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Dickens' classic set to music
A unique adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities may be on the brink of Broadway.
By John Fleming, Times performing arts critic
Published October 25, 2007
Preview A Tale of Two Cities
The musical by Jill Santoriello opens Friday and runs through Nov.18 at the Asolo Repertory Theatre, 5555 N Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Previews are today at 2 and 8 p.m. $18-$56. (941) 351-8000; www.asolo.org.
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Story drawn from sprawling 19th century novel? Check.
Soaring ballads and choruses in pop-operatic style? Check.
Lavish set and costumes? Check.
So the thinking must have gone for A Tale of Two Cities, a new musical adapted from the Charles Dickens classic with book, music and lyrics by Jill Santoriello, which opens this weekend at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota.
The role models, of course, are those venerable musical blockbusters from the 1980s that continue to pack them in on Broadway, The Phantom of the Opera and especially Les Miserables.
"When people do compare us to Phantom and Les Miz, there are worse things you can compare us to," executive producer Ron Sharpe said last week. "This is not Les Miz at all. It takes place mostly in London, while Les Miz is totally in France. We do have the backdrop of the revolution, but it's not a major part of why we fall in love with these characters."
Sharpe, a former Broadway actor, knows all about Les Miserables. He and his wife and co-executive producer, Barbra Russell, met while playing Marius and Cosette in the musical.
"With Barbra and I having been in Les Miz, we really have a sense of how people just love these epic kind of shows," Sharpe said. "We're hoping to try to rekindle some of that with what we're working on here."
A Tale of Two Cities is billed as a pre-Broadway tryout at the Asolo, and there is impressive talent involved. Tony Walton, a multiple Tony Award winner (and ex-husband of Julie Andrews), designed the set. The costumes are by David Zinn, who designed the outfits for the spoofy musical Xanadu. James Barbour, who starred in Broadway's Beauty and the Beast, Assassins and Jane Eyre, plays Sydney Carton, the lawyer at the center of Dickens' saga about the "best of times" and the "worst of times."
Musicals take a long time to develop. It was 1999 when Sharpe and Russell first heard some music by Santoriello, a self-taught musician who had never written a musical. She has a journalism degree from Ohio University and worked more than a decade in programming at the Showtime cable network. Santoriello turns 42 on Friday, the first of two official opening nights for the show. She read the Dickens novel when she was in high school in New Jersey.
"I read it, and I cried my eyes out," she told the Sarasota Herald Tribune. "It affected me so much, and I realized I found it something I could get excited about it. It was that message about redemption and people having the power to change themselves, change the world, for good and evil, and the choice inherent in that."
A Tale of Two Cities, directed by Asolo producing artistic director Michael Donald Edwards, has a cast of 32 and an 11-piece orchestra. There have been preview performances going on for two weeks, with some changes being made.
"I think the hardest thing of any show of this size and epic nature is making sure the ending of the show matches the grandeur of the rest of the show," Sharpe said. "We've tried several different endings, staging wise and set wise. And we have made some cuts to tighten up the first act."
Sharpe, who worked in publishing after his acting days, said capitalization for the production is $12-million, raised from 160 investors. He doesn't have a commitment from a theater on Broadway but hopes to land A Tale of Two Cities there in the spring.
"We've met with the major theater owners in New York and we've invited them," he said. "There are also touring producers who will come. They need product, so a lot of people will come to see the show to see if it's a product they want to put in their space. I believe this run will dictate how quickly we can make it to New York."
John Fleming can be reached at (727) 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com.
[Last modified October 24, 2007, 18:03:12]
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