Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 617
(upbeat music) - Welcome back in everyone to a fantastic new whisper in the wings from stage whisper. We are joined by an incredible artist with a fantastic show. So excited to dive into this. Today we have the director Ian Silverman, who's here to speak to us about Tiatro Granitecello's presentation of Beyond the Horizon. It's playing September 15th at La Mama, and you can get your tickets and more information by visiting Granitecello.org. We can't wait to dive more into this world premiere of this new production. So let's go ahead and welcome on our guests. Ian, welcome into Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper. - Hello, so excited to be here. - I'm so happy you're here. I can't wait to jump into this. This is amazing. This is a musical adaptation, if I remember right, of Eugene O'Neill's first published work. So why don't we start by having you tell us a little bit about what this piece is about? - Yeah, so this is an operatic adaptation of Beyond the Horizon. The music's composed by Nicholas Flagello, and the librettos by Walter Simmons. What's really interesting about the piece is it was composed 50 years ago, but has never been performed. So this is the first time that it's gonna be performed. Nicholas Flagello has since passed on, but Walter Simmons is still with us and he'll be very involved in the process of bringing this to life for the first time in 50 years. The play is incredible. It's based, the story's based on in this family in the early 1900s that live in New England, they're farmers. When it really follows these two brothers, Robert, who dreams of sailing and exploring the world and wanting to leave his surroundings, and his brother Andy, who's like the consummate farmer and son, he's in love with a girl next door, Ruth. But then we find out that Ruth doesn't really love Andy and in fact, she loves her, Robert. And Robert decides to be with Ruth and not leave and stay and try to cultivate the farm, even though he knows nothing about it. And Andy is scorned and leaves. And then the whole show, we follow over the course of eight years, the deterioration of the family because of these choices. - Wow, wow. What a gripping story, I love it. So how did you come upon this piece? - Yeah, so as I said, it was composed 50 years ago, but never been performed in the librettist approach, Stefanos Coronios, the artistic and general director of Teotric Ratichelo about commissioning the piece, of performing it finally. And I came in contact with Stefanos because I was cold calling almost every general director in the country for small mid-tier opera companies with my resume or my portfolio. I've been very fortunate to work with some of the best directors, like the most prestigious opera directors in the world, like Francesca Zambarallo and Tom Razzouloon and James Robinson and assisting in associating, the associate directing for them in the past couple of years, but looking to branch out into my own work. I recently won the Opera America, Richard Elby Tobin, director of design or competition. And so Stefanos knew my work from the Opera America Conference presenting our concept of fellow travelers. And he was like, "Oh, let's see what you would do with this." And we've been getting along like gangbusters ever since and I'm really excited for the opportunity. And that is amazing. Congratulations as well. Our order is fabulous. So at the time of this recording, I know we are a couple months out from the show getting fully produced on its feet, but what has it been like developing it so far? - Yeah, so this is actually my 13th world premiere, but my first as a director. But I've gone through the process assisting and associate directing for lots of operas working with living composers and seeing how the process goes along. What's amazing is the source material is just so rich. The play is exquisite and so gripping. The drama and the story is so well laid out. So we don't need to do a lot of work in that aspect of like breaking the story. And this Opera really stems close to the play. A lot of the text is pulled right from the Yo-Neo play and set to music. But because we're performing at Lamama, which is this legendary experimental theater, they really wanted us to push to the experimental nature of the theatricality in the storytelling. So, and of course, the limitations of budget and trying to do as much as we can with as little to make the story as impactful as possible really sort of drove the creativity of how do we tell the story in an engaging and minimalist way that feels fresh and new and exciting. - That is incredible. That is absolutely incredible. Wow. So with this piece that we've kind of talked about, I mean, it's very relatable, you know, boy likes girl, girl likes other boy, yada yada yada. You know, is there a message or thought that you were hoping the audiences take away from the show? - Yeah, I think it really is a cautionary tale of not trusting your inner desires. I think what as this family falls apart, they reevaluate their choices and what led them to where they are. And Robert sort of took the easy path by choosing family and love when his heart was really telling him that he wanted to explore and go beyond and see what the world has to offer. And because he doesn't do that and he's put in a situation where he's not set up for success, things fall apart. So the brothers sort of go down diverging paths and we deal with the consequences of those choices. So I think I really want audience members to take stock of their own life and evaluate like, what do you want in life? I'm also reading the novel Hello Beautiful by Anna Napolitiano right now. And the themes are very similar of like going through life and evaluating your choices and trusting your gut of what your inner instinct is telling you to do. - That is fantastic. You love those ideas, very relatable ideas. And it leads to my final question for this first part which is who are you hoping to have access to beyond the horizon? - Yeah, and because it's a one night only show and it's at La Mama, which doesn't have a large seating capacity, we already have very limited tickets left. So get those tickets fast. But one of the things that I love that Teotra Grazicello does is they have, we'll have an open dress rehearsal for schools from low-income communities and also elderly groups and people with low socioeconomic opportunity to be able to get to see the work. And I think that's really important to get to you, share this work with as many people as we can given the resources we have. (gentle music) (gentle music) - Well, for the second part of our shows, we love giving our listeners a chance to get to know our guests a little bit better. Pick your brains, if you will. And I would love to start by asking you, what or who inspires you? What playwrights, composers, or shows have inspired you in the past? Or are just some of your favorites? - Yeah, so most of my work is an opera, but musical theater really is my passion and my background. My favorite musical is "Hello, Dolly." So I love that your mission statement quotes "Dolly Levi." But I think this is a really exciting opportunity because it's getting to dive in to do something more intimate and dramatic. The piece that I won the opera America petition was "Fellow Travelers," which is a contemporary opera by Greg Spears that deals with the lavender scare and gays in the government. There was just a Showtime series actually made about it. And that's one of my favorite pieces of contemporary opera. I love contemporary opera because it's so exciting about all the new stories that can be told. But when it comes to more traditional works, Guccini and Massanay are my favorite opera composers because they just understand dramatic timing in a way that is so fresh and modern. And I think that a lot of those aspects are in this piece as well. It's very Guccini-esque and sort of the unfolding of the story. - I love, love those inspirations. That's wonderful. Let me ask you, as you mentioned, you primarily work in the opera world, but what is your favorite part about working in the theater and in the opera, just in the performing arts in general? - Yeah, so my background was I grew up doing community theater and musicals all through school. And then I was a classical trained singer in undergrad and then decided I was more interested in the behind the scenes stuff and made the transition and have never looked back. But what I love about this work is just the collaboration of live theater and the live aspect of it. Like, it's one of the few things that can't really be taken over by AI because of the magic of people working together and creating something that's transient, that only exists in the moment that it exists. And you can capture it in video, but it's still not the same as the alchemy that happens when you have humans in a room creating something together. - I love that answer. I absolutely love that answer. And it leads to my favorite question to ask guests, which is what is your favorite theater memory? - So going back to "Hello, Dolly," I saw the recent revival with all three different leading ladies. So I saw it first with Donna Murphy, and then it was like, I have to come back and see this with Bette. And so I waited three hours in the cold and then did "Standing Room Only for Bette," which was phenomenal. And then I saw Bernadette Peters opening night. And so it was so magical to go and see that three different times with three different leading ladies and see how the work changed, but then also how the core of it stayed the same. I saw three different Corneliuses, but I saw Kate Baldwin all three times. So it was just so interesting to see how one piece of theater can morph through the iterations. - And it's amazing. I love that. Well, as we wrap things up, I would love to know, do you have any other projects or productions coming on the pipeline? We might be able to plug for you. - Yeah, so I'm really excited this year. I have two productions that I'm associate directing at the Atlanta Opera with "Tomer's Balloon." I'm doing the "Magic Flute" there in the fall and "Smelly," a handle opera in the spring. And then I'll be returning to the Houston Grand Opera to assist Francesca Zembello on her production of "West Side Story" and a new production of "Ton Hoiser," which will have like a chorus of 80 people. There'll be like over 100 people in the cast. It's a four hour evening. It's opera on the greatest, the grandest scale of all. So I'm really excited to be a part of that. It'll be my first Wagner Opera and to get to do something so big will be really exciting and brand new. Like the new production is all being built for Houston. - Wow, just, wow, that sounds amazing. Enormous and amazing. Well, it sounds like there's some things we need to keep tabs on and that leads to my final question, which is if our listeners would like more information about "Beyond the Horizon" or about you, maybe they'd like to reach out to you. How can they do so? - Yeah, so my website's EenSilverman.com and to learn more about Teatro Gorticello, Gorticello.org. And it's their 30th anniversary, so they have lots going on. It's really exciting that I can be a part of such a big anniversary for them and help them bring into their fourth decade. - Oh, that's amazing, amazing. Well, Enorm, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me, for sharing this amazing world premiere. I'm so excited about this piece. I can't wait to see it. Robbo are ready to all of you involved with this. This sounds so exciting. So thank you so much for your time today. - Thanks, Andrew. - My guest today has been the amazing director Een Silverman who joined us to talk about Teatro Gorticello's presentation of the world premiere of "Beyond the Horizon", playing September 15th at La Mama. You can get your tickets and more information by visiting Gorticello.org. You're going to want to get those tickets very, very quickly because they are selling that fast. So head over to that website, get your tickets. It's also a great place where you can get more information as well as at Een's website, EenSilverman.com. We'll have all of this information posted in our episode description, as well as on our social media posts. But right now, this is such an exciting production. You want to get your tickets. Again, the show is entitled "Beyond the Horizon" and we'll be playing September 15th. So until next time, I'm Andrew Cortez, reminding you to turn off your cell phones, unwrap your candies, and keep talking about the theater. - In a stage, whisper. Thank you. (upbeat music) - If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review, like and subscribe. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Stage Whisper Pod. - And feel free to reach out to us with your comments and personal stories at stagewhisperpod@gmail.com. - And be sure to check out our website for all things Stage Whisper and theater. You'll be able to find merchandise, tours, tickets and more. Simply visit stagewhisperpod.com. Our theme song is "Maniac" by Jazzar. Other music on this episode provided by Jazzar and Billy Murray. You can also become a patron of our show by logging on to patreon.com/stagewhisperpod. 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