Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures is perhaps the most controversial of the master’s works for musical theater—with equally vocal champions and detractors weighing in on the musical’s attributes and its place in the canon of Sondheim’s scores. As a result, it’s seen by some as a rarely produced gem (it does include “Somewhere in a Tree,” which purportedly is Sondheim’s personal favorite among all the songs he’s ever written, which his awe-inspiring in and of itself), while others shake their heads in wonder as companies mount new productions.
Nashville audiences—and chattering, anticipatory theater critics—will be given the opportunity to weigh in with their own impressions of Pacific Overtures, thanks to an ambitious production from Blackbird Theater, the acclaimed company now in its sophomore season at David Lipscomb University’s Shamblin Theatre.
Directed by Greg Greene, with musical direction by Ben Van Diepen (who leads a 13-member orchestra for the show's run) and choreography by Kari Smith, Pacific Overtures features an impressive roster of local actors, including Travis Brazil, Michael Slayton, Tyson Laemmel, Chris Boen, JoAnn Coleman, Nancy Allen, Jama Bowen, Patrick Kramer, Mike Baum, Scott Rice, Will Sevier, Brad Oxnam, Katherine Sandoval Taylor, Evelyn O’Neal Brush, Cori Laemmel, Larry Brown, Brad Forrister, James Rudolph, Andy Kanies, Jeremy Maxwell, Tyler Ashley, Sydni Hayes, Maia Cole, Addison McFarlin, Anna Beth Lasley and Tyler Bond.
Pacific Overtures tells the story of Commodore Matthew Perry’s 1853 mission to open trade relations with isolationist Japan through gunboat diplomacy. This show—which features music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by John Weidman, and which won two of the 10 Tony Awards for which the debut production on Broadway was nominated—blends expected musical theater idioms with elements from Japanese Kabuki theater, to present the origin of relations between America and Japan through the eyes of the Japanese.
The show’s score, considered by most critics one of Sondheim’s most sophisticated and ambitious, includes the haunting “Pretty Lady,” perhaps the best-known show from the score, and “The Bowler Hat,” the Act Two number that is considered an artistic triumph by most aficionados of the work.
Taking time out from rehearsals (which are being heralded on social media as challenging and exciting by members of the production’s cast and crew), director Greene gives some insight into the upcoming production of Pacific Overtures, which opens Thursday, February 2 at the Shamblin Theatre.Blackbird Theater’s Pacific Overtures is presented just prior to Nashville’s Cherry Blossom Festival, and Greene feels the story is “a fitting tribute to the strength and the resilient spirit of the Japanese people,” particularly coming within a year of the tsunami that devastated the nation in 2011.
How are rehearsals progressing? Have you encountered any surprises in the process?
