Sunday, November 23, 2008 | A+E, Theater, Reviews
SP ‘Music’ man

Center Theatre’s artistic director gives the people what they want

TWMeyer.com
Blake Hall

“THE SOUND OF MUSIC”
Center Theatre
Marcus Jewish Community Center
678-812-4002
www.atlantajcc.org
Nov. 28-Dec. 28

BY BERT OSBORNE
 
Who knew “The Sound of Music” could seem so cutting-edge? As other theaters around town prepare to dust off all their usual holiday suspects (“The Santaland Diaries,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Sanders Family Christmas,” “Tuna Christmas,” sundry “Christmas Carols”), Center Theatre artistic director Blake Hall’s choice of the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical (about a singing nun and governess-turned-wife and stepmother in Nazi-era Austria) is a welcome bit of counter-programming—and a sure sign of the recent shift in focus for the troupe, a program of the Marcus Jewish Community Center, which was reorganized and renamed earlier this year after Mira Hirsch (who ran its Jewish Theatre of the South) resigned over “creative differences.”
 
Hall, 37, JTS’ managing director at the time, was promoted to oversee the new company, and found himself between the proverbial rock and a hard place. “Mira had become like a big sister to me over the years, and I miss her terribly,” Hall confesses during a recent interview. “She was committed to producing new works, and I admire that and give her kudos for it. At the same time, though, from the business side of things, the group was losing a lot of patrons and subscribers. We surveyed 8,000 audience members, and the overwhelming reaction was that they wanted to see more popular, mainstream shows. It was no longer the right fit. Clearly, that wasn’t Mira’s mission, and I can understand if it wasn’t the kind of work she wanted to be doing.”
 
Shows don’t get much more popular or mainstream than “The Sound of Music.” (Hall admits he originally planned to mount “Fiddler on the Roof” instead, but due to an upcoming national tour, he couldn’t get the rights.) Or “Jewtopia,” the shticky comedy that marked Center’s debut over the summer. Or New York comedienne Judy Gold’s stand-up act “25 Questions for a Jewish Mother,” which played earlier this fall. Or “High School Musical,” which Center’s youth ensemble will stage in February. Or, rounding out the inaugural season, a spring production of Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs.” As Hall puts it, “We eventually want to ease back into doing some cooler stuff, but we definitely went for the musicals and comedies this year. We’re just starting out in this transition period, so for the time being that audience survey has been like my bible.”
 
Interestingly, he says, “‘The Sound of Music’ was the first stage show I ever saw, and it’s what got me into theater to begin with.” A native of Louisville, Ky., Hall cut his teeth as a teen in several musicals (including two different stints playing the eldest Von Trapp son in “Music”), before concentrating on a career as an opera singer. Ultimately tiring of performing, he worked a number of behind-the-scenes jobs at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville before relocating to Atlanta in 1999. After six years at the Alliance (primarily as a stage manager), Hall joined the Marcus Center as resident production/managing director, prior to his recent appointment as artistic director.
 
Hall enlisted Bo Cecil, a longtime friend who still lives in Louisville (where he runs his own theater company), to direct Center’s “Sound of Music,” which features Mary Saville as the ingratiating Maria and Michael Strauss as the icy Captain Von Trapp. The stage version was slightly altered for the beloved 1965 movie—a couple of songs come at different points in the story, a couple were dropped altogether, a couple of new ones were added. Even without an overt “holiday” theme, Hall says the timing is just right. “Hopefully, it will remind people of watching and loving the film as kids, and that’s why we specifically scheduled it for the holidays,” he notes.
 
And where’s the Jewish connection, exactly? “That’s another thing we’ve learned from our survey,” he replies. “Rather than only seeing all-Jewish work, audiences seem to want a mixture of both.” Hall likens it to getting back to something as basic as giving the people what they want. SP