Rudy Hogenmiller

Light Opera Works has evolved over its 26 year history from an ambitious but largely amateur company specializing in obscure musicals and operettas to a professional operation boasting a mixture of Equity and talented non-Equity performers, lavish production values and opulent productions of established and popular musical theatre.  The transition in the company’s mission has largely been reflected in its choice of Artistic Directors.  Now in his second season at LOW, 6-time Jeff Award winner Rudy Hogenmiller is, much like his predecessor Lara Teeter, a song and dance man whose feet are planted firmly in musical comedy rather than “Die Fledermaus” and “The Merry Widow”.  And while he realizes the more popular fare he has scheduled this season may turn off some of the older subscribers, he hopes that they will realize it’s just another form of musical theatre. 

The season opens June 2-11 with the mighty Rodgers and Hammerstein warhorse, “South Pacific,” followed by the rarely-produced “110 in the Shade” August 19-27, the musical revue “Ben Bagley’s The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter” October 1-November 5, and a holiday revival of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” December 26-31.  All of the shows are held in Cahn Auditorium in Evanston, with the exception of “Porter,” which will be performed at the McGaw YMCA Child Care Center.  Planning a season, Rudy says is fraught with challenges and risks. 

“Choosing a season is really difficult, as this company was always known for operetta.  They always did musicals but they were chosen because they were obscure or had really strong music.  Now as we transition into more musicals, we still feel that we want the musical to be on the legit side, with beautiful music being the most important reason for doing it.  We’re still going to be doing an operetta; we don’t want to give that up even though they are becoming harder to pick.  There are really only a handful of them that will sell and we’ve done those multiple times.  The days of doing an obscure operetta just because nobody else is doing it is over.”

In approaching classic works of the musical theatre, such as “South Pacific,” don’t expect to find wildly original or revised interpretations at Light Opera Works.  “I don’t reinvent shows,” Rudy says adamantly.  “With a great award-winning hit show, why would you reinvent it?  The scale we are doing it is very similar to the original Broadway show, so it will be like seeing it in 1949 when it opened on Broadway.  That is a big enough challenge for me, presenting it as it was originally intended.  I don’t need to put my ‘stamp’ on it.  If I were doing a show that had been a Broadway flop that closed in two days, I would probably look at it and wonder what I could do differently.  But something that was a huge mega-hit like this, I feel it is important to honor it the way it was meant to be.  That’s what I want to see personally for my money when I attend a big classic show.”

Along with a 30-piece orchestra that is an unheard of luxury even on Broadway these days, a big stage with lavish sets and a large cast, Rudy promises to deliver the show note for note as it was written.  “It’s not going to be cut and slashed as so often happens to these old shows, it’s all going to be there (from overture and entr’acte to scene change and exit music).  We’re not doing ‘South Pacific’ with 4 guys and 6 girls like I did in dinner theatre years ago.  Everything is big, and that means it’s much bigger to handle and organize.  But it’s exciting and rewarding at the same time.”

The second production of the season, “110 in the Shade,” reunites Rudy with his friends Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, with whom he worked on “The Fantasticks.”  While Rudy has always loved the show’s music, he just saw a production of the rarely produced musical for the first time a few weeks ago in Houston at Theatre Under the Stars.  “I think it’s a serious show with beautiful music and that alone is enough to warrant us doing it.”  With the known commodities of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter and Gilbert and Sullivan on the boards, Rudy and General Manager Bridget McDonough felt that they could afford to do something that might not be a big seller. 

“We’re doing it for artistic reasons, but I hope that people will love it and it will sell.  Tom has revised the script, they’ve added a couple of new songs, and it’s going to be done at the Roundabout next year in New York with Audra McDonald.  So Tom is kind of workshopping it around the country, and I think it’s only going to help generate interest in the show.  And I know that once they see it our audiences are going to love it.”  Audiences can expect “Beautiful music, a great romantic story and characters going through a serious journey in life.  It’s not a fluffy piece, it’s serious and the music has a great Copland sound.”

While Light Opera Works is taking a bit of a gamble on “110,” Rudy is careful not to go too far.  “I get new scripts for musicals and operettas all the time, but we’re not going to put something new on our season because that would be a huge risk for us on the scale we do.  We do have a second stage and have done some new things there, but when people send me new musicals with full orchestrations, I don’t think we can take a risk like that.  Our runs are very limited and there’s a lot of pressure.  We’re going by our reputation, which I hope is good and which we can continue to improve. 

Rudy explains his play it safe philosophy.  “We don’t have the luxury of having a long run since we don’t have our own theatre; we have to rent the space.  There is that pressure that every show has got to be as good as it possibly can.  We don’t have previews, we go in there with one performance (a senior matinee) before it gets reviewed, whereas every other theatre in town runs the show at least a week or so before opening.  We have to be on our game and be organized, and we can’t afford to make any mistakes.  That’s why doing anything obscure or unknown would be very risky.”

Rudy has been making the rounds of Chicago area theatres since 1974.  He began as a dancer, eventually choreographing, acting and now directing.  The latter was not always something he aspired to do, although he admits he loves having the control over a production’s overall vision.  “There was a period where I was doing a lot of choreography and the natural progression is wanting to direct.  There are certain Director/Choreographer shows, like Bob Fosse’s, where you want to keep the same style throughout.  If I’m creating the movement and dances, I would like some say in what the costumes and lighting are going to be, and how the music will be played.  And you don’t usually get that control as the Choreographer.”

Rudy credits his dance instructor Lou Conte for making him a good dancer, which ultimately led to his career as a Choreographer and Director.   His partner and frequent collaborator James Harms has also been a huge influence.  “So many of those shows we did together.  We choreographed them together, were in them together, we directed together.  I was a young nobody when I came to Chicago and he was already an established actor with a reputation and I always learned a lot from Jim.  And we were living and breathing the shows every day.  Even now, although I’m doing most of this on my own, lots of times if I have a question or thought I will pass it on to him and ask what he thinks.  We discuss everything.”   

Many of the shows they worked on together were at the old Candlelight Dinner Playhouse, which Rudy claims was a great experience.  “We did the touring company of ‘Evita’ with the big Hal Prince staging, and it was always interesting taking a big show like that, removing all the spectacle to a certain extent and recreating it in an intimate setting.  The characters and the story became the main focus.  At Light Opera Works, I’m trying to do it all with the production values as well as developing true characters and relationships.”

His favorite show is “A Chorus Line,” which he first performed in 1977 as a dancer in the Los Angeles company, and which he has directed, choreographed and acted in four separate Chicago productions.  Playing the role of the director-choreographer Zach was an example of “life imitating art,” and really brought Rudy’s career full circle.  The challenge of restaging that Broadway blockbuster on the Candlelight’s 25 x 25 foot stage was both inspiring and frustrating.  “Choreographing in the round is much more challenging because it’s seen from all different sides and you have to keep it moving all the time. 

“Theatre at the Center (in Munster, where he last mounted the musical) has a thrust stage, but in my mind I thought it was probably the last time I would do the show and I wanted to do it like the proscenium version and pretend it’s not a thrust.  I wanted to do the proscenium version one more time, and it worked out fine there.  It is nice being back on a proscenium stage at Light Opera Works where everything is facing one way, I can control where the audience is going to look because this is the person downstage where the light is.  After years working in the round, it definitely feels like this is what it is meant to be.  I’m glad I did all that when I was young, I don’t know if I could deal with the challenge now.”

Although “A Chorus Line” would be a memorable part of his career, working with creator-director-choreographer Michael Bennett wasn’t a very pleasant experience for Rudy.  “That was when the show was still very new, the L.A. company had only been running a year or so, there were still original cast members, it was still running on Broadway and had become an international hit.  It had been life changing for him and so he became very, very controlling.  The (producers) suddenly had a product they were going to protect at all costs.  Everything was pre-determined, as an actor or dancer you did not bring anything to the process.  You were told how to do every gesture, every look, everything.  It was strange.  You were not allowed to talk to Michael Bennett, even though he was five feet from you, you had to talk to another person who would then talk to Michael Bennett.”

Working with such ferociously controlling personalities taught Rudy some valuable things about working with actors.  “People can be very cruel in this business, especially when they have power.  Especially coming from a dance background, which is a very physical thing, how you look and how you dance is right there on the line.  Having people afraid of you, I never wanted to be like that.  I don’t think it’s conducive to producing the best work.  To a certain extent, you can be cruel if you are brilliant.  I don’t consider myself brilliant; I just try to be good.  There is a core of people in the theatre who just do good work, and every once in a while all the elements come together and you have a brilliant show.  But it takes all that collaboration and all of those elements to be right.  That’s why you need to have control over the whole vision. 

“I want people to have a good time and a positive experience.  I’ve been successful enough in my own career that when this opportunity came around for me, I thought I want to try this and have a good time with it.  If I can’t enjoy myself and the work, I don’t want to do it.  I learn something new every time I do a show and I want the actors to learn something too.  That’s one thing I like about Light Opera Works, because we have such a mixture of talent, we are all learning from one another.  I love it when I see the kids in the chorus of ‘South Pacific’ watching Larry Adams (who plays Emile de Becque) and learning so much.  That feels really good and reminds me of years ago when I did summer stock at the Melody Top in Milwaukee, we had the star system when stars from New York came in and all the secondary leads were from New York and often did the Broadway show, and the chorus was mostly from Milwaukee and Chicago.  It was great watching these people work.   

Rudy goes into every production with a strong game plan, even though he’ll be the first one to admit if his initial ideas are wrong.  “I don’t like to waste time.  I know what it’s like as an actor to be standing there waiting and I know that pressure.  I do my homework and have a plan.  I usually lock myself away about a month before rehearsal starts, I block the show out on paper, and choreograph the show by dancing and making up steps in my living room.  There is limited time, as we don’t have the luxury of weeks and weeks of rehearsal.  I learned that from my days at Candlelight and the Marriott that after a week it has to be on its feet.  Here we have about five or six weeks before we get to tech, but it’s only 4 hours a night as opposed to the standard Equity 8 hours, so my process is stretched out.”

Rudy firmly believes that there is a place for the classic musicals he is directing at Light Opera Works.  “A musical can make you think about the character’s life and how it affects you.  The issues in ‘South Pacific’ with racism are still very immediate, it causes people to stop and think.”  There is also a new crop of theatergoers and performers every day who may not be familiar with the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows many theatre professionals take for granted. 

“We audition young people who are getting their degrees in musical theatre at Northwestern and other places, and all they know is ‘Wicked,’ ‘Rent,’ ‘Miss Saigon’ and ‘Titanic’.  They don’t know this kind of music, the technique it takes to sing a Rodgers and Hammerstein song.  But I think it’s important and valuable that they experience these classics.  This is from whence it all started.  That’s why the company started doing these obscure operettas, to keep them alive.  And now as we approach these classic musicals, nobody else is doing them on this scale.  We are trying to keep them alive the way they were originally intended to be.”

Season tickets for Light Opera Works’ 2006 season are available by calling (847) 869-6300 or online at www.lightoperaworks.com.

 
Joe Stead
Theatre In Chicago News Contributor Joe Stead has spent over 20 years as a critic, director, designer and performer. His reviews currently appear online at www.steadstylechicago.com.