COVID tried to kill a major musical but TUTS saved it in Houston HEAD TOPICS

COVID tried to kill a major musical but TUTS saved it in Houston

10/21/2022 6:00:00 AM

' The Secret of My Success' opened in Chicago with hopes of going to Broadway The pandemic scuttled those plans but Theatre Under the Stars tries to give it new life…

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Houston Chronicle

'The Secret of My Success' opened in Chicago with hopes of going to Broadway. The pandemic scuttled those plans, but Theatre Under the Stars is giving it new life in Houston. 'The Secret of My Success' opened in Chicago with hopes of going to Broadway. The pandemic scuttled those plans, but Theatre Under the Stars tries to give it new life… The struggleThe pace teeters toward maniacal. Knechtges admits that they’re still getting revisions on the book, so “you’re trying to fix things from yesterday and also put new changes into it.So his suit job and his tennis shoe job possess some overlap, not the least of which is a need for adaptability. Both have deadlines. But where the whiteboard can be erased and filled with new ideas for months and even years, he has just a few weeks to get “Secret” to a place where it can achieve success. Read more:
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And I feel the world war third is approaching now! tuts.The 2021-22 NBA champions ahead of their season opener against the Los Angeles Lakers, and the jewelry was indeed gaudy enough for a team with four rings in eight years.\nTrick' r Treat is a total Halloween cult classic, becoming an annual rewatch (for many, myself included), which has even resulted in a recent theatrical re-release to celebrate the horror film's stable audience.Dr. com “But I listened to a demo of the songs,” Knechtges says. “I kept going back to it. First, the requisite Ring Math. One of my associates heard me listening and said, ‘What’s that? We should be doing that show…’” TUTS negotiated with the writers, struck a deal and “Success” was revived, at least on paper. I think Freddy's origin is an exception because it only made him scarier. With the sets gone and a script needing some edits, “The Secret of My Success” hardly arrived in Houston ready for the stage. It has seven carats of yellow cushion cut diamonds on its bezel to represent the team's seven championships. The struggle “What we are trying to accomplish here is an all-new production in less than six months,” Knechtges says. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t fulfill . “Six months! Normally we plan more than a year in advance. The Warriors said it is the first NBA championship ring to feature yellow diamonds, in case you are in a really hard basketball trivia league. They kept adding more layers like, 'Oh, he also made a deal with these three dream demons. Our marketing people had no assets to promote it. So it’s been hard. So, four for Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala, three for Kevon Looney and one for everyone else. But we knew at some point we had to do something. That would just ruin his mystique. It might as well be a new show. Though he had issued a public apology to Tyndall’s patients and helped oust Nikias as president, Caruso brushed off a question about whether the university was at fault. ” Which is why Knechtges on this day is clad in a Black Panther t-shirt, sweatpants and those tennis shoes, moving ceaselessly around a rehearsal room, coaching dancers on how to move across the stage in the form of emojis. The pace teeters toward maniacal.\n\n. Knechtges admits that they’re still getting revisions on the book, so “you’re trying to fix things from yesterday and also put new changes into it. “It feels similar to constantly planning a season.” Averting one’s eyes from the whiteboard in Knechtges’ office is difficult, especially because it has slots for 2025, 2026 and beyond. . He dismisses it, though. “All of that changes,” he says. “I’m not even sure what’s up there.” So his suit job and his tennis shoe job possess some overlap, not the least of which is a need for adaptability. Both have deadlines. “But I am not going to name any one person in this deposition. But where the whiteboard can be erased and filled with new ideas for months and even years, he has just a few weeks to get “Secret” to a place where it can achieve success. Ben Fankhauser as Brantley Foster and Brian Mathis as Piers Johnson in the Theatre Under The Stars production of The Secret of My Success. Photo: Melissa Taylor He’s not trying to contain chaos, exactly. But when one considers the moving parts — the music, the choreography, the acting, the singing, the costumes, the sets, the ways a musical requires precision, he and the cast and creative team are certainly playing the role of outnumbered herders. But Knechtges thinks this sort of chaos is something his cast is prepared to confront. Caruso, who holds a law degree and said he had sat for a dozen depositions in various matters, seemed unflappable. “Coming out of the pandemic, people in the arts had to create other jobs for themselves,” he says. “They’ve come back to the arts, but they have these other things: They’re real estate agents, personal trainers, all these other things in addition to being actors. But in a way, performing artists were better suited to this than others. They’ve always had to struggle, they’ve always had to juggle.” Musicals have long told the stories of strivers. “I’m being a pure pragmatist,” he said. When Knechtges moved to New York, he crashed on a friend’s floor near Times Square until he found a $300-per-month apartment in Astoria, where he had three Swedish women as roommates. “You have to have those sorts of experiences,” he says. “Also all my straight friends were always wanting to come by.” Falling and flying During a rehearsal for “The Secret of My Success” the cast is unmasked, but for a little longer those who aren’t singing must remain so. Knechtges clearly draws energy from others.”. He appears almost twitchy at the thought of a more complete return to normal. “There are things you just can’t do by Zoom,” he says. “These unscripted, unscheduled moments, that’s where the gold lies. There’s no room on Zoom for improvising. It’s just black and white there, and life doesn’t live in black and white. It lives in those gray areas.” The rehearsal — on this day the cast is working on the song “When You Feel Feelings” — is full of gray areas. Knechtges refers to one sequence as “a rough, rough sketch,” but then adds, “OK, let’s flesh it out." Through repetition the piece begins to find its colors. That line of emojis finds a crispness to their movements and expressions after a few tries. The dynamics in the music become clearer. Two characters sing and a chorus erupts behind them. The, erm, feeling of feelings is visceral and thrilling. As is the sense that a musical could be rescued from the brink. Perhaps the road for “The Secret of My Success” ends in Houston, but some comfort emerges knowing it enjoyed a proper run rather than its ill-fated experience in Chicago. The experiences feel almost braided: a show rescued, a theater reopened, actors and composers and writers and songwriters and directors and people who work with sets and costumes and props and lights all back in a harmonious working environment. Brantley — turning his feelings about feelings into song — perhaps conveys it best: “It’s a little bit like falling, it’s a little bit like flight…” [email protected] .