Salt Lake Men's Choir announces its first musical theater performance— Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor® Dreamcoat.
“This is the largest assemblage of all-male talent ever on stage in Salt Lake,” says Lane Cheney, the choir's artistic director. “And I’m not kidding.”
The production of Joseph is set for June 24-26 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in downtown Salt Lake. The show is a first of its kind for the celebrated choir, whose past performances have taken them everywhere from the Opera House in Sydney, Australia to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Cheney and his collaborator, stage director and choreographer Jonathan Stowers, couldn’t be more excited about the group’s first fully-fledged stage production.
Dreamcoat tells the story of Joseph, eldest son of Jacob (known to some as Israel) and his eleven brothers. The other siblings, jealous of Jacob’s attention to his acknowledged favorite, sell him into slavery in Egypt. Joseph suffers greatly, even landing in prison, but eventually rises to become the Pharaoh’s right hand man. He is given the chance to exact revenge on his brothers, but instead forgives them. Such a story has special meaning to many, says Cheney, who believes that people who’ve been estranged from their own families for many reasons will find that the story has particular resonance. “This is a show about a family that reconciles after doing heinous things to one another. Who better to tell it than the Salt Lake Men's Choir?”
While the show is inherently campy and silly, Cheney maintains that it nonetheless features some stunning moments that are often overlooked in overblown, “schmaltzy” productions. But he promises that this Joseph will be different: most stagings, he says, “run to caricature with no character… [we] will let the funny stuff be funny and the moving parts be moving.” This means that, while the show will have the audience “rolling in the aisles,” the humor will be reined in enough that Joseph’s reunion with his beloved father at the show’s climax will have real emotional meaning and won’t be relegated to afterthought status, as in most versions.
The production will also look and feel different from a typical Utah-style Joseph. Stowers has extensive experience in modern dance, and Cheney promises that the movement in the show will be “stunning.” Indeed, the collaboration was one of the project’s chief attractions for Cheney, who says Stowers is “a brilliant artist.” Further, Stowers lends a unique perspective to what has become Utah’s most ubiquitous summer theatre title, having directed the very first production in the Beehive State more than twenty years ago.
The sound will also be exceptional—the show will be staged in the Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner, the complex’s smallest venue, so the choral sounds will be rich and powerful. To keep from overwhelming performers and audiences, the score will be performed by six hands on two pianos, collectively covering the entire orchestral score.
As Cheney points out, the all-male casting idea may sound innovative to Utah audiences, but is actually a return to Lloyd Webber’s original vision of the piece. As originally conceived, the show was a half-hour retelling of the Genesis story, scored in pastiche and parody, written to be performed by boys’ choirs in English schools. The original New York and London productions were also all-male.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor® Dreamcoat:
June 24-26, 7:30PM. Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 168 W. Broadway. Tickets at 355-2787 or Arttix.org • saltlakemenschoir.org
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Press contact: Michael Aaron, marketing director, 856-5655
Interviews available.
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