf in Sound of Music at age 36).  What are your dream roles?

BS:  Paul in “A Chorus Line”.  The Emcee in “Cabaret” and anything in “42nd Street”!

JC:  Now, I sometimes think all the best Broadway songs were written for women.  Let’s imagine a world of genderless casting.  What role would you die to play?

BS:  Elphaba in “Wicked”.  Need I say more????

Come see Brady as Jimmy in The Spartanburg Little Theatre’s production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie” on March 6-8 and 13-15 at the Chapman Cultural Center in Downtown Spartanburg.  Tickets available at www.chapmanculturalcenter.org.  More information is available at www.spartanburglittletheatre.org.

A few of my favorite things…..

About a week ago I sat down to watch “Mamma Mia"!”, the recently adapted movie musical starring MERYL and featuring music by the God’s of perfectly crafted pop:  Bjorn and Benny of ABBA fame.  I mean, this movie is the top DVD seller of the year even surpassing “The Dark Knight” and hosts of well meaning friends and acquaintances said it was a must see.  Couldn’t be all bad, right?  Meryl, Pierce, Stellan, Christine, Julie, Colin, Amanda, add sparkly jumpsuits, a chorus of men in wet suits and flippers, and a sunny Mediterranean village perched on a rocky hillside and you’ve got movie magic, right?

Oh Lord, was I wrong.  By the end of it, if I had seen Meryl writhe on some rooftop or listen to Christine Baranski and Julie Walters cackle over their martini glasses or see another group of hot teenage stars cavort across a ridge or jump down a ladder or leap down a hillside, I would have screamed.  In fact the more I think about this movie, the more it infuriates me.  Don’t get me wrong, towards the end I started to have a little bit of fun, I mean I’m not that hopelessly jaded, but seriously, the whole thing added up to one big sunny and happy atrocity.

Now I feel somewhat guilty for not enjoying “Mamma Mia!”.  Whenever someone eagerly asks me how I liked it, I almost hate to let them down.  They just seem so invested in me having enjoyed it.  And I certainly don’t want to throw a wet blanket on their enthusiasm for the film, so I kind of stumble around a bit, complimenting individual actors on their performances, saying things like “Actually I kind of liked Pierce Brosnan’s performance.  The fact he couldn’t really sing, made it ever so charming”.

So in order to prove that I do, in fact, appreciate the genre of the movie musical (in fact, when done right, I down right LOVE it), I’ve compiled my own top 10 list of “My Favorite Movie Musicals”.  Notice I didn’t say “The 10 Best Movie Musicals”.  I’ll leave that to our very own cultural imperialists:  AFI.  These are simply 10 movie musicals that for various reasons I have come to adore.  So here goes:

10.  WEST SIDE STORY

From the opening whistles to the final gongs, this film is just what I like in a movie musical:  real drama, high energy dance numbers, athleticism, a pair of lovers you NEED to end up together and some of the most beautiful music ever written for a musical (Thanks Leonard and Stephen!).  And I’m a sucker for a musical with a tragic ending.  Hmm, now if Meryl had fallen off a craggy peak into the Mediterranean, we could talk.

9.  EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU

Woody Allen’s musical send up of the romantic dalliances of the upper crust Manhattan set came at a time when the movie musical was all but dead.  It made me believe in the genre again, simply because Allen turned the genre on its head.  It’s always hard for some people to see actors suddenly break into song, and then on top of that, to buy into the illusion that they have perfect voices.  Not the cast of “Everyone Says I Love You”.  The “Making Whoopee” number is side splitting.  But when Goldie Hawn dances into the air and over Woody Allen’s head on the banks of the Seine, I’m spellbound by the beauty of what it all means:  that  only in movie musicals are such things possible.

8.  SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS

Julie Newmar? Check.  A character named Dorcas?  Check.  Birds flying into the cheesy painted backdrops?  Check.  One of the most stunning dance sequences to ever hit the big screen?  Check.  Kicking the big budgeted and studio-favored “Briagdoon”’s butt at the box office?  BINGO!

7.  SINGING IN THE RAIN

Every time this one comes on television, I cannot help but sit and watch it.  And Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly hoofing it in the wee hours of the morning in perfect precision during “Good Mornin’” is movie musical perfection.  Oh, and you gotta love Lena.

6.  EVITA

I love an underdog.  So imagine my glee when I found myself cheering on an underdog (Madonna) playing an underdog (Eva Peron).  Her perfomance in this film is completely underrated, and Antonia Banderas kills it as Che.  Stunning filmmaking.  Oh and another tragic ending.  I’m starting to see a disturbing pattern.  In myself.

5.  DANCER IN THE DARK

Musical or anti-musical?  Who knows?  And I don’t even really care.  While this is not for everyone, Lars Von Trier’s Dogma 95 inflected musical starring my girl Bjork as the nearly blind Selma affected me so deeply that I almost embarrassed myself in a public movie theater.  I cried so hard for the last hour of the film that I was literally internally begging the movie to stop.  Musical numbers grow out of the clickety clack of a passing train or the sounds of a metal press or the scratching of a record.    Such a beautiful movie, but sad sad sad.  Forget the swan dress folks, in this film, Bjork is the real deal.  Oh yeah, and Joel Grey tap dances in a court room. Nuff said.

4.  THE MUSIC MAN

 

I can’t think of a bad number in this big bright happy romantic gem of a movie.  I mean, the minute Harold Hill gets off the train in River City and everyone starts singing at him, I totally wanted to move there.  Plus, the women had unbearably large hats, and the men wore lots of stripes.  Mostly I love this film because we used to gather on my parents’ bed in our pajamas and watch it every time it was on.  Usually during a PBS fund drive.  Oh, and I almost forgot, Opie Taylor sings “Wells Fargo Wagon” with the most unpolitically-correct lisp in this history of film.  “Amaryllitttthhhhhh!”

3.  SOUTH PARK:  BIGGER LONGER & UNCUT

The funniest first 45 minutes in film……EVER.  And probably the filthiest.  But what many people just don’t get, is that “South Park:  Bigger Longer & Uncut” is a near perfect send-up of the musical genre.   “La Resistance”, a montage of a song, screams “Les Miz”.  “Up There” is Satan’s tribute to “The Little Mermaid”.   Trey Parker and Matt Stone get it, and if you’re a musical theatre fan, you get it too.

2.  HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH

Okay, before I continue, if you are sensitive to language, sexuality, whatever, do NOT see Hedwig.  One time my mother called to say she was embarrassed because she had told all of her ladies who lunch to see this movie that I had said was fantastic, and they were horrified.  The movie was “Boogie Nights”.  Mind you, I never told her to recommend it to her friends, I just said that I liked it.

John Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedwig And the Angry Inch” is more rock opera than traditional musical.  The music is absolutely incredible, the script is hilarious, poignant, heartbreaking, uplifting all at the same time.  I never ever ever ever get tired of some Hedwig.  And what we learn from Hedwig is important:  that the search for your other half, the one who completes you, must begin inside.

1.  THE SOUND OF MUSIC

I know…how anticlimactic.  I can hear the groans already.  I mean, I might as well have chosen “The Wizard of Oz” and gotten it all over with.  But look at them, aren’t they just too darn cute?  Who didn’t want to be in a pre-Adolf equivalent of the Patridge family?  Who didn’t want to wear lederhosen made out of curtains?  Who didn’t want to kick it with a bunch of saucy nuns? Who didn’t want to do leaps around the interior benches of a gazebo?  Who didn’t want to wear a gauzy light blue dress and rock an orangish page boy?  Uh, maybe I should have stopped while I was ahead.  It’s still as close to movie musical perfection as you’ll get.

HONORABLE MENTION:  WIZARD OF OZ, MARY POPPINS, CHICAGO, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, BYE BYE BIRDIE, GREASE

ANY THOUGHTS?  AGREE? DISAGREE?

I know you are but what am I?

When I first moved to South Carolina almost 11 years ago, I really hadn’t prepared myself linguistically for what was to come. I mean, I spoke fluent German, I spoke fluent English, what else did I need to know?

I think “y’all” was the first new word to enter my vocabulary. I prefer it actually to what I was saying before: “you guys”. I actually think “y’all” is a more progressive form of address, you know, gender neutral and everything. After “y’all” came “cut on the light” and “mash the button” and “iddn’t” instead of “isn’t” and various other interesting twists on the English of our forefathers, some of which I found more useful than others.

But one day, about 3 or 4 months after I moved to the Upstate, I was standing on my driveway helping a friend load some things into her car. I asked her a question and she stopped what she was doing, looked at me and said “Do what?”.

Uh, what? I just stared at her. I had absolutely no idea what that meant. “Do what?”. I didn’t even know what the proper response was to that question. Was it some sort of game I didn’t know the rules for? What’s the answer to “Do what?”??? And for a brief moment I panicked. It was a total conversation killer. Finally I just sort of stuttered “W-w-what?”.

Well, yesterday I had a similar experience. At the very least it drudged up that same feeling of not knowing how to counter, to be linguistically incapable of response, to panic because you really needed more time to research the query, statement, whatever before you provided an adequate snappy retort, if indeed a snappy retort is what the question called for. I mean you don’t want to get snippy with someone who may have just complimented you, right?

Yesterday, someone called me “ARTSY-FARTSY”.

Shut up! I am not!

Um, thank you?

Sticks and stones blah blah blah

“Artsy-Fartsy”? What’s that supposed to mean? Is it a compliment? Is it an insult? Is it neither?

Well I knew it couldn’t be a compliment. Nothing as patronizingly diminutively cute as “artsy fartsy” could possibly be a compliment. Plus, you know, it includes the synonym for passing gas. “Artsy” sounds nice. But “artsy-fartsy” not so much. So compliment was out. That left me with insult or neither.

So I decided to look it up and here’s what I found. According to www.yourdictionary.com, this is what it means:

artsy-fartsy (ärt′sē färt′sē)

adjective

Slang pretentiously artistic, sophisticated, etc.

also arty-farty art′y-fart′y (ärt′ē färt′ē)

Ah, so artistic and sophisticated I’m okay with, but “pretentiously” artistic and sophisticated, I don’t think so. So I continued looking. According to www.thefreedictionary.com, artsy-fartsy is defined as such:

art·sy-fart·sy (ärts-färts)

adj. Vulgar

Pretentiously or affectedly artistic.

Um, there’s that P word again, and now “affected”, not to mention that the entire word is defined as Vulgar. This is starting to go downhill fast. Maybe it’s internet bias. Perhaps printed sources, such as real books might provide something a little bit less “not on my side”. So here goes:

ARTSY-FARTSY - "adj.; having an affinity for arty things. (U.S. slang, mid 1900s)" From "Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of Oaths, Curses, Insults, Ethnic Slurs, Sexual Slang and Metaphor, Drug Talk, College Lingo and Related Matters" by Richard A. Spears (New American Library, Penguin Putnam, New York, Third Edition, 2001)

Okay first off, what are arty things? And secondly why is this included in a dictionary of “insults, ethnic slurs, drug talk and related manners”???? At least it didn’t say anything about affection or pretention. So I looked a bit further:

artsy-fartsy
adjective (artsy-farts, ier)

1. (colloquial) A frivolous or dismissive description of someone or something that is artistic or pretentiously artistic.

Now this one I can live with. And as much as I suspected, the term “artsy-fartsy” may have more to do with the person who uses the word than the person they are attempting to describe. I enjoy this definition, as much as one can enjoy a definition. Maybe in calling me “artsy-fartsy”, this person (who is a friend who is not involved in the arts nor claims to understand the fascination with it) was simply being “dismissive” of a part of me, an interest I share with others, that he/she didn’t really understand. And in doing so, I’m sure they meant no harm, hence the moniker being “frivolous”. The “pretentious” part is still in the definition, but at least it gives the option of being “artistic OR pretentiously artistic”. Never before have I hung on two simple letters so desperately.

So, compliment or insult or neither? I’m going with neither.

Alright, now if you’ll excuse me I have a Metropolitan Opera live feed to watch on my large screen plasma TV, which is located in the pottery studio I had especially built with a state of the art kiln. Now if I could just get the cork out of this bottle of Dom, I could probably finally turn my attention to the private ballet training session I have with the instructor I flew in from the Bolshoi Ballet

Ciao!

What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a happenin’

All has been quiet on the Spartanburg Little Theatre front for the past few months. After the one two three four five punch of "Peter Pan", "The Jungle Book", "Noises Off", "The Elves and the Shoemaker" and "The Santaland Diaries" (all within a span of 4 months mind you) we've all taken a much needed break to cool our heels and gear up for what promises to be a jam packed Spring.

So what's on tap?

The Spartanburg Youth Theatre is first on the bill and is currently in rehearsals for "Wiley and the Hairy Man" which runs publicly February 13 and 14 (school time shows are February 11 and 12). Directed by Betsy Kneisley, this may not be the most well-known children's play, but it certainly is one of the best, with an excellent script and talented group of Spartanburg youth including Kyle McIntyre who you may remember as "Michael" in this season's "Peter Pan". Come out and support the 2nd oldest Youth Theatre in the state of South Carolina and the ONLY "by youth--for youth" Youth Theatre program in the entire state.

On Monday evening I was lucky enough to meet with the cast of our next Spartanburg Little Theatre production, the jam up extravaganza "Thoroughly Modern Millie". Just looking out at the cast, I was amazed at the talent that has come together to work on this show. Directed by John Fagan, with music direction from Ed Connolly and choreography by Peggy Magarahan, this show is in good hands. In fact, I believe this is the Upstate premiere of "Thoroughly Modern Millie". Mark the first two weekends of March out on your calendar and we'll see you there.

The Spartanburg Youth Theatre is also gearing up for its third round of classes. Matt Giles, the Artistic Director of the Youth Theatre has revamped the entire curriculum with new levels and longer classes. We're really excited to see some changes happening across the board.

And finally, we have a new coordinator for "Imagine That", our teen improv theatre group. Her name is Sterling Kenny and I know she has a lot of fabulous ideas for "Imagine That". If you've never seen "Imagine That" perform, it really is something, tackling hard to talk about issues with teens and youth.

So that's the haps folks. Now take a deep breath Jay and jump on in....

Judy says it does. So there!

Recently I had coffee with a journalist in town who was interviewing me for a column he was to write for a local newspaper/journal. We chatted about my relationship to local theatre, various roles I had played, productions I had directed, my childhood, my introduction to theatre and various other topics that left me feeling a bit self-centered and narcissistic. To talk about yourself for over an hour and leave not feeling slightly on the self-important side is a talent I haven’t yet mastered. However, towards the end of the conversation my friend, the journalist side-swiped me with a question I hadn’t anticipated and one that I wasn’t necessarily prepared for. His question was quite simple: “Do you think community theatre still has a place?”. I was dumbfounded. Immediately taken aback at the audacity of someone to even ask such a thing or to somehow doubt that something that I hold so dear has a “place” in our community, I was almost became defensive. Of course it does! How could you even ask such a thing?

Days later I was still thinking about this question and I began to understand where he might have been coming from. Those who aren’t involved do not automatically see the significance of something that they aren’t necessarily passionate about. How incensed do you think the local ladies’ quilting bee would be if I waltzed into their meeting and asked “Hmmm, do you really think you all NEED to be doing this? Is there really a ‘place’ for you?” Well, it’s been a few weeks since our conversation and I’m still thinking about it. My answer is the same. But as always I’ve chewed on it almost daily since the question was posed and I started to think about why community theatre does have a place, and more importantly, why it should.

When I was young I lived in Southern California. On Sunday afternoons, after we watched Popeye, a show came on called “Family Film Festival” where this man, who I seem to recall looked like a combination of Mr. Rogers and Jack Lalane, would introduce various movies from the 1930’s through the 1960’s. I remember watching all of the old school “Pippi Longstocking” movies and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” on the “Family Film Festival”. But it was “Summer Stock” an old Judy Garland movie, that I remember with the most fondness and that I still catch from time to time on AMC.

In “Summer Stock”, a big band of crazy theatre folk are using some Judy’s barn and farm to rehearse and put on a big ole musical. I seem to recall that she had a very stodgy husband/boyfriend and that she’s not in the show, but that she’s somehow involved in the production and the lead female is a real brat and the male lead is a stiff poser and that somehow she and Gene Kelly end up starring in the show and falling in love and all that mess. It wasn’t really the love story that was of interest to me, it was that there were all these actors and singers and dancers and designers and directors and musicians AND they were all living on this farm together and they would rehearse their show ALL DAY. I was fascinated. I mean, how cool would that be?

Everything they did was infused with a heightened sense of camaraderie, a “pull this show up by its bootstraps” spirit, and the collective knowledge that “we’ve got to get this thing done and it’s going to be the BEST SHOW EVER!!!!”. Add in the various and sundry “Show-mances”, the drama of recasting, and the discovery of real and fresh talent and I was completely hooked. Years later, this is still what I want community theatre to be and it is still why I keep going back, over and over again.

So I guess my answer is this: Of course community theatre has a place. If the insinuation is that live community theatre is an outdated form of entertainment, that crowds are dwindling because of a wealth of new entertainment options, that children and adults alike have other things they would rather be doing with their increasingly decreased amount of free time, then you may unfortunately have a point. Times and tastes do change.

But go to a rehearsal of 30 eager teachers, doctors, lawyers, retirees, sound engineers, secretaries, students, parents, etc. who are giving everything they’ve got to bring songs and characters and sets and sound to life. Go to a performance where anywhere from 100 to 500 eager audience members are hanging on the actors’ every word, watch childrens’ faces light up when Peter Pan flies high above the stage, watch adults cry as Grizabella sings “Memory”, buy in to the infectious laugher and sense of community you feel when you are laughing your guts out surrounded by a mass of other people who are also laughing their guts out. Get the real stories behind the actors, the crew, the organization: the marriages, engagements, divorces, deaths, diseases, graduations, birthdays, friendships, heartbreaks, successes and the romances. Watch the infectious energy, the undying spirit, the unwavering support, the admirable dedication to doing yourself, each other and your community proud. This is what community theatre is and should be all about.