JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT

Date of Run: June 30-July 16, 2023

Role: Naphtali and Potiphar

Photos by Ray Mabry

I knew about this musical since childhood. I remember seeing the commercials advertising the 1999 film of this musical, starring Donny Osmond. But, not getting involved with musical theatre or live performing until my twenties, I didn't think much of it with the passage of time. And even a few years after starting, I only knew one song, which was "Go, Go, Go Joseph." And then I listened to the rest of the songs, and the musical grew on me.

After listening to one of the soundtracks for this musical for a short while, it got on my lists. It was on my "shows I wish would be done" list (for that list I didn't care which company did the show as long as it was produced), and on my bucket list of shows I wanted to do. I had been listening to the music to this show for at least a year before I saw that this show was going to be staged and when I saw the audition announcement, I thought "Opportunity knocks!" 

I had a feeling it would be easy to get into this show because there were several roles for men. Also, I had a few more options in terms of roles I could do because I reviewed the music beforehand and I saw that many of the roles for men were written for baritones. But in particular I was hoping for the role of the Pharaoh. I rather liked "Song of the King." If not that role, then I hoped for the role of Reuben because he was the lead singer for the song “One More Angel in Heaven.”

This show had the longest audition process of any show I had done and, for that matter, any show I knew of. There were at least four listed audition dates, ranging from August 2022 to March 2023. They worked hard to try to find enough people to do this musical and they assembled the cast a little at a time, piece by piece. I attended the first round of auditions in August.

I wasn't sure what song to sing at the auditions. I decided to check out song recommendations for the characters of this show and one of them was "Greased Lightnin," from Grease, which I just happened to have, was in my vocal range and I knew it well enough to muddle through it. Or so I thought. The version I had was the original Broadway version and every instrumental or karaoke recording I looked at was the film version. Same words, but a different musical arrangement. There was to be an accompanist on the day I would audition, but not the other two days. But when I arrived at the theater, it turned out that the accompanist was not there that day because not enough people auditioning wanted to do this show, so they decided not to waste his/her time. I was given the option to sing it a cappella, which was probably better in this case; I only ever knew the film version of this song.

I had a little help in the song because Joe Gellura, the director for this show, did some back-up vocals for me at the very back of the theater, while I was up there doing my best Elvis movements. It would have been better if I had a microphone stand, but we can't have everything. I had a pretty good conversation with him before and after and I felt confident I'd gotten a place in this show. Now I have to wait a week or two before hearing about casting.

When I finally did hear back, it was not what I was expecting. There was no cast list or even a list of who had auditioned, but the artistic director of the company thanked everyone for auditioning and then said that they were going to cast shows as needed and have a separate audition for Joseph sometime in September. Another audition? My guess then was that they hadn't had enough people audition or even express interest on any of the original dates combined. If I had to do this again, then I could hope they wouldn't be held on the wrong day.

Maybe a month later, the company announced the next round of auditions. Unluckily for me, they were to be held on a weekend when I had performances for another show I was doing, and I couldn't do a quick audition here and then go to rehearsal since it was at least an hour drive. They eventually moved the audition date to the following weekend, but that was no better since I was going to be out of town that weekend. 

I was worried that I would lose out on being in this show for that reason. To that end, I contacted the artistic director for this company and asked if I had to do something else, like a video. He responded back that he didn't think I needed to do anything since I had been at the generals, I had expressed interest in this show, and the director liked my audition. As it turned out, I didn't need to be at those auditions. The day after the audition date, I received an email from the artistic director stating that they were not able to cast specific roles yet and they would have another round of auditions for those in January at the earliest. The email did include names of those who had auditioned already, and all named were offered a place in the show. And right there was my name. I accepted without hesitating.

As I stated earlier, the role I desperately wanted was the Pharaoh. I must have listened to his song about 100 times. In February, when it came time to do callbacks for individual roles, Joe reached out to me and told me they were doing a small audition for potential soloists. He thought I said I was interested in the roles of Rueben (which I was) or Joseph (which I was not). I clarified that for him and told him if he wished for me to try for the role of Joseph, I'd be happy to. He responded back to me that the roles of Pharaoh and the Narrator were already cast. I was very disappointed. When it came time for the call back for soloists, I couldn't make it to because I had a rehearsal several miles away and could not make it to both.

When yet another round of auditions/callbacks came at the beginning of March, I did two songs in front of Joe and Les: "One More Angel in Heaven" and "Those Canaan Days." The first song was a country western hoedown song and the second a French accordion style song. The women called back were only asked to show their vocal ranges because we were most likely going to have to use some of them as the men. After that, Briget Codoni, the choreographer, taught us a small dance routine for "One More Angel in Heaven." She said it was like line dancing (Perfect! I know how to do that).

April arrived and while we had a cast, they didn't have all specific roles nailed down yet. And it looked as though finding enough men was going to be very difficult, even impossible. They were looking at a few people in the middle of the month and then they'd have an idea or so they said. Then, before rehearsals could even begin, we lost the actor who was playing the Pharaoh. That was the role I really wanted, but I couldn't try for it again because, yet again, they chose a date when I was unavailable. This time the date was when I was on vacation in Utah, hundreds of miles away.

Shortly before rehearsals began, I realized that this was the first time I would be doing a show in Healdsburg since changing jobs. Previously, I would get off work at five at the latest and then have to drive an hour away and if I was lucky, grab dinner and eat on the go. Otherwise, I would have to have dinner after rehearsing or performing and then I wouldn’t get to shower and be in bed until very late. This time around, I got off work at four and I could get an hour in at the gym, shower and still have enough time to grab dinner and drive there. There were also rehearsals scheduled on Saturdays, but I didn't have to worry about missing those. It was quite a relief to not have to worry whether I'd be on time or not. 

Rehearsals began at the beginning of May, and we still did not have enough men. The roles of the Pharaoh, the Baker and the Butler were not cast, and we did not have enough men to be the eleven brothers. In the musical, Jacob has twelve sons, including Joseph. We had Joseph and seven brothers. Four short. I asked one man I knew, but he was in another show. I wondered and worried whether we'd be able to scrounge up four more men.

And then, as if that were not enough, shortly after rehearsals began, we lost two women and the actor who played the brothers' father Jacob. It was a short while before we were able to find a replacement for him and we were also lucky to add one more man and woman, bringing the total number of brothers up to eight. Les would later say that when he was on an online platform discussing musicals, someone mentioned Joseph, and everyone who responded to that said they could never get enough men for the roles. Oh well. We changed no lyrics and it was what it was.

In the end the finalized cast, in addition to myself, was Stacey Rutz, Elliot Davis, Mike Pickard, Joe Caruselle (hitherto referred to as Joe C), Dan Murray, Jim Banks, Milo Ward, Evan Espinoza, Eddie Haehl, Hans Grini, Terra Chermack-Peddicord, Mallory Gold, Blare Elliot, Julie Lannert, Nathan Thacher, and Grace Warden.

Two weeks into rehearsals, Joe assigned us which particular brother we were, trying to go by oldest to youngest actor. I was given Naphtali. That was not all. At the beginning, the actor originally playing Jacob was also going to be playing Potiphar. When he departed the production, Joe asked me to play it. It quickly became apparent that nearly of the actors playing the brothers would have to do double duty. In addition to me playing Potiphar, Joe C was also cast as the Pharaoh and Potiphar's attendant, Dan was cast as Potiphar's attendant, Eddie was cast as the butler, Evan was cast as the baker. The only actor who did not have to do this was Milo, who played Benjamin.

I had to wait some time before they finalized who did which role and solo because the music director, Les Pfutzenreuter, wanted to hear the men in a few rehearsals before making a decision. In the meantime, our first rehearsals were devoted to learning our vocal parts. When it came time to assign the solos and lead singers, we all had to audition for them (again) if we wanted to sing any particular song. For example, even though Mike was playing Reuben, he did not automatically get Reuben's song ("One More Angel in Heaven"); at least three of us auditioned, but he was the one who got it anyway. Dan was given the lead in "Those Caanan Days" (which was what he really wanted) and Mallory and Grace were cast as the snake and camel, respectively, in "Journey to Egypt." Jim was given the lead solo in "Benjamin Calypso."

The first month of rehearsals was mainly for music with the occasional blocking of scenes that did not require dancing. As this musical, like most Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, is entirely sung, vocal rehearsals were kind of important. For the first few rehearsals, we had to recite the colors mentioned in the song "Joseph's Coat," a few times. The colors mentioned in order were red, yellow, green, brown, scarlet, black, ochre, peach, ruby, olive, violet, fawn, lilac, gold, chocolate, mauve, cream, crimson, silver, rose, azure, lemon, russet, gray, purple, white, pink, orange and blue. Twenty-nine in all. It got old very fast, for me, because I already had (most of) them memorized before I even auditioned. I didn't know fawn because in the recording I listened to, I could have sworn it was “blonde” and I'm not even sure what I thought I heard when I heard ochre in the recording. Les decided to simplify the music because in this musical, there were many different vocal parts, often times four-part harmony: they had parts listed for girls, boys, brothers, and choir. Far too many for such a small cast like ours.

For the most part, we sang the songs in two-part harmony. Jim, Eddie and I consisted of the core group of bass singers, while Joe C, Evan, Mike were the tenor singers. Dan on the other hand, was the floater, singing as either a bass or tenor, depending on where the balance needed to be. While we worked through the music thoroughly, we did not even start learning the second act until three weeks before opening and we didn’t even finish learning and going through it all until two weeks before opening. Les spent too much time was spent reviewing certain songs in the first act, rather than making sure we recorded all our parts and could start learning them.

It was also frustrating at times because Les could not always be counted on to make his mind up on which notes we'd be singing. There was more than one occasion when I'd have my notes in my score highlighted and start practicing only for him to change his mind shortly after on what I'd be singing. Not only that, but he sometimes changed his mind on whether we should sing certain moments in the show at all or not. For example, in the song “Poor, Poor Joseph,” there’s a moment when the brothers sing a series of “Ahs,” but one rehearsal we weren’t singing them, then the next we were. He was even doing this with a week to go before opening. If he had done it more than he had, I would've needed to ask for another score and start over.

The dances on the other hand, were a little delayed. In the first two weeks of rehearsal, we had three dance rehearsals where we began learning the dances for "Go, Go, Go Joseph," "Joseph's Coat," and "One More Angel" and then Bridget had to take care of other commitments. When she finally could commit full time, which was two weeks later, we hammered through the dances, and fast, since by now it was just over four weeks before opening. 

Go, Go, Go Joseph

In particular, the hoedown section of "One More Angel" was a troubling number to stage. It was a very upbeat number with quick movements and partner dancing, and it had to be readjusted more than once due to spacing issues. We also had a few people who were new to theatre and had little to no experience dancing, hence the need for this complicated dance to be reviewed several times. Another problem was the set. Joe had a vision for what the set would be, though that vision kept changing. There would be a platform that would all be one height, no different heights, a middle staircase that would be wide enough for two people, no wait only one person, two sets of side stairs, which would be curved, or maybe they would be straight, no they'll turn in toward the center stairs...see what I mean?

Dan was the dance captain and he always offered to be at rehearsals or at the theater before performances as early as possible to review dances if anyone needed them. I also did what I could to help those who needed it. Since these were not the most complicated dances I had ever done, I picked up on the moves fairly quickly (at least until it was time to film what we had learned and then some of it left me). Mike and Jim asked me often to help clarify moves that they were having a little trouble with or the steps for particular sections of dances. I think this was the first production where I felt fully confident in myself as a dancer.

"One More Angel" hoedown

Looking back, the rehearsal process for this show was not very efficient. We spent longer than a month on the first act alone, staging and reviewing it, and we were getting down to the wire on the second act. And I don't mean we were cutting it close on one thing like the dances or the music or the staging. No. We were still staging, learning and figuring little things out even up to a few days before we had an audience.

While Briget had the scenes with the dances, Joe had the scenes that just required blocking. Unfortunately, Joe was getting older and slowing a bit. He was also a little slow in getting to the actual staging of scenes, spending too much time explaining the setup. Worse, we’d have a rehearsal for blocking and then we wouldn’t have another one to even review what we’d staged for over a week. And no one bothered to video the blocking. We always filmed the dances at the end of those rehearsals, but not the blocking. As a result, the scenes were often shaky, and we had to relearn some moments all over again.

It was three weeks before opening when we finally had a stumble through of Act One. With two weeks before opening, we still did not have a finished product. Close, but not all the way. That's when I started to get worried. And I wasn’t the only one. We still had to learn both the vocal parts and the dancing for “Benjamin Calypso” and the “Megamix.” The “Megamix” is normally about nine minutes long, but for our production, we cut it in half. That didn’t make it less worrisome. Les just kept reviewing certain parts in other songs rather than deciding which notes we'd sing in the final moments and telling us. If he had, I could've highlighted them and started learning. If my original voice teacher, who was the music director for the musicals at my college, had heard that last part, her jaw would've dropped. She had been very prompt about telling us our parts so we could start learning.

One night, the week before tech weekend, I attended a performance of the musical Something Rotten.  During that show a character had a line "We open in a week," and I legitimately very nearly had a panic attack in my seat. We had only just been taught the “Benjamin Calypso” and “Megamix,” but we had not been taught the finale, which took place before the “Megamix”, and we did not have too many rehearsals left when it came to it. Not only that, but I felt as though I wasn't fully prepared on the words of my vocal parts. I spent the next two days on at work on my breaks reviewing to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything.

The first night we did a full run through in the theatre, with the set partially built, the first act ran 44 minutes and the second ran 40 minutes. I already knew this wasn't a long show, but that was not including bows and adjusting for costume changes or anything else that would be added in later. Only days before tech weekend, we finally finished staging the last few things, along with some review, but now that we were in the theater, we had new problems. 

On Sunday of tech weekend, we reworked the dances, which needed to be done since now we had a full idea of what the set would be, rather than what the creative team hoped it would be. The hoedown section of "One More Angel" needed the most work. Personally, I don't think everyone was watching and reviewing the videos taken during rehearsals. Even for the dances that we had been taught first and knew the longest, I could see maybe four people who were still confused or lost. Then, during the hoedown dance, I ran right into Terra. She was not happy over it, complaining about the spacing and how we had worked it, but it wasn't right, etc. Personally, I don't think she was entirely blameless because she still did not have the dances down well enough by then. She was becoming a real piece of work, always asking where certain people were standing or how many people were missing. My thought was, "Why don't you figure out where you're supposed to be regardless of whoever is missing?"

Apparently, I was not the only one who did not like Terra. I would be hard pressed to find anyone in that cast who did like her. She had the unforgivable habit of trying to direct other actors. Dan eventually had to put up a metaphorical wall when it came to her. Unfortunately, he and Joe C had to work with her in “Potiphar,” and had to endure her petty complaints and fretting over blocking and where she needed to be and all that. She could be fussy over the smallest things, like not moving out of the way when someone needed to use a mirror or insisting on needed a chair for her shoes.  And she wasn't even that good onstage; in the audience, more than one friend of someone in the cast remarked that she looked wooden or that she did not want to be there during the entire show. Apparently, as I found out later, she was not entirely truthful about her dance experience at the beginning. She was put in the front of dances and also cast as Mrs. Potiphar because she claimed to have decades of dance experience, which she did: decades of tap dance experience. There’s no tap dancing in Joseph, so she basically had nothing.

Jim was also another person who people noticed was too wooden onstage. I could see it and many in the cast also noticed it as well. He didn’t seem too excited to be there and just wouldn’t let it out or show anything on his face for most of the songs. It also showed in his body language whenever he danced. I don’t know what his problem was because he did have it in him. When it came time for his song, “Benjamin Calypso,” we could see the performance that he had been holding back.

On Sunday evening during tech weekend, we had the sitzprobe. This happened to be Mike's first time ever singing with an orchestra. I didn’t even realize until then that this was both his first musical and his first show. Ever. Speaking from years of experience and, up to this post, over 15 musical shows under my belt I remarked to him when he mentioned that, “It’s pretty great isn’t it?”

My biggest worry once we started performing in front of an audience was whether I'd be able to manage my costume changes since we really did not have a lot of time to do them. The toughest one for me was my change from brother to Potiphar since for Potiphar I wore a white tuxedo jacket and pants, a black shirt and white bowtie. Luckily, my brother costume was easy to remove; it was a hand sewn outfit and very loose fitting. Also, for this show, I wore jazz shoes, and I did not have to remove them when taking off any pair of pants I was wearing so that was a huge time saver. 

In my Potiphar costume

The final dress rehearsal without an audience went very well. After the "Megamix" I felt such a feeling of exuberance that I had not felt in nearly five years since Guys and Dolls. That rehearsal was also the first time we had a disco ball during the "Megamix", and I like to say that really helped seeing that up on the ceiling. If only there had been an audience that night. 

Our first performance with an audience was technically a dress rehearsal, but these people were an invited audience as part of a charity. After the show, they let us have the rest of the food they had in the lobby including fruit, meats, cheeses, crackers, chips and various dips, and shrimp. We all made a beeline straight for the lobby and ate ravenously as soon as we found out. I have done these types of dress rehearsals before (invited audiences doing a charity), but this was the first one ever where the people fed the cast. 

For each show, our stage manager, Stephanie, told us how many people she counted in the audience. For the first weekend, on Friday, opening night, there were 47; On Saturday, there were 44 and on Sunday, there were 90. To all of immense relief, the shows went well. In spite of all the worry for the past couple weeks, we did it. We made it happen and there wasn’t a train wreck.

When the show photos were released, believe it or not, that was the first time I ever truly saw myself in my Potiphar costume. When I first tried it on, it was at the Healdsburg Community Center in a room that had no mirrors. Then during performances, since going from brother to Potiphar was a quick change, I only had time to make sure of the little things, like my shirt collar being down and my zipper up, do quick touch-ups to my hair if needed, down a lot of water while fanning myself and then scurry up the backstage stairs to the archway for my entrance. And then after that I immediately had to change from that to my "Go, Go, Go Joseph" costume. I never had time to stop and take a full look at myself in the costume, but I must say, I thought it looked good. It may have been one of my most favorite costumes ever.

My favorite part of the show every night was the "Megamix." It may have been all the way at the end of the show, but I couldn't wait to get there; it was during this song that I poured my energy in tenfold. I was rather sad that we didn't get to do the whole thing because it always seemed to be over too quickly. My energy levels were sapped by the end of each performance, but I felt so good at the end.

The second weekend had very good audiences. This weekend had our one Thursday performance in the run. This was a pay-what-you-can night, so the audience had 142 people. That really gave us in the cast a lot of energy to feed off. Friday had 59 people and there was a lot of hooting and hollering from them. They were really into it. On Saturday, there were 56 and apparently, two people did a lot of screaming and cheering. At the end of this one, I clearly saw a standing ovation. Sunday’s performance had 82.

"Canaan Days"

I have to say that on this particular Sunday, I was feeling rather depressed after the show was over. I couldn’t tell you why. It happens. The previous Sunday had been Hans' birthday, so he had a get together at his place after the show, but my mother was in town, so I had to skip it. He had another one after this show. I decided to go for maybe an hour or two, but then he brought out the karaoke microphones. After singing some songs, starting with John Denver's "Take Me Home Country Roads," and also a few duets with Dan, and also showing off my photography, I felt very much cheered up by the end.

I wish I could say that these shows went off without a hitch, but there were some technical glitches which were mainly sound issues from some of the microphones, including one night when Hans' lost power and he was late on one of his entrances while they tried to deal with that. Elliot’s mic had problems, Dan’s mic had problems and Joe C’s mic had problems. Not exactly the ones we wouldn’t care about, with Elliot being the lead and the other two having a song of their own to sing. I could clearly hear their mics were not working at certain moments in the show. I never had a problem hearing myself on the speakers when it came time for my moment as Potiphar.

Starting during the second weekend, Joe C got the cast involved in sing sea shanty songs, specifically “Wellerman.” What he wanted was for the cast to sing it in numerous vocal parts, ie bass, baritone, tenor, high tenor. I had never heard of this song before; the only sea shanty I’d ever heard of was “Blow the Man Down,” which he apparently had never heard of. By the third weekend, we twice did the song onstage before opening the doors for the audience, with Joe C singing the verses and the cast singing the choruses together.

There came a point starting in rehearsals where Elliot and I would kind of be work out buddies. If I saw him doing some exercises, I'd join him. During the run, we'd often be doing push-ups together backstage before every show. Elliot was a very fit guy and since he had to be shirtless or close to it for most of the show, he was kind of motivated to look good.

Friday of the third and final weekend had over 80 people, Saturday had roughly the same and the final performance had at least 190- even bigger than the pay-what-you-can show the previous week. Each day of this weekend had very responsive audiences that did a lot of cheering and had a lot of whistling. With the largest audience at the final performance, it was a good way to finish the run.

The Saturday performance of the closing weekend was my personal worst performance. I made a few mistakes here and there. The most noticeable for me was during the hoedown of “One More Angel.” In the time before opening, one or two of the people who were new to theatre and dancing or performing had developed bad habits like turning the wrong way or being too early with some steps and that night those bad habits crept into my performance. I had to work hard the next day to review the dances and knock them out. Also, during that performance, in “Song of the King,” the shackles that Elliot wore at the start of the second act broke apart. It was a real struggle not to burst out laughing onstage.

After the final performance we all had to strike the set and I have to say, this strike was one of the most efficient I’d ever done. We were done in 2.5 hours. That’s what happens when you have a number of able-bodied men and at least six power drills.

I will say that I enjoyed working with the cast (with the one exception I mentioned earlier). We got along very well with each other. They didn’t dislike me, and they didn’t exclude me from things like getting a drink after the show. I believe it was for this reason that I felt so emotional during the final performance. I could think of two moments in the show where I could feel it welling up inside me: the first time was during “Any Dream Will Do,” and the second was after the “Megamix.” After I got offstage, I immediately hugged whoever I could get my arms around, which was Joe C, Mike and Dan. I came very close to crying when this show finished. Very close. And I do not do that when a show closes. Often the experience as a whole has been bad and I’m relieved it’s over or I’m busy getting ready to start work on my next show or it simply was neither a good or bad experience and I didn’t care much about it.

The cast party afterwards was held at Hans' home. He often invited us over to his place for drinks and, more than that, karaoke. He had a big speaker that he connected to the TV and, with two microphones, we were blasting away. Even though the show was over, we kept a group text going and would try to have more gatherings, whether at someone's home or out a bar in the future. I had never been in a cast that put much effort into doing that, I can tell you.

For a show that everyone was worried over two weeks prior to opening, this was a successful run. For the second time that year, I worked with a cast that was a pleasure. Two for two. This was definitely an about face from some previous shows I worked on where I did not get along with the cast or simply made no strong connection to them. I definitely would rank this cast as one of my favorites to work with. They made this the first experience in a long time where I felt true joy.