Grounded in the music

Tom Pinney

It only took three years after leaving high school for me to get back into the theater, and my return to the stage was something else.

In high school, my credits ranged from Depression-era comedies to Hamlet to Grease my senior year. Each one was great, but none of them prepared me for walking into an audition for the Ohio Valley Summer Theater’s production of Ragtime.

The first thing to note was that our director, Dale Shields, had made a career after graduating from Ohio University directing around the nation, including on Broadway. Oh, hey intimidation, didn’t see you there.

You can think everything about your ability, but when you go in front of a man who had turned away actors on Broadway, everything you think about yourself goes out the window. This guy was a pro.

Nervous, I performed my monologue before jumping into my song. I’ve always been able to calm down while singing, and my song, “All that’s Known” from Spring Awakening, was perfect for my nerves because it grounded me – right in the middle of my range, not too high or low… comfortable.

And eight measures in, Dale stops me. “I’ve heard plenty,” he said. “You’re a good singer, but you’re safe. Learn this song, and sing it tomorrow in the callback.”

He handed me “Journey On,” the third song in the show, which gives both Father and Tateh a chance to show off a bit of their ranges. And as I left, I got scared.

My audition was at 9:40 Friday night. The callback was Saturday at 10 a.m.

I came back the next day, having listened to and sang the song several times to get to know it. Almost immediately, Dale started paring down his choices for each role by having them sing the songs he handed them, and one by one, all of these brilliantly talented people sang, to nods from Dale.

I got up, singing Father’s lines in “Journey On,” and got a nod myself. I had done well, and later found out that I had done well enough to be cast as Father.

It took us six weeks to put Ragtime together and ready for the stage, in the midst of which we had a severe weather system known as a derecho tear through Athens and, in the hottest part of the summer, take out power for the town for as much as a week in some places. But when we took the stage for the first time for our first audience, none of that was a reality.

Just like that, it was 1906, and the Baker Theater in Kantner Hall was transformed to New Rochelle, New York. The audience spent a little over three hours entranced by our performance, this big, beautiful thing we’d spent half the summer working on to make sure it was perfect, and for the next three weeks, a ticket was a hot commodity.

But I didn’t care about any of that. The theater could’ve been empty and the effect would have been similar.

Don’t get me wrong. Having a full house greet you when the lights come up is quite a feeling, but for actors, the audience is only part of the equation.

We’re there not just to put on a great performance for those that show up, but for ourselves. For some of us, acting is a passion; for others, it’s a hobby.

For me, it was – and still is – an outlet.

I love telling other people’s stories, as I’ve said before in these pages. It’s my favorite part of being a reporter: I get to tell your stories for everyone else to read, because your stories are phenomenal.

So, for three weeks, I got to tell a story of change as my character goes from an uptight, racist fireworks tycoon to a loving, caring, sympathetic man… who is still a fireworks tycoon. My emotions to everyone, from Coalhouse to my own wife, changed right in front of everyone as I realized that I was wrong.

I put on Father’s story like the ties he wore throughout the play. And boy, it was refreshing. It was everything I dreamed of for my return to the stage and so, so much more.

Musicals keep me grounded like reality sometimes can’t. Every time I step on the stage for another musical, I do so excited and ready to tell another story.

I’m reciting lines that aren’t my own, and I’m singing songs coming from someone else’s heart, but it all feels so real. It’s the strangest thing in the world, but every bit of it just feels so real.

When you’re acting in a musical or a play, putting on the character can be one of the most challenging things in the world. In my time, I’ve played people in a range of ages, mostly under 40, but each character has had at least a few parallels to my own life, especially when I played them.

When I played Bob Cratchit, I related to his humble and frugal lifestyle, his worries about providing for his family. As Father, I felt his stubbornness and his character transformation, as it mirrored my own.

Even as a kid in the chorus of Grease, I related to the show overall, and my character choices reflected.

Musicals are more than just random stories someone else wants to tell. They’re more than unnatural lines and songs in seemingly inappropriate times.

Musicals are reminders that, no matter what’s going on around you, if you have a song in your heart, life can be pretty awesome.

Plus, there’s nothing that has the ability to keep other people on their toes like spontaneously breaking out in song.

Tom Pinney is a news reporter for the Maryville Daily Forum.