I consider it one of those deep dark musical theatre secrets you don’t tell a soul. You know, the admonition that could cause people to doubt your taste a little and believe your ipod playlists consist solely of musicals like Mama Mia and Cats.
So I’ll just make it quick and painless. I once performed in the musical Starmites. Now before your cultured, and now skeptical, mind stops reading this article (either because you have not heard of this Tony-nominated musical or you saw one of its 100 performances on Broadway in 1989), I have another confession that just might make you want to keep reading: I am in love with the show.
But this love did not stem from my first encounter with this loveable comic book musical. Rather, it grew from a more recent experience, one in which I was more deeply involved in the work than ever before.
When recent USC graduate and director Steve Edlund announced he would be directing Ensemble Theatre Company’s production of Starmites, I thought, “Wow, how is he going to make that good? I dunno but if anyone can do it Steve can.”
Having worked with him previously as an actor and seeing many of the musicals he directed at Musical Theatre Repertory at USC, I was confident in his ability to take on tough material and make it work but this was just ridiculous. How on earth could Starmites be made into a show audiences would come to see?
Steve had one word for me: puppets.
Using puppets, a la Avenue Q, to replace five of the 11 cast members would marry the ridiculous reality of the script to equally zany characters onstage. The Banshees, half human, half monster women, were reincarnated into four fabulously dressed purple puppets adorned in leather and lace. And Trink, the lanky lizard friend of Spacepunk (our leading man and leader of the Starmites), morphed into a puppet bedraggled in green scales and a small head of feathers.
Puppets were only the beginning of his vision. As set-designer and choreographer he envisioned the world of the play as a comic book, filled with bright colors, plenty of action-packed scenes and musical numbers. By setting the entire play in Eleanor’s (our nerdy tween comic book lover who yearns for adventure beyond earth) bedroom, the message of the show could go deeper than the action and laughs in inner space, and show connection between the importance of home and belonging before and after your personal journey is over.
Add some haze, over one thousand light bulbs, and by the end of the pitch, I wasn’t sure if he was still talking about the same show. But like the saying goes, he had me at “hello” or I guess in my case “puppet” and I joined as the puppet captain Starmites.
Puppetry was completely new to both Steve and me, so we decided to pull our resources and do a puppet intensive including research, tutorial youtube videos and lessons from professional international puppeteer Anna Skubik.
However much we trained, the beginning rehearsals were the biggest lesson of all. Working with the actors and watching how they developed their personal relationship with their puppet was one of the most incredible experiences I have had in theatre thus far. To watch these characters grow and come out of two equally invested bodies was a mind trip because I found myself believing every single thing the puppet did just as I would an actor onstage. And that’s when I knew, we really had something special here.
As rehearsals moved forward and the show came together bit by bit, I fully bought into the idea of Starmites. My day began at 7 pm each night when I sat in our cramped rehearsal space ready to work. During that time Steve asked me to come on as assistant director and I embraced the offer with a true Starmite “Homina!” (You have to see the show if you want to understand this inside joke!)
By the time tech came around, I found myself sitting in the audience of the Miles Playhouse, furiously typing away notes as Steve and the very talented cast and crew tried to sort out the millions of tech cues throughout the show. It was that part of the process where time was the one thing we needed and couldn’t have. And everyone was channeling that frustration.
At that stressful moment I received an e-mail from a friend and fellow actor:
“So glad everything is going well with school and the show, hopefully the next project you work on will have a little more substance… I mean Starmites the Musical, it is what it is.”
As if cued, the synthesizer strummed out an eerie chord with the drums keeping time. Lights dimmed, smoke flooded the stage, the actors moved into a tight triangle clump and all their flashlights suddenly became lasers shooting into the audience. As they ran the number the actors faced dead on and sang out to me as if to say, “This show is so much more than what ‘is.”
Many people are quick to dismiss musical theatre as a rainbow and bubblegum art form that permanently dwells in a fantasy land. People singing and dancing barely scratch the surface of real life and the audience comes away with nothing substantial. Sure, maybe some musical theatre, some bad musical theatre, achieves this low standard but more often than not, you will find shows that defy this stereotype.
Even against the odds of a script set in inner space with Starmites, Banshees and lizards, ETC’s Starmites has created a world, both aesthetically and emotionally, that audiences can relate to and truly experience.
Watching the show grow up I have laughed, cried (I know, I am shocked too), sung along and basically rediscovered my Starmite roots.
‘Cause once you are a Starmite, you are always a Starmite, no matter how hard you try to hide it… Guess the secret’s out!
Starmites, produced by Ensemble Theatre Ensemble, plays Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm; Sat. & Sun., 2 pm; through May 9. Tickets: $10-$20. Miles Memorial Playhouse, 1130 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica; brownpapertickets.com/event/105560.
