Director Randy Conti. (photo by Dion Ogust)
The ladies are in full costume, with hoop skirts, bustiers and Victorian-era high heels, while the men are in tank tops and shorts. Not that it matters once everyone opens their mouths and starts singing, the chorus taking on a life of its own and edging the various leads of the new Woodstock Playhouse production of Les Misérables to ever-greater heights.
The production’s director Randy Conti, Playhouse co-owner with his New York Conservatory for the Arts partner Doug Farrell, watches everything intently, marked-up script in his hands. No smiles, nary an emotion…until he calls for a break and effuses over the tightness of the production and performances taking shape.
“We actually staged the whole show in three days,” he says. “Now we can actually have fun with it.”
The curtain comes up on the Conti/Farrell/NYCA Woodstock Playhouse’s third season with a special sold out (and added seats) gala Thursday evening, June 20. Stories are starting to run in not only the regional press, but trade and theater papers elsewhere about how this, being the 75th year since the Woodstock Playhouse’s founding, things seem to be at an all-time peak only now.
Move over Helen Hayes, Lee Marvin, Diane Keaton and Larry Hagman…the new stars are rising amongst the two dozen members of this season’s Woodstock Playhouse summer stock company. And many of them rose last year, too…and the one before. In their world, this place, and this experience for both actors and audiences, has gained traction and excitement. The buzz is on!
“Let’s move to scene 8 now,” Conti says as everyone moves confidently over the black dance floor at the NYCA main building in West Hurley, the week before they move into the Mill Hill Road theater for final rehearsals. The pianist strikes up the music and everyone’s on, immediately, with what’s becoming the patented new Playhouse style — everyone at peak intensity, with a grouped penchant for infectious entertainment. It’s hard not to be riveted, to want to be on stage, too.
Conti later tells me that the farthest to come for the company this year is from Vancouver. Others are from California, the Midwest. Many have been in the city. Most are in their early 20s, a few are as old as 30. Then there are locals, some from NYCA and others from the community, augmenting the basic company. Like my old buddy Clara, who used to fall asleep on my lap when she was three but is now singing and hoofing it with the rest of them.
“I went to the Playhouse once before it burned down in 1987 and saw a musical, whose name I can no longer remember,” Conti says. “I didn’t see anything in those years after it was partially rebuilt and the plays were happening partly outdoors.”
Conti notes how his parents used to take him to summer stock productions on Long Island when he was a kid, although the ones he recalled in an amphitheater in Eisenhower Park tended to be less repertory and longer running, bigger productions. Eventually, during college at C.W. Post, he got involved in summer theater himself…first handling props and then as an assistant choreographer and finally as a choreographer and director. After which there was no looking back.
“One of the things I learned early on was how you take the lead performers in one show and put them in the chorus in the next, and vice versa. It builds a very strong chorus and makes for equally strong principals,” he said. “I’ve since noticed how different the folks in the stock company are from the students at the Conservatory, who all know each other away from the stage, as well. This troupe — in two days it’s like they’ve all known each other forever, and it’s because they all share the same focus, and they’ve all made the same commitment to their craft.”