Interview: Daniel Thomas of YOU CAN'T STOP THE BEAT at 42nd Street Moon Helps Craft a Joyful, Star-Studded Virtual Gala

For oh-so many reasons, it seems there is finally a feeling of optimism in the air as we emerge from the dark days of 2020. San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon has decided to capitalize on that with their star-studded virtual Gala You Can't Stop the Beat, which streams on Sunday, February 28th beginning at 6:00pm PST. You Can't Stop the Beat will be hosted by Broadway actor and beloved "Moonie" Jason Graae and feature performances from a number of Tony winners and nominees. Musical theatre luminaries Liz Callaway, Michael Maguire, Faith Prince and Emily Skinner, plus dozens of other musical theater artists from the Bay Area and beyond will perform numbers from favorite musicals such as Hairspray, Come From Away, Bye Bye Birdie, Hamilton and many more. All proceeds from the virtual gala will support programs that are critical to the expansion of Moon's programming and continuation of their mission - including MoonSchool's education and outreach programs and the renovation of their home at the Gateway Theatre. To learn more about the event or to make a donation, visit www.42ndstmoon.org/annualgala.

I recently caught up with Daniel Thomas, who shares duties as Moon's Co-Executive Director with Daren A.C. Carollo. Thomas' current hopefulness and gratitude for having made it through a difficult year is palpable. Putting this particular gala together has clearly been a joy, and Thomas is confident that Moon audiences have much to look forward to in the coming year. The following conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

42nd Street Moon has a long history of doing annual galas, but these are obviously not normal times. How did you approach putting this one together, given that you couldn't just basically do what you've done in previous years?

Well, we're fortunate in the timing of our galas, normally in late winter or early spring, and had just done our gala for 2020 three weeks before the shutdown. So we've had the benefit of watching a lot of other companies learn by doing in putting their galas up, and it gave us a lot of tips and pointers. I don't think there was ever any doubt that we were going to do a gala of some sort. With the way things were pointing with the vaccine coming out, cases starting to ramp down and people looking towards maybe summer or fall to come back up, we wanted to focus on the optimism, the hope, the joy of doing what we do, the light at the end of the tunnel. And reminding everybody that once we get there, Moon, along with a lot of other theaters, will be ready to welcome everybody back, safely and joyously. So that informed the theme of the evening. Not just the song itself, but the title "You Can't Stop the Beat," is reflective of that. We're gonna keep going, we're gonna keep pushing forward, we're gonna be here for you.

You have several big names slated to perform. Did it take much effort to get them to sign on?

Yes and no. Most of the names have done other galas for us or cabaret evenings or other events. They all have a little history with Moon, which is great. And then the plus is because it's virtual they don't have to come to San Francisco if they're in LA or New York. They can do things from the comfort of their living room or their kitchen or wherever. You certainly lose the live aspect and the interplay with the audience and the performers, but - everybody wants to help, wants to pitch in, and knows that it's more important than ever that the arts get support and that audiences are reminded why the arts are so vital. Everybody's willing to put in a little bit more, even if it's from their bedrooms, to help out the cause.

You also have a huge number of Moonie regulars performing. How did you go about casting them?

We have such a wonderful talent pool to draw from that any time we start to put the word out, we get people coming to us going, "I see the gala's coming up. I'd love to be a part of it. Let me know what I can do." Half the cast comes about just by that rather than us asking them. So that's great. And then we just kind of circle back to what the song list wants to look like vs. who we see doing that song. We picked the song list first for the most part this year, and that informed who we'd like to get and who'd be good interpreters of those songs.

And the theme has very much helped us - hope and optimism. All the songs we chose reflect that theme, either in the context of the show, or as freestanding songs. Some of them are blatantly, obviously hopeful and optimistic, and some of them are from shows where there are moments that are like, "Even when times are dark, even though things aren't going exactly as we want, we still can look for the joy and the light."

Can you share a few of the titles?

Umm.... something as obvious as "Cockeyed Optimist" from South Pacific, but also "I'm Here" from The Color Purple and "Wheels of a Dream" from Ragtime. We've got a couple of numbers that I don't want to give away, but we've got some clever lyricists on our board who've customized lyrics to fit our particular situation. We wanted to make sure we had a variety of feels and textures. Given Moon's history, we wanted to reach back into the song catalog a bit and have some songs from the Golden Age of theatre, as well as more modern songs. We've got solos and duets, but also a couple of numbers that have 24 singers, and one song that's got 34 musicians on it. We wanted to make sure there was a lot of variety to listen to as well as to watch.

Will any of the performances be live?

Unfortunately, no. The hosting will be live, but as I think everybody has seen, technology is fickle. If you remember the Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration last year, you know that even when you've got a big production and big names and a budget like that, they were still having glitches and freezes and drops. So you wanna make it as fool-proof as possible for the audience. We've got a really good production team working with us to make sure the streaming is gonna be robust and capable of handling whatever we throw at it.

And just from a safety and distancing standpoint, those of us who are going to be hosting in the room together have gone through all the precautions and procedures to make sure we're okay that evening. We didn't want to put any artists or musicians in a position where they might feel uncomfortable, but we also wanted to make sure we felt comfortable that the technology was going to work with us instead of against us.

And you've got Jason Graae hosting, who is always a lot of fun.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely!

Over the past year, Covid has given Moon the opportunity - whether you wanted it or not! - to try out some new things. What has that taught you about Moon audiences?

It's not something we've learned, but something that's been reinforced - that they're incredibly loyal, incredibly supportive. We have subscribers who've been around for 15 - 20 or more years, back when it was staged readings at the theater on Van Ness, who've been with us this whole time. You would maybe think that's the kind of audience that doesn't want to sit and watch on a screen, but they have been some of the most supportive, most loyal in terms of being there for all of our streaming events, and just really excited to see the talent and to see what we come up with. So that's been heartening.

You're also planning to renovate the Gateway Theatre. What will that entail?

This is something that's been in the planning stages for 2 years almost, and we were ready to do a soft launch when the shutdown happened. It's a 55-year-old facility, and we've replaced the seats and we've painted [in the past], but that's cosmetic. So Part 1 is just getting it up to a modern look, cleaning and refreshing, figuring out how we can maximize the use of the space, both in the lobby and expand the restrooms. There's a lot of wasted space kind of in the bowels of the building that we can exploit. And then making sure it's prepared for technology. We were already talking about how can we adjust the lighting grid, what can we do to improve the acoustics in the space, and that was before the shutdown. Now it's also how can we be wired for video streaming and production, for sound recording if we want to do that? So that was actually kind of a, if you can call it a blessing, as we've learned all of these new technologies. This is part of the future of theater, of live performance, so we need to be prepared to accommodate that.

Even with all the challenges in your world right now, what is the best part of your job these days?

Working with people. Even though we're sitting by ourselves 90% of the time and all our meetings are on screens. Staff have been absolutely amazing in how they've pivoted their mindsets and activities. Our classes and camps for students all went online, and nobody questioned it. Everybody jumped in and said "This is what we're doing. Let's make it work!" And then of course the artists who have all been so wonderful and encouraging and willing. As much as you can have a sense of community and family while all being in your individual homes, I think we've really kept that going here. It's been exciting to watch that develop, and it makes it more exciting for when we can come back together and see everybody again in person.