Michelle F. Solomon, FFCC, ATCA

Zoetic Stage takes on Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Pulitzer-Prize winning musical "Sunday in the Park with George."

It's a theatrical gem.

The 1984 musical marked the beginning of Sondheim's collaboration with Lapine – they would write "Into the Woods" and "Passion" together. Originating the role on Broadway of pointillist painter George Seurat was Mandy Patinkin, who created such a signature character that other George's have always felt as if they needed to measure up. Bernadette Peters played his Dot, tormented girlfriend, model and muse. Her portrayal, too, is the stuff of Broadway legends.

So how does a six-year old theater company stage "Sunday in the Park with George" with all its legacy and make it its own? miamiartzine.com's editor Michelle F. Solomon talks to Zoetic Stage artistic director and the director of 'Sunday in the Park with George," Stuart Meltzer about Sondheim, "Sunday" and Zoetic.

miamiartzine.com: This is Zoetic's third Sondheim musical and second musical by Sondheim and Lapine – you've done "Assassins" and "Passion."

Stuart Meltzer: "I consider myself a Sondheim fanatic. So we did 'Assassins' and this past season we did 'Passion.' And now we're doing 'Sunday,' which is frankly my favorite Sondheim because it speaks so personally to me as an artist and speaks from the perspective of a person who creates art. As professionals, we get so caught up in what we're doing at that moment that we forget about all the things that inspired us to begin with.

maz: Do you remember when you first heard of Stephen Sondheim?

sm: "Yes! When I was discovering myself in Israel and I was on a kibbutz, there was this girl from Harvard and she lent me all of her Sondheim tapes. I listened to them over and over and over. I fell in love with the work. Then I read the librettos and I fell in love. I grew up watching the video of "Sunday in the Park with George" with Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin and I grew up with that perspective. Then 12 years ago, they staged the London revival in New York and I saw it and I was floored. It was so spectacular and it was a big step forward for the musical."

maz: What is it that is such a draw to the musical?

sm: "I'm a classical musical buff and, more specifically, a classical music buff. I love the music of Philip Glass and Steve Reich. When Sondheim was composing "Sunday," it was a nod to these contemporary classic composers who were changing the direction of the musical philosophies -- all of the things that came out of the music of John Cage and Morton Feldman. So to me it's very contemporary."

maz: How will you create a different Sunday?

sm: "After I saw that London revival in New York I said, 'No one can ever do Sunday again.' But when we saw the way they did their production with beautiful animations, which brought such a contemporary pulse, we realized it was possible. Now, in no way, shape or form are we doing someone else's production, but we've taken this creativity and we created these animations. They tip to the current environment of gaming and cartooning. So that for us has been a big seed for our storytelling. We've given it a fresh, current vibe. We want for our audience to be wowed by the masterful music, the wonderful acting and this contemporary pulse, which is added with the animations. [Michael McKeever and Greg Duffy are creating the original animations.] We have this journey that we're exploring. We're looking at the process of art. Putting the focus on the spiritual fulfillment of art making and the spiritual reaffirmation of art making. Yes, we have limitations. We're a smaller theater company, so we won't have big lavish drops. We're going to do a minimalist version and put the emphasis on the music, acting and great storytelling.

What many theater companies do is recreate and I've never been able to do that. We can't recreate Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin. I'm doing something that's kind of different in this production in that I'm taking the art of possibility on the blank page very seriously. In the script, you see the painting unfold, the musical itself unfold, and we're going to do that more expressively. Our costume designer, Angelina Esposito, has create a whole set of costumes that start out completely white and while our characters get painted, their costumes become more like the costumes from the Seurat painting."

maz: There are always aha moments when you're creating something. Have you had any of these during this show?

sm: "There are aha moments every day. We rehearse right near the Knight Concert Hall and, during breaks, when there is no one there, it is the most beautiful quiet that I can find. I say a prayer in there and it says that I want to create work that is worthy enough to be done in this space. I then I go back into rehearsal and I collaborate with artists who are far superior than I could ever be, and who have a wonderful sense of humor, and who listen to my crazy ideas and implement them, and then I hear a song like 'Sunday,' then all of a sudden these four parasols go off in a moment; that's an aha! And I think, 'Wow! I can't believe this is what I do!'"

maz: How has it been being the resident theater company at the Arsht?

sm: "I get emotional when I talk about it. It's been an incredible, fruitful journey for me personally. I will say that along with Michael McKeever and Stephanie and Christopher Demos Brown and Kerry C. Schiller, we didn't know what we were expecting. I knew my strengths and weaknesses. The mentorship from the Arsht and Dade County Cultural Affairs has been what has helped Zoetic Stage. We would not have grown so bravely, I think, and have a place to really grow into ourselves, perhaps if we weren't here, and we are growing all the time."

maz: Any personal philosophies to share?

sm: "I wonder if there's ever a point in surgery that surgery gets easy, because it never gets easy in theater. Fortunately, there's a collaborative system in place, but it never gets easy. I would like to think that surgeons save lives and that we enrich lives, so creating is always about making society better."

 

"Sunday in the Park with George" plays Jan. 19 to Feb. 12 in the Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater (Ziff Ballet Opera House), 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, as part of the Center’s Theater Up Close Series.

Tickets are $50-$55 and may be purchased through the Arsht Center box office by calling (305) 949-6722 or online at www.arshtcenter.org.