4/1/2023 0 Comments Pinball wizard musical![]() Walker continue to take Tommy from doctor to doctor, hoping that a new therapy or medicine is available for their son. As Tommy grows older, hope for a cure is sparse. Walker.”Ĭaptain Walker soon learns that it is not as simple as apologizing and moving forward. “But through it all, his main goal is to come back to this woman that got him through the war, to reconcile and fall back in love with Mrs. “He’s a murderer, and (though) he got away with it, he’s traumatized his son,” Fletke said. ![]() ![]() Throughout the show, Captain Walker tries to resolve his relationship with his son and his wife, wanting to return to the pre-war familial life he shared with them. After he murders his wife’s lover, Captain Walker must deal with the fallout of his actions: Tommy is traumatized after witnessing this struggle and becomes catatonic. MT&D senior Lance Fletke plays war veteran Captain Walker, Tommy’s father. “The idea of Tommy as a YouTube sensation really clicked for me because it happens all the time, and it happens instantly, so we’re using the projections to pull from the media,” Norton said. The show portrays Tommy as a YouTube phenomenon, made famous instantaneously for his skills playing pinball. The reason behind the marriage of social media and rock opera is the intense cultural connection people have with the Internet today: Sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube allow ordinary individuals to skyrocket to fame overnight. In keeping with the theme of modernity, the 21st century is woven into the show: Not only do characters carry cell phones and iPods, but the back wall of the set will also be a series of muslin screens onto which video clips will be projected. “How do we tell the story rather than demonstrating (it) onstage?” “Trying to highlight the moments that aren’t about a huge rock show, the moments where there’s really something happening between two people onstage - even if it’s something horrific - how do we communicate it without it being uncomfortable?” Norton said. Due to the rock musical’s concept-album beginnings, connecting the multiple layers present in the original work has been a challenge from the show’s first production, no matter the time and place in which the show is situated. “So what is he in America in 2001? There needed to be an event that spurred Captain Walker’s release, so the whole show hinges around the ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech that Bush gave in 2003.”įinding appropriate backstories for characters was just the tip of The Who-sized iceberg. “In the original show, Captain Walker is a pilot in the British army,” Norton said. ![]() As MUSKET prepares to unveil its 21st-century version of “Tommy,” director Taylor Norton, a School of Music, Theatre & Dance freshman, discussed the advantages and complexities that revamping such a popular show entailed. Tomorrow night, more than 40 years after the album premiered, the revisited and overhauled “Tommy” will be presented by MUSKET, the University’s only student-run musical-theater organization. “There’s a lot of room for discovery, and any production you would see of ‘Tommy’ would be different because it wouldn’t all be there in the writing.” “The Who wrote this as a concept album, so you can do anything with it,” said Linda Goodrich-Weng, associate professor of dance. Though the rock opera follows the album thematically and musically, everything else about the production is up to the director of the show. The original album, largely composed by Pete Townshend, centers on Tommy, a deaf, blind and mute boy trying to cope with the shambles of his life, who has a talent for playing pinball. Since then, it has morphed into a Tony award-winning musical, “The Who’s ‘Tommy,’ ” which premiered on Broadway in 1993 and has enticed The Who enthusiasts and non-listeners alike with its edgy songs. The Who’s Tommy was the group’s first rock-opera album and was released in 1969. Though the music has been difficult and overcoming the popularity of the album has been challenging, each actor is enthusiastic and excited about the feel of the show. While modern, subtly avant-garde costumes are tucked away in a theater closet awaiting the dress rehearsal, the actors - clothes rumpled from a day of school and hands antsy from hours of taking notes - move into the rehearsal space, carefully calculating and picturing their place in the performance. Loud and happy, they interact with each other, preparing for the last week of rehearsals before the premiere. The stage is designed to look like the inside of Tommy’s mind, and it is here that the characters and ensembles come alive in MUSKET’S production of “The Who’s ‘Tommy.’ ”Īs actors file in for rehearsal, the energy and chemistry between cast members is apparent. The stage is set: Newspaper clippings, pictures of Tommy as a little boy and photos of current events create an atmosphere of media sensory overload.
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