NEW YORK — So this is the view from the other side, standing onstage at Broadway’s century-old Palace Theatre. Downstage center, alone except for crew members and a few ogling visitors, stands Robert Fairchild, the star of “An American in Paris,” looking at a sea of empty seats with about an hour to go before a Saturday matinee.
Dressed in a soccer shirt and shorts, he performs vocal exercises before being joined by co-stars Brandon Uranowitz and Max von Essen, when suddenly one hits the floor and another throws a punch.
“That’s a daily thing, rehearsing the fight scene,” said Gia Mongell, who made the stage the final stop of a private tour behind the scenes of the Palace, where every nook is in use for Broadway’s newest musical. The tour started at the call board then wound through the communal barre-and-mirror space, quick-change areas and costume racks, the wig room and the costume room, and, oh, there’s actress Veanne Cox.
“Hi, Veanne, can we …?” “Of course you can come in,” said the actress who plays Madame Baurel, mother to Mr. von Essen’s Henri.
Then a peek into the dressing room shared by the ladies of the ensemble as they prepared to go on, and a friendly wave from Sarrah Strimel, a North Allegheny High and Pittsburgh CLO alumna, who had been chatting away earlier in the day.
Along the way, Ms. Mongell moves through the tight squeezes and narrow staircases with practiced ease, greeting or being greeted and calling out a caution to watch the many ways one could trip over a wire or scrape against a prop.
At 23 and a recent graduate of the Juilliard School, she is the youngest member of the cast, a swing who must be prepared to stand in for five roles with myriad costume changes she had not yet counted.
She grew up in Atlanta, but her father from Connellsville took her to Pittsburgh each summer, and they frequented Pittsburgh CLO, whose executive producer, Van Kaplan, is a lead producer on “An American in Paris.” Ms. Mongell’s first musical theater experience was CLO’s “Annie,” a production that included Ms. Strimel.
A ’jazzer’ in paradise
“I’m 33 now, and now there are kids like Gia who can say I was part of their first theater experience. Can you believe it?” Ms. Strimel says.
It is hard to believe. The stately and youthful triple threat is talking before her now routine ballet workout. She has had to reconnect with training that had been reinforced in her CLO Academy days with instructor Leslie Anderson-Braswell.
After a decade of steady stage work, the grueling road back to the pointe began when it was announced that “An American in Paris” would open way out of town — in Paris, France — and the travel-minded Ms. Strimel was determined to win a part. It helped knowing that Mr. Kaplan was a part of the producing team.
“It was a perfect marriage. It was my home, Van and CLO. They are the reason I am on Broadway. So we have all of these elements that made it a dream job to book,” Ms. Strimel says. And once she made the team, director-choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has challenged her every step of the way, “I think because he knew I could take it.”
The ensemble’s four ballerinas and four musical theater veterans — “jazzers,” the ballet dancers call them — quickly figured out they could lean on each other in a show that melds the two disciplines and stretches each to new possibilities.
Ms. Strimel is most at home in the big number fronted by Mr. von Essen, a more traditional Broadway-style tap dance with lots of sparkle and shine.
“ ’I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise’ is my kind of bread and butter — half-naked in tap shoes, that’s usually what I’m hired to do, and with a headdress!”
The singer on the team
An elevator operator takes visitors from stage level to the two-room floor that includes Mr. von Essen’s dressing room. With a humidifier going full tilt, he greets a visitor and pulls up a chair to talk about his latest Broadway journey, as Henri Baurel, one of three friends in love with the same girl in “An American in Paris.”
He resembles the Henri of the 1950 movie in name only. “I feel like I am 100 percent in a new musical, absolutely doing a role that is mine, though it has existed in the film world,” he says. He sports a French accent for the role and was cast primarily for his vocal talents, although he has to keep up with the physical demands of a show that is constantly on the move.
“The whole thing dances — even the transitions,” he notes. “I didn’t know that it would be so nontraditional in that sense, that there isn’t anything mechanical on stage.That was Christopher Wheeldon’s concept — the panels, the piano, the cafe tables, everyone would literally dance them on and off. I love it because I’ve never seen anything like it.“
The adaptation breaks free of the movie, including how the songs are filtered into the plot. The film was, in today’s parlance, a jukebox musical, formed from a score by George Gershwin long after his death in 1937. He was a few months shy of his 40th birthday. The movie won six Academy Awards, including best picture.
“Just imagine what else he would have written if he had 40 more years?” marvels Mr. von Essen, a trained pianist who recalls playing Gershwin preludes at his high school recitals.
His career trajectory to Broadway roles in “Les Miserables,” ”Jesus Christ Superstar,” ”Evita” and “West Side Story” has included several Pittsburgh CLO stops, which for him meant Mr. Kaplan represented a friendly face at the “American in Paris” auditions. “He directed ‘West Side Story,’ and that’s a tough show, an emotional show. So I think our relationship went to an even deeper level with that. Van has always taken care of me and felt like a father figure in the theater,” the actor says.
In a few minutes, Mr. von Essen will be onstage, preparing for the seats to fill up for the matinee, another show that night and, a day later, the official opening of “An American in Paris” on Broadway. He’s more than ready, and he believes New York audiences are ready as well.
“The play has a real sense of a revival for audiences,“ he says. ”When we start singing ‘I’ve Got Rhythm’ or “S’Wonderful,’ it feels right, it feels like they’re at home in a sense, yet it is completely new.”
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. SEberson_pg.
First Published: April 15, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
