There are no Oklahoma cornfields, Austrian mountains, South Pacific islands or royal palaces waiting behind the curtain at Quincy Middle School this weekend. Instead, Quincy Valley Allied Arts is putting five local singers, one pianist and more than two dozen Rodgers and Hammerstein songs and medleys in front of the 98848 and trusting the music to do the rest. For anyone who grew up watching the classic movie musicals, it may only take a few familiar notes to understand why.
TL;DR
What: Quincy Valley Allied Arts presents Rodgers and Hammerstein’s A Grand Night for Singing
The format: A one-act musical revue rather than a traditional play or musical, running approximately 70 minutes
Performers: Miles Plagerman, Kylie Youngren, Mikaela Bosnar Vela, Riley Youngren and Lindsay Hintz
Pianist: Cecelia Couture
Music Director: Riley Youngren, who also performs in the revue
Choreographer: Mikaela Bosnar Vela, who is making her QVAA performing debut
Director: Alec Lobe
Performances: Thursday, Sept. 17, Friday, Sept. 18 and Saturday, Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. at Quincy Middle School
Tickets: $10, with first-come, first-served seating; tickets are available through QVAA.com
This Isn’t a Traditional Musical
Audiences accustomed to QVAA’s larger theatrical productions should understand what A Grand Night for Singing is and what it isn’t before the lights come up. There is no plot connecting the evening, no elaborate scenery and no cast of characters carrying a story from beginning to end. It is a musical revue, built around songs written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and originally heard in productions including Oklahoma!, The King and I, South Pacific, Cinderella and others.
The stage reflects that simplicity. String lights hang in front of the back curtain, a grand piano occupies center stage, and two small platforms give the performers places to sit, move and create occasional miniature scenes. The three women wear contemporary dresses while the men wear button-up shirts. There is choreography, but the production never attempts to visually recreate the shows from which these songs came.
Once director Alec Lobe welcomes the audience, the music takes over. The full cast begins with an opening medley of “Sounds of the Earth,” “So Far” and “A Grand Night for Singing,” followed by “The Surrey with the Fringe on the Top.” From there, solos, duets, small groups and full-ensemble numbers follow one another with almost no spoken introductions and frequently only seconds separating one selection from the next. The program lists 25 musical numbers or medleys before the final bows.
That continuous format is important to understanding the experience. This isn’t a concert where someone tells a story between songs or explains what the audience is about to hear. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s music is given roughly 70 minutes to stand on its own.
Five Voices With Nowhere to Hide
For four members of the cast, the production represents a considerable change from the last time QVAA audiences saw them. Plagerman, Kylie Youngren, Riley Youngren and Hintz all appeared in last spring’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a production filled with a large ensemble and the visual elements audiences generally associate with musical theater.
This time, most of that theatrical machinery has been removed. That puts considerably more responsibility on the five voices and makes the quality of those voices one of the production’s strengths.
The harmonies were particularly effective during Wednesday night’s dress rehearsal. When the two male performers sang together or the three women combined their voices, the individual vocal layers remained recognizable while blending into a smooth and complete sound. That can be heard in different combinations throughout the program, including Riley Youngren and Plagerman performing “All At Once You Love Her” and Vela, Hintz and Kylie Youngren joining for “Many a New Day / Wash That Man.”
Vela is the one performer audiences did not see in Joseph. She is making her QVAA performing debut while also serving as choreographer for A Grand Night for Singing, and her powerful voice and ability to project made her immediately noticeable during rehearsal.
Plagerman gets an opportunity to show audiences another side of his voice after often being heard within the larger ensemble of Joseph. His softer but strong, clean vocal quality fits the era of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s music particularly well. That was noticeable during “The Surrey with the Fringe on the Top,” where his voice had the quality one might expect to hear in one of the classic movie adaptations. The number also features Vela, Hintz and Kylie Youngren.
Riley Youngren has an additional challenge, serving as music director while also performing as one of the five featured singers. His numbers include “We Kiss in a Shadow” and “This Nearly Was Mine,” while Kylie Youngren, Hintz and the rest of the company move between solos, duets and ensemble combinations throughout the evening. Rehearsals began in early August, and by Wednesday’s dress rehearsal the comfort among the small group was apparent in the way they interacted and performed together.
The Sixth Performer at Center Stage
With nearly everything else stripped away, Cecelia Couture’s piano becomes as essential to the production as any of the singers.
Couture remains at the grand piano throughout the performance, providing the musical foundation underneath nearly 70 minutes of singing while also carrying the transitions that allow one number to move quickly into another. The program even gives her one selection of her own, appropriately titled “My Favorite Transition.”
That role becomes particularly noticeable because there is so little downtime. At Wednesday’s rehearsal, two, three and sometimes four numbers could pass back-to-back before there was a meaningful pause. With no orchestra and no scene changes to reset the room, the piano provides much of the continuity.
The vocals were also clean and intelligible during dress rehearsal, allowing the harmonies and individual performances to remain the focus rather than the technical side of the production. For a revue that depends almost entirely on hearing five voices and one instrument clearly, that is not a minor detail.
When a Song Opens an Old Memory
The most interesting part of A Grand Night for Singing may depend less on what happens onstage than on what an audience member brings into the theater.
For this reporter, it happened during “The Surrey with the Fringe on the Top.” Growing up in a family that watched musicals meant many of these songs were already tucked away somewhere in memory, even if they hadn’t been heard in years. As the familiar music returned Wednesday night, so did memories of sitting with family watching Yul Brynner and other performers from the classic era of movie musicals.
Other numbers produced similar moments. “We Kiss in a Shadow,” “Something Wonderful,” “Do I Love You,” “I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy,” “Maria” and the medley containing “Wash That Man” are among the selections that may be immediately recognizable to audiences familiar with Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Not every number requires that familiarity to work. “Don’t Marry Me,” performed by Riley Youngren, Plagerman, Hintz and Kylie Youngren, was unfamiliar to this reporter but produced one of the rehearsal’s humorous moments as the men essentially explain to the women why they are not exactly ideal marriage prospects. Other selections use pairings and light choreography to create small scenes, including Riley and Kylie Youngren’s performance of “Shall We Dance.”
Those moments keep the revue from becoming five people simply standing in place and singing. Still, there is no disguising what audiences are coming to see: this is an evening devoted almost entirely to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s music.
What This Means to You
A Grand Night for Singing is probably best understood as a production for people who enjoy the music of musical theater itself. Someone looking for the scenery, story, costumes and spectacle of a traditional QVAA musical will find a very different experience this weekend.
For residents of the 98848 who grew up with Oklahoma!, The King and I, South Pacific and the other shows represented in the revue, that difference may be part of the appeal. The familiar songs are presented without trying to recreate the original productions, leaving local performers to put their own voices behind music audiences may have known for decades.
For those without that connection to classic musicals, the evening offers something different: an opportunity to hear a small group of local performers tackle a demanding collection of songs with little scenery or spectacle to draw attention away from them. The show’s appeal will ultimately depend heavily on how much an audience member enjoys musical theater and vocal performance, and knowing that before buying a ticket is probably more useful than pretending this is a traditional musical.
A Grand Night Begins Tonight
Quincy Valley Allied Arts’ A Grand Night for Singing opens tonight, Thursday, Sept. 17, and continues Friday, Sept. 18 and Saturday, Sept. 19. All three performances begin at 7 p.m. at Quincy Middle School. Tickets are $10, seating is first-come, first-served, and tickets are available through QVAA.com.
There won’t be an Oklahoma cornfield waiting when the curtain opens, and audiences won’t be transported to an Austrian mountain or a South Pacific island by elaborate scenery. What QVAA is offering the 98848 instead is considerably simpler: five singers, Cecelia Couture at the piano and a collection of songs that have outlived the original Broadway casts that first sang them.
For the right audience member, all it may take is the first few notes of an old favorite to make Quincy Middle School disappear anyway.