Interview: Every Year Seems Like an Anniversary: MSMT Previews Its 61st Season

"It's always hard to follow an anniversary season, where you've pulled out all the stops for that special celebration," confides Maine State Music Theatre's Artistic Director, Curt Dale Clark, as he sits down with Broadway World Maine to preview the company's upcoming 61st season. "It's a bit scary because after the anniversary, then, what next? But the beautiful thing about what we do for a living [in the theatre] is that every year seems like an anniversary. MSMT has carved out a niche here in Brunswick where we pull out all the stops year after year. Our public expects it, and it is our job to do it!"

Clark, who is entering his seventh season as Artistic Director in 2019, has spearheaded an extraordinary period of growth and innovation for the company. Asked which new initiatives he is most excited about this year, he replies, "The thing I am most proud of this season is that people now have the ability to become what we are calling Super Subscribers with main stage, children's, and concert series subscriptions. Many, many folks have taken advantage of this opportunity and have expressed pride in being Super Subscribers!"

His desk arrayed with neatly ordered folders holding casting information, Clark acknowledges that "The puzzle of programming and casting at MSMT gets harder every year; as we add programming, the web gets more tangled. Tons of artists want to work for MSMT, which is a good thing, but now that we have expanded our programming, - and we will likely expand farther -we are going to need people to spend more time here in Brunswick."

Indeed, the lineup for 2019 is an ambitious one with four main stage shows, three Theatre for Young Audiences productions, three concert stagings, and two co-productions that span a broad stylistic range and require exceptional depth and flexibility from the artists. Asked about the versatility this demands, Clark says, "We need the most well-rounded performers possible; they have to be very good at a great many things. Artistically, I only have twelve weeks to give the people throughout the area whatever they think is their favorite type of show, and each person has a different idea of what that favorite is, so we have to cover a great many bases."

The MSMT 2019 programming appears to do just that. The main stage kicks off with what Clark is calling "one of the largest dance shows we have ever done," Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies, co-directed by Marc Robin and Clark. "Great music never dies," he says. Nothing makes me happier than to have young people walk out of the theatre having discovered music they had not heard before and have them say 'That music was great!' It's part of our job to make sure they get to hear this music."

In the second slot is a grand-scaled new musical, created by Clark and Marc Robin, Treasure Island A Musical Adventure, which will receive its East Coast premiere at MSMT under the direction of Mark Martino. Clark seems pleased that despite this production being uncharted territory for the MSMT public, there has been a very positive buzz which has been generated from the critical response to the world premiere in Lancaster in September 2018 and also from a local initiative,The Treasure Island Library Project in which MSMT and seven area libraries have created multi-discipline events to promote the novel and the musical. Asked why audiences should embrace this musical, Clark replies, "Robert Louis Stevenson is one of the greatest authors of all time, though his popularity has ebbed and flowed over the years. Marc and I created our musical based on his novel, and it our hope that the show will send people back to the source material. The book used to be required reading. Treasure Island was the Harry Potter of its day, and Stevenson's legacy includes such mega hits as Pirates of the Caribbean. MSMT's production will be essentially the same as that of the world premiere, though Clark says they have made a few cuts, and scaled the physical production to fit the specifications of the Pickard Theater. "Many of the same cast are returning, and the heart of the show will be identical."

Clark says he is especially excited because this is only the second large-scale new work MSMT has mounted in recent years, the first being Chamberlain A Civil War Romance in 2014. "New work is incredibly important to me; MSMT is incredibly important to me; Treasure Island is incredibly important to me, so to combine these three things in a three week period at MSMT ....needless to say, I am incredibly excited!"

The third production, Hello, Dolly!, directed by Donna Drake and choreographed by Rhonda Miller, is another big show, and Clark realizes that the fact that a revival just closed on Broadway makes expectations run high. "I consider it the kind of show that is in our wheelhouse - something we do best - and I am hopeful that even if audience members have see it multiple times before, they will find something fresh in our production, at the same time that we will bring it to a new generation as well."

The final main stage show is "one of the most recognizable titles ever, and it hasn't been on MSMT's stage since 1961." Clark is, of course, referencing The Wizard of Oz, which he and Marc Robin will co-direct and create the complex stagecraft needed to bring the dazzling magic of the classic movie to life on the Pickard stage.

And, if all that were not enough to keep the entire company busy, MSMT will undertake two co-productions this summer, adding a new collaboration with Lewiston's Public Theatre in Lewiston, Grease in June, and continuing with the fourth co-production with Portland Stage of Ain't Misbehavin' in August in Portland. Grease will have a youthful, age- appropriate cast and be directed by Christopher Schiaro with Raymond Marc Dumont as choreographer, while Ain't Misbehavin' will combine the extraordinary talents of E. Faye Butler as director and Kenny Ingram as choreographer. Clark comments, "I like to call E. Faye a force of nature and Kenny is the male version of that force, so when you combine these two, the audience is in for an amazing show! And, like Sophisticated Ladies, it will bring the unbelievable music and energy of Fats Waller to downtown Portland."

In addition to directing in Portland,' E. Faye Butler will star in Sophisticated Ladies with her colleague Felicia Fields, and then the two will, in Clark's words, "blow the roof off the Pickard in the second concert series program, Lettin' the Good Times Roll. This Monday night series will also feature Scott Moreau in his original one-man Johnny Cash tribute, Walk the Line. Moreau, who riveted audiences last year in Million Dollar Quartet with his portrayal of the country singer, gives, according to Clark, "one of those performances that make all the other performers stop dead in their tracks to watch him." ThenThe Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber will close the series, as a demanding choice for the annual intern show. "Andrew Lloyd Webber comes originally from the world of opera, and his music is very challenging and difficult, " Clark says. "I take the education portion of what we do here very seriously. And doing a show like this is absolutely the best way to send that intern company away better than they were when they got here."

And, of course, the intern company and local young artists will take active roles in MSMT's Theatre for Young Audiences performances, which for the first time this year have three productions that are offered as a subscription series in an effort to encourage children to become regular theatre-goers. The series features Robin and Clark's Snow White, a very different take on the story in which the dwarves are all historical characters and Snow White is a non-traditional heroine, Clark says, "It will make the audience think." Drewe and Stiles, the creators of Mary Poppins on Broadway who have written a very modern take on The Three Little Pigs story, and "the most popular children's show MSMT has ever produced, Robin and Clark's The Little Mermaid, round out the series.

"I want to make sure all our Super Subscribers, who come to everything we do, feels they have made a wise choice," says Clark.

And with six decades of history to build on, as MSMT starts its 61styear, where does Clark see the theatre positioned in the Maine community and on the greater theatre scene? "Locally, we are firmly entrenched in the Midcoast region as the major outlet for the arts. Nationally, we are poised to Take That next step. Hopefully, we will be able in the next few years to figure out a second performance space, where we can produce smaller shows in addition to our main stage season at the Pickard on the Bowdoin campus and give the town of Brunswick more days to enjoy the arts."

Photos courtesy of MSMT and the Fulton Theatre

For more information on MSMT's 2019 season and outreach activities and events, visit www.msmt.org