Overtures - Darius Smith

Darius Smith gracefully conducts and plays off of
the Overtures students.

We are entering the period in Overtures when it's time to start really buckling down. In a little over a week, the Overtures students will show off all they have learned in a showcase in Signature's MAX Theatre. The showcase will naturally feature solos from the roster of students but will also feature a slew of group numbers featuring the entire Overtures company. One of the most exciting aspects for the students is getting to work with Darius Smith in preparing these group numbers.

Adrianna and Christina run
through Next Story.

Darius Smith is the music director of Overtures and has premiered several different original works in the DC area.Some of these include The Snowy Day at Adventure Theatre and U.G.L.Y. at The Kennedy Center. Not new to the area and Signature, Darius has worked on both Dreamgirls and Defying Gravity at Signature. In addition to directing music around the DC metro area, Darius is also an educator and currently coordinates the musical theatre program at Howard University. 

This is Darius's second year as the music director of Overtures and he couldn't be more excited to work with all of the talented students that this year brings to the table. I recently sat down with Darius and the students as they ran through the three group numbers for the showcase. The songs include "Magic to Do" from Pippin, "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from Hello, Dolly!, and "My Next Story" from Glory Days. This eclectic mix of massive group songs was a pleasure to watch in rehearsal as Darius instructed the students on the intricacies of each song. We are halfway through Overtures and the songs / performers / sequences are only going to get better as times goes on!

The Overtures Tenor and Bass section hard at work.

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Kurt Weill - Lasting Legacy

Last week, in preparation for the start of The Threepenny Opera, we here at the Signature Theatre Education blog explored the life of composer Kurt Weill. This week, just as the curtain is set to rise again at Signature, we want to share a little bit of the influence, writings, and legacy that Weill has had on the world of music and theatre. What follows are brief snippets of Weill’s writing on music and theatre as well as some side notes of our own as we explore the great composer.

During his time as a composer, Kurt Weill established himself as a new and original voice in German and American musical theater. Weill's formula for success in the theatre was a simple one. “Being a theatrical composer, I have to present my music in a manner which would be accepted by a realistic public.... I will have music for seventy-five percent of my story, but twenty-five percent will be dialogue. Sometimes this dialogue will be underscored by the orchestra as a dramatic moment is about to unfold. At other times, no music will be played at all.”

Kurt believed that in order to preserve realism he could not tell the whole story in music but must weave the spoken word into song for a blending of profound effects both musically and dramatically. Now, this may seem like a small inkling of creative constriction on the part of the composer, however, Weill puts these possible constraints in a different light. “The creative artist seeks independence, he wants to conceive his work freely, unaffected by outer compulsion. On the other hand, he needs some restraining influence to prevent his wandering in abstract spheres. He must know for whom he is creating. Only by considering his objective will he find the necessary spiritual background that prohibits an empty play with forms.”

Wiell's opinions on the creation of art are particularly relevant in today's theatrical world. As the world continues to change and become more interconnected, we see it's dependence on the arts and culture grow. The United States of America is one of the only countries in which theatre forms an active, vital part of cultural life and is fostering the development of the theatrical future. In America there there is a genuine interest in theatre not only in New York but in other cities the nation over. This American curiosity and natural attraction to theatre indicate that "the soil is favorable for development."

What has been developed since Kurt Wiell's passing has become modern musical theatre. The purest and most direct form of poetic theatre, musical theatre lifts the play immediately to a high level of feeling and makes spectators far more disposed to pursue the poetic line. Kurt Wiell wanted the people of the world to pursue the poetic lines of life and notice the beauty and weight of the world around them.

"One glance at New York at night, at an industrial photograph, at a flash of any newsreel, at a page of any newspaper, reveals to us the richness of romantic quality that life today contains...Here is where music's power could be so great." - Kurt Weill

Bretolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera runs from April 22nd - June 1st at Signature Theatre. Call 703 820 9771 for tickets and showtime information.

Clippings and quotes taken from:

•  Our Composers' Hope for the Future by Kurt Weill, Musical Digest, vol. 29, no. 4 (December 1946), pp. 16, 42
• The Future of Opera in America by Kurt Weill, Modern Music, vol. 14, no. 4 (May-June 1937), pp. 183-188
• The Alchemy of Music by Kurt Weill, Stage, vol. 14, no. 2 (November 1936), pp. 63-64

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Getting Personal

For the next two weeks, Alexandra, one of our many talented Overtures students, is taking over our blog. Check back for daily updates and come to the Overtures showcase Saturday at 11 AM in Signature's MAX Theatre!

Overtures students work on blocking for "King of New York," one of the group numbers they'll perform at the showcase.

In the past week and two days, our Overtures company has worked so incredibly well together. We have made great strides as an ensemble, making beautiful music and putting together tricky choreography. But at the end of the day we all go home with our individual homework and challenges to overcome. Whether running lyrics until all hours of the night so we won’t flub a word the next day or daring to stretch our emotional range in order to perform a more truthful monologue, we all recognize the work that must be done is, ultimately, personal.

Overtures has been like a buffet table; we are given multitudes of approaches to the work, ways to find vocal placement, ways to act a monologue, ways to connect to text and lyrics. Then we must pick and choose which approaches fit best. My swimmer’s shoulders do not drop into proper posture as easily as others, a fellow company member may have old knee injuries and alignment difficulties, and still another might simply psych themselves out every time a pirouette shows up in choreography. But we all still need to land that double, so we practice in our down time and when we return home at night after our eleven-hour days. We push past our own fears and inhibitions in order to be better the following morning.

During this evening’s staging rehearsal I was reminded just how personal and individually meaningful the work is and must be. Though we all sang the same words - “I pull myself together, I’m focused on the prize” - they clearly meant something different to every one of us. Our prize could be Broadway, maybe a Resident Artist contract with a company here in DC, or perhaps just graduating high school and heading off to a stellar collegiate theater program. We gave meaning to those words with a knowing smile, a flicker of hope in our eyes, similar enough but still personal.

Performing requires ruthless bravery: the willingness to take risks, to push ourselves beyond boxes of “type”, to test our presumed limits is integral to our training and development as actors. While we can be technically proficient, there are skills beyond the physical that we will not learn from manuals or how-to videos. Instead, we exhaustively search our souls in order to better bare them under the bright lights of the stage. And thankfully, at least for another four days, we are surrounded by an encouraging and truly caring group of fellow artists all going through the same process of discovery and personal perseverance.

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