By Chuck Yarborough, The Plain Dealer
John Kuntz, The Plain DealerRob Gibb, foreground, who plays Herbie, the agent and love interest for Madame Rose in “Gypsy,” belts out one of his numbers in rehearsal for the Brecksville Theatre on the Square production.
PREVIEW
“Gypsy”
What: Brecksville Theatre on the Square presents the musical story based on the memoirs of burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, starring Monica Olejko as matriarch Rose Hovick and Bridget Chebo in the title role. Directed by Geoffrey Short, with musical direction by Georgiann Bodle and choreography by Katie Kocik.
When: Opens at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 30. Runs at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through May 16.
Tickets: $12; $10, seniors 65 and older andstudents through high school.
Information: 440-526-3443 or go to Btots.org.
Geoff Short’s mama was mad.
Geoff was a latchkey kid, on his own while his single mom went to work. And here he’d gone and done it again: He’d made their garage a shambles by turning it into a theater to stage a show he’d written, starring every kid in the community he could corral.
Here it is a few years later, and a 44-year-old Geoff Short is still rounding up kids in the community to be in shows. Only it’s not in his mama’s garage, or at the one in the house he shares in Berea with his wife, Lisa, and daughters Michael and Bailey.
The love of theater that drove Short to pull his “Our Gang”-worthy stunts and “put on a show” survives in him and the vast and loyal pool of local talent that could “go pro” but happily chooses to perform in the local playhouses that blanket Northeast Ohio.
More than 30 of those houses dot the scenery here, bringing “Our Town” and “Arsenic and Old Lace,” “Up the Down Staircase” and “Twelve Angry Men” and “The Producers” to the theaterati who like to think outside of the idiot box for their entertainment.
Some are larger, such as the Cassidy Theatre in Parma Heights; some have storied pasts, such as the venerable Chagrin Valley Little Theatre in Chagrin Falls. Some do a couple of shows a year, like the Near West Theatre on Cleveland’s West Side, and some are prolific, like Huntington Playhouse in Bay Village, which churns out seven or so shows a year.
The budgets under which these houses operate are as varied as the shows they produce and the spaces the occupy, Short said.
Theaters have to make enough to cover production staff, royalties, set construction and rent. A full-scale musical can cost as much as $20,000 to stage, for example. So theater budgets can range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said.
Thankfully, plenty of Northeast Ohioans are still willing to surrender to their inner Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla for a chance to become someone else for two-night shows and a matinee a week, four times a year.
While their numbers may not be as great as a few decades ago — as Short noted, there are too many other options for time today — those who do are passionate about it, and will travel large distances several times a week for the privilege.
Short’s current production, “Gypsy,” which opens at Brecksville Theatre on the Square on Friday, has a large cast whose hometowns range from Parma Heights to Amherst. It’s a perfect example of community theater in Northeast Ohio.
Monica Olejko, who lives in Lorain County and teaches dance in Berea, is one of those cast members. Watching rehearsals, it’s sometimes difficult to see whether she is stage mother Rose Hovick . . . or stage mother Rose Hovick is “Mo” Olejko. Even her public Facebook profile has a bit of that Rose attitude: “I have a hard time compromising; then again, I’m hardly ever wrong.”
Popular musicals pay for other shows
That is one reason why Short recruited her for this project, critical to Brecksville on the Square. Musicals are the money tree for most theaters, said Short, who spent two years as head of the board of Cassidy in Parma Heights.
Popular ones such as “Gypsy” and “Nunsense” draw the crowds — and their accompanying dollars — that make it possible to stage other shows throughout the year. “You see ‘Annie’ over and over because it works” is how Short put it.
“Royalties are based on a number of factors: size of the theater, number of performances, ticket prices, etc.,” Short wrote in an e-mail. “Musicals are always more expensive (musicians are paid, not volunteers) and the ‘surefire’ hits (i.e., ‘Sound of Music,’ ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,’ etc.) are usually the most expensive.
“For a theater like Brecksville Theatre on the Square, I know that ‘Gypsy’ royalties were close to $3,000. At the larger Cassidy Theatre, [Stephen] Sondheim’s ‘Assassins’ . . . was closer to $2,000.
“For a musical, you can count on at least a couple thousand in royalties alone. Plays are probably half that,” Short wrote.
So if you’re going to spend money to make money — or at least enough to cover expenses — you need the best. That’s the other reason Short went for Olejko as Madame Rose.
At 59, she exudes a dancer’s lithe grace, packaged with a nun’s ruler-wielding insistence on getting things right, which comes from having spent much of her own theater career in the director’s chair.
Even now, as she is rehearsing for her “Gypsy” role, Olejko is directing and choreographing “West Side Story” for Elyria High School. That show opened Friday.
Nonprofessional actors chose a different path
Olejko is a special talent, but she is by no means Northeast Ohio’s lone talent, said Short, who has directed dozens of plays at area theaters and performed as a singer and actor in even more.
His “day job” as marketing and promotions manager at Jerry Bruno Productions, the area’s largest musical-entertainment agency, also provides insight into what’s out there.
Geoff ShortMonica Olejko is Mama Rose.
“There are many performers, especially in Cleveland, which is NOT Podunk,” Short said. “Cleveland is a big market. With PlayhouseSquare being the second-largest performing arts center in the country, we’ve got a lot of talent here.
“Some of that talent has chosen not to become ‘professional’ actors or performers, or have just chosen a different career path. But they happen to be just as talented and just as passionate about performing or producing theater as someone who has chosen to go to New York and try to make it on Broadway,” he said.
Olejko is one of those people, according to Short. She’s also a veteran director herself, at professional theaters such as the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood and at community theaters. For Short, who realized the “Gypsy” cast was going to have to be large, diverse and young, the idea of having someone who’s spent time as the boss was kind of like having a veteran football player who’s a coach on the field.
Olejko wasn’t quite so sure. Because it’s been a few years since she’s been on the business side of the curtain, “I wasn’t sure I was directable.”
But the desire to be onstage apparently never goes away.
“There are two reasons,” she said in an early rehearsal as Short was leading his cast through the initial blocking of the show. “The applause fills a lot of gaps, and it’s a wonderful social thing.”
And it is. That’s one reason why people will travel the distances they do.
“I’m always amazed at where people will travel from,” said Short.
Those distances and other demands on potential players’ time are probably the key challenges that community-theater administrators, directors and producers face, he said.
“Back in the ’70s and ’80s, participation in a community theater show was a big deal,” said Short. “You got the best talent from all over the region because there wasn’t as much to do, and certainly not as many venues, as many theaters, as many entertainment options as there are now.”
An audition today is likely to draw maybe 20 people at best, he said. With that in mind, savvy directors like Short “try to adjust rehearsal schedules and become very organized at creating schedules so people can afford to be in a show.”
A typical community-theater production is in rehearsal for six to eight weeks, from 7 to 9 p.m. three nights a week. It’s a lot different in the pro world.
“I just finished being in a production, ‘The Blue Door’ at Dobama Theatre,” he said. “The rehearsal schedule was one where it was short in time — about a month — so it was every night, which was difficult.
“But you’re being compensated for that,” he said. “Community theater is a very different animal.”
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[PDF] | [Original article on Cleveland.com]
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