Jeremy Bloom: In the third grade, I responded to a local call for children to play munchkins in a version of The Wizard of Oz at a local high school. For the audition, I sang “I Got No Strings” from Pinocchio, reading the lyrics off the pamphlet that comes in the CD jewel case. I really hadn’t any strings at the time.

What were your first experiences with the work of Oscar Wilde, one of the wittiest, but also one of the most vulnerable Irish writers in oppressive Victorian England?

My first Wilde encounter came in the form of a T-shirt I got at a Rufus Wainwright concert when I was 14. It read, “Being natural is only a pose, and the greatest pose I know.” This inspired me to read Dorian Gray, which I devoured.

You said that Wilde Tales “is near and dear to my heart.” Tell me why.

It is newly near and dear to my heart, yes! I was just introduced to the material by Alex [Burns, Artistic Director of the Quintessence Theatre Group] nearly a year ago. While I had not grown up with these stories, I now can’t imagine my life without them, as they seem to be little guidebooks on “how to be.” They are poetic and searing, and particularly suited for a stage adaptation.

The challenge of staging these seemingly unstageable moments between animals and inanimate objects is exactly what draws me to the theater. How can we tell these stories efficiently? My goal is to get rid of any excessive gesture, but also to keep the scale epic, and the visuals beautiful.

What were your first reactions to the invitation to direct Wilde’s moving story, written for children, and the challenge they present for any director?

Reading Wilde’s stories made me laugh and cry and shake my head all at once. That was enough for me. I knew right away that our handful of actors would have to play about 40 roles and that we should use objects to denote character. I also knew that all the stories should take place in a single garden. Nature pervades every single story.

Tell us about the stage design and Doug Green’s unusual transformation of the old theater into a magical playground. Walking into the theater, I thought I had entered a kind of Alice in Wonderlandworld.

The first decision was to set the play in a garden, where things could grow—a single space that could become each of the five settings. The props we used in the play would emerge from the garden and be used in each scene, so that there would be a cohesion between the stories. We wanted it to feel current and based on everyday objects. Doug collected things from gardens all around Philadelphia, and worked tirelessly and imaginatively to create a beautiful environment that strikes you the second the audience enters the space. Enhanced by Jay Ryan’s lighting, our world is one of hot pink and bric-a-brac and manic order and plantings.

The down-to-earth magic was also reflected in the costumes.

Yes, Jane [Casanave] is wonderful. We wanted to streamline what the performers wore, making sure to suggest character, but also very much setting our world in today. Jane used painterly color gestures that track the actors through the play.

You created a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk that encompassed a wide range of arts, including special sounds.

Thank you. As I imagined them in a theater, I heard the sound of birds and crickets. Philadelphia’s Daniel Isondesigned the perfect sound.

You also integrated music by David Cope, a modern Renaissance man—American composer, scientist, author, and former professor of music in San Francisco.
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I knew a challenge would be to unify the five stories into a single arc and to create a vibe that carried the audience from story to story. Therefore, I decided to integrate vocal music, songs composed by David Cope—not to further the story, but to create a mood in the space I used.

Given that many of the characters in Wilde’s Talesare either animals or inanimate objects like the sculpture of a Prince, how did you handle those challenges in your production?

Many theatrical adaptations of these stories use costumes to portray the non-human characters. One of my first decisions in our production was to use handheld objects to represent the different species as our primary storytelling mode. This allows the puppeteer performers to maintain a level of humanity: it’s not just a talking bird, but it’s a complex human storyteller alongside an object of a bird.

For example, our Swallow is portrayed by the gesture of an actress holding two bean pods in a V-shape as a child would draw a bird. This concept was introduced by our puppet designer Martina Plag. It typifies what I would consider an exciting and efficient use of an object in a play. Rather than hiding the puppeteer, we wanted to embrace the actors’ presence along with the objects. This process seemed like the simplest, most elegant solution.

The famous Prince was portrayed by a young woman.

True. Rather than attempt to cast a strapping young man as a prince or male student, the female actors in the play often portray male roles, and there is little attempt to alter the actors’ appearance through costume design. I feel that by having some distance between the actors’ bodies and the storybook character they are portraying, we are able to engage the imagination in a particular way.

You engaged many children on stage and in your audiences.
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Yes. We are creating a space where anyone can imagine being anything is important. We did our best to cast the play based on choosing a group of divine performers for their particular mix of personalities and talents, then chose what roles they would play later.
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Oscar Wilde addresses not only life but also death and dying—not exactly the stuff of most children’s stories and plays.

All five of the stories end in some sort of death and two of them end with particularly religious images—God and Jesus escorting the characters to an afterlife—odd for typical children’s theater and odd even when Wilde first published the stories. But there is an optimism and beauty in the way that the life cycle progresses through the stories and is treated in a way that is beautiful and comforting for children and adults. As a result, I chose to integrate the song lyrics from Wilde’s De Profundis, written in prison, and was struck by his spirituality and the way that nature reigned supreme.

We have a number of beautiful old theaters in Philadelphia, but none as spectacularly unusual as Quintessence’s main hub, the historic Sedgwick Theatre in Germantown. You recreated the space as I have never seen it before. Tell us more about it and the reasons for your transformation.

Quintessence and the Sedgwick Theatre are amazing. The glorious architecture with its art deco design makes the space unmistakable. We had the option to cover up the walls with curtains or to expose them. We chose to expose them anywhere we could. Jay Ryan, the wonderful lighting designer, used the space sculpturally to highlight the original architecture. The connection to the specific plays helps us root the story in the community and in the history of the place.

You began the sequence with the most famous of Wilde’s Tales and ended with a less well-known tale.

We begin with “Happy Prince” and end with “The Remarkable Rocket” in the order that Wilde published these stories. I felt like there were big clues in this order about the function of the stories and tried to pull out a narrative arc that stretched across the whole evening. The rocket’s ascent from the campfire at the end of the play becomes a sort of even grander attempt to be an ending to the whole evening. The rocket sees himself as creating a great sensation, and I see the rocket’s ascent as a reflection on all of life, a desire to be heard, a desire to do something important—a last shot. Conversely, the opening story feels like a beginning when the swallow feels very young. It’s a moment of discovery.

When you presented that famous “wall” scene, the adults in the audience roared with laughter as we, I’m sure, all saw the president-elect build an even bigger wall and keep people out. Tell us more about your reading of those scenes and the enthusiastic reactions from the audience. 
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The themes of national politics are deeply embedded in these stories. I can’t really bear to write anything about Tr*mp but the connections are obvious, down to the very diction of “The Miller,” “The Giant,” “The Rocket,” and others. I do think that the stories are a powerful comment on this historical moment in the US. Wilde Tales discusses generosity, kindness, integrity—all valuable lessons in the face of certain political messages of selfishness, meanness, and dishonesty.
We like to play Sharon Jones’ music around the theater, particularly her cover of “This Land is Your Land”—a highly political song whose message is right in line with the moral of The Selfish Giant.

​A number of scenes are filled with deep religiosity, enabling the actors on stage to provide a moving performance, accompanied by powerful, yet subtle ethereal music engulfing the auditorium. Tell us more about it.

I was struck by the stories in the context of Wilde’s life. In the biopic with Stephen Fry and Jude Law, as Wilde is being sent to labor prison, he reads his children the story of “The Selfish Giant.” The giant’s death becomes his death. These stories—written more than a decade before his death—seem to allude to a worldview that Wilde laid out in his prison letters, De Profundis.

I began looking to Wilde’s later writings to find little world-view soundbites that we could use to contextualize the stories. Our opening song from De Profundis becomes a frame for the short stories with our children’s chorus singing these lines:

“Far off, like a perfect pearl, one can see the city of God. It is so wonderful that it seems as if a child could reach it in a summer’s day. And so a child could.”

Thank you, Jeremy, and everyone who contributed to this moving production of a father’s Wilde Tales.

Running Time: 90 minutes, with one 10-minute intermission.

This interview was originally published by DC Metro Theater Arts on December 22, 2016.

by Henrik Eger

​German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), in his 1949 essay, “Cultural Criticism and Society,” claimed, “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” (transl. by Samuel and Shierry Weber). However, in 1966, Adorno revised his view: “Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as a tortured man has to scream; hence it may have been wrong to say that after Auschwitz you could no longer write poems” (English transl. by E. B. Ashton)—or sing and make music.

Arnesen mused, “Imagining what the person who wrote it went through is what makes the world so powerful. They are about hope even in the darkest time of life. Even if your freedom is taken away from you, or the people you love, no one can take your faith and hope away from you.” This work premiered just days after the 2011 terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utoya.

The performance continued with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ (1872-1958) “Dona Nobis Pacem” (“Grant us peace”), based on the violence during the Spanish Civil War and performed with texts from various sources, including Walt Whitman’s 1861 work of war-fever—“Beat! Beat! Drums!” —set to powerful “rhythms of drums and trumpets, instruments of war . . . even as they shatter every-day peaceful endeavors . . . and obliterate the fundamental civility of reasoned discourse and the compassion which pleas should evoke.”

​A Child’s Christmas in Wales, a book by Wales’ most famous poet Dylan Thomas (1914-53), began as a text that he had written for the radio in 1952—a year before he passed away in New York City. Thomas relived part of his childhood experiences during Christmas through this work, seen through the eyes of a child, somewhat romanticizing the past through various entertaining anecdotes, including an alcoholic old aunt.

Together with Under Milk Wood, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” “And death shall have no dominion, A Child’s Christmas in Wales became one of his most widely read and now widely performed masterpieces.

The production at Walnut Street Theatre with Aaron Cromie, Scott Greer, Maggie Lakes, Matthew Mastronardi, and Amanda Jill Robinson was directed by Philadelphia’s much sought after Aaron Cromie. The innovative Matthew Mastronardi orchestrated and music directed this play in ways it had never been done before. [Walnut Street Theatre Independence Studio on 3, 825 Walnut Street] November 15-December 23, 2016; walnutstreettheatre.org.

​Henrik Eger: When I saw you on stage, memories of my own childhood and Christmas came flooding in. Could you share with us one or two memories from your childhood during the Christmas period?

Aaron Cromie: The moment when we light candles during “Silent Night,” I’m reminded of the time when I sang in church (where my father was the choir director) on Christmas Eve. We’d pass the flame, lighting each others’ candles. Then we’d blow them out, the lights would come on, and we’d sing “Joy To The World.”

Amanda Jill Robinson: One of my favorite memories of Christmas Eve as a child would happen right before dinner. My grandmother kept a little silver bell tucked away in a drawer of her dining room server. It was tactfully hidden, so the kids wouldn’t run around ringing it all night, but just as dinner was placed on the table, she would always let me, the oldest grandchild, take out the bell and announce, “Everything is ready!” I took such pride in ringing that little bell.

Maggie Lakis: When we would go to my Grand mom’s house, the tradition was to make her recipe of raviolis and meatballs together as a family—and then, together, we would eat the food we had cooked.

Scott Greer: The tree was a big deal. We would play “I Spy” with the ornaments on Christmas Eve, and open the presents on Christmas morning as “Joy to the World” played on the stereo.

Matthew Mastronardi: Growing up taking piano lessons and loving to sing, I would learn to play Christmas carols and make my family sing along with me at Christmastime. I still make them sing with me every year, and my brother takes out his guitar and we have our little family Christmas band. I would also write some songs and perform them for my family when I was younger.

Henrik Eger: Share anything with us that you brought to this amazing production—from the instruments you played to the way you interacted with each other and your audience.

Aaron Cromie: It’s really great to play such positive celebratory music with colleagues you consider your friends and for audiences who really appreciate it. It’s also wonderful to get to play music in a 5-piece band.

Scott Greer: I like to think I bring enthusiasm and a high bodily tolerance of wool. [Scott and all the other actors have to wear authentic woolen outfits throughout each performance.]

Amanda Jill Robinson: In this production, I play the violin, guitar, xylophone, a few fun percussive instruments, and we all learned the hand bells! Actually, our hand bell rehearsals were funny enough to have a show of their own.

Maggie Lakis: We all play our own instruments with the exception of the bells and the melodica that Matt plays.

Matthew Mastronardi: I play the cello and piano. The original production of this show only used a piano for all the songs, but this cast is made up of actor/musicians. As the music director, I looked at each song and thought about all the instruments we could play, and then I tried to put together what would work best for each song. I also wanted each song to have a feeling as if we are making it up as we go—but, of course, everything was carefully planned out.

Since each arrangement of the songs was made especially for this production and for these actor/musicians, my hope was that each arrangement would feel fresh and exciting, because it is something that we built together in the rehearsal room from the ground up. The opening song in particular has a unique arrangement that I wrote to set up the way music and our instruments will be used throughout the evening.

Henrik Eger: Share anything else you wish to add.

Maggie Lakis: I’m so happy to be finally working at the Walnut Street Theatre. Also, it’s been a pleasure to spend the holiday season doing this lovely show with a great group of fellow actors and musicians.

Matthew Mastronardi: In this play, we use a lot of folk sounding instruments. It was important to me to have all acoustic instruments that you may be able to find in Wales during Dylan Thomas’ childhood.

We therefore play Violin, Cello, Piano, Flute, Guitars, Banjos, Autoharp, Ukulele, and Mandolin—even some fun percussion instruments like a Toy Xylophone, Guiro, Wood Blocks, Hand Bells, Jingle Bells, and a few other surprises.
I think the biggest challenge was to not use every instrument for every song. We have such an incredibly talented ensemble, and I wanted to make sure everyone was featured throughout the show, but it was also important to have a variety of arrangements from song to song. So some of us don’t play certain songs, not because we can’t, but in order to have more intimate arrangements for certain songs. It was very exciting and fun to put together the instruments used for each song.

[Walnut Street Theatre’s Independence Studio on 3, 825 Walnut Street] November 15-December 23, 2016; walnutstreettheatre.org.

70 minutes, with no intermission.

This interview was originally published by Phindie on December 10, 2016. 

I have seen many Christmas shows, each one enjoyable in its own way, but I’ve never seen a production as moving, as unusual, and as artistically satisfying as this unique version of A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, based on the Irish Repertory Theatre of New York’s adaptation, featuring both traditional and contemporary holiday music.

Performed by Aaron Cromie, Scott Greer, Maggie Lakes, Matthew Mastronardi, and Amanda Jill Robinson, it creates an atmosphere from the moment you arrive, with hot cider waiting for you, and with a spirit of goodness accompanying you for quite some time—long after you have left Studio 3 at the Walnut Street Theatre, still humming along.

This delightful production appealed to all senses—including a sense of belonging to an amazing family. Chances are that you will sing along during two numbers. In this interview, we asked Director Aaron Cromie and Music Director Matthew Mastronardi to take us behind the scenes of this most joyful Welsh Christmas in Philadelphia.
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Henrik Eger: Tell us about your professional background as an artistic and as a music director that eventually led you to this production. ​

Matthew Mastronardi: I met Aaron when I was in College at University of the Arts, and he was one of my professors. Through the years, I have worked on many projects with Aaron, and when he approached me with this project, I was very excited and a little nervous because this is my first professional experience as a music director. I’ve worked as an actor/musician on many productions, and some times that requires you to create your own parts for your instrument in each song. So using all that experience and my knowledge in music theory, I felt up to the task. I really enjoyed the arranging of the songs, and helping to tell the story through the music.

Present the challenges you faced in directing the story of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, and give an example or two on how you handled the artistic or the musical part of this beautiful piece.

Aaron: As director, the largest challenge was tackling a piece without a dramatic arc or defined characters. We, as an ensemble, worked to discover the comic gems and the genuine moments within Thomas’ poem to strengthen the path of the story as a play. Once these moments were defined, I used the strengths of each cast member to bring forward the discoveries to the audience.

Matthew: I think the biggest challenge was to not use every instrument that this cast can play for every song. We have such an incredibly talented ensemble, and I wanted to make sure everyone was featured throughout the show, but it was also important to have a variety of arrangements from song to song. So some of us don’t play certain songs, not because we can’t, but in order to have more intimate arrangements for certain songs. It was very exciting and fun to put together the instruments used for each song.
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Your work stood out, among others, by its flawless ensemble work. Could you give some examples of how you worked with the actors and musicians, including their input on the production? ​

Aaron: “The best idea in the room wins” is a mantra shared among many of my acting colleagues. This was what we applied to our rehearsals. Everyone had a voice. That, combined with incorporating the needs of the multiple instruments, played in the show. With everyone playing instruments, our needs as musicians led to many of the staging decisions made in the room.

Matthew: I looked at each song and then I asked the cast what instruments they could play, and then I tried to put together what would work best for each song. Since each arrangement of these songs was made especially for this production and for these actor/musicians, my hope is that they feel fresh and exciting, because it is something that we built together in the rehearsal room from the ground up. It was very important to me to have a collaborative room, and I always asked for input on the arrangements.

Describe a scene from the piece by Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, that worked particularly well for you from either the artistic or musical perspective.

Aaron: There is a moment in the show where the actors are telling ghost stories. That section of the poem has a tiny story arc that we were able to connect with easily. This part works well both with the set created for the production, and the comedic strength of the actors.

Matthew: In the poem, Dylan Thomas talks a lot of hearing bells ringing on Christmas Day. So, for the arrangement of the song “Ring Out the Bells”—which is a new song written by Charlotte Moore (both music and lyrics) and arranged by Mark Hartman. I orchestrated it as I wanted to create a unique sound. It was originally written to be played just by a piano. It has the feel of an old Christmas carol that you would hear bellowing from a church bell tower. And since Thomas used such beautiful imagery of bells, I wanted to only use handbells for this song to give you the feeling of hearing church bells ringing throughout the town.

Share a moment or two from your rehearsals or performances that surprised you.

Aaron: For me, it’s a surprise from our audience. It’s a nice surprise for me when you experience an audience member familiar with Thomas’ work chime in with a line from the poem that they remember. Also, when we sing “Silent Night,” a few people always quietly join in. It is a very sweet moment for me on stage.

Matthew: This cast was a dream to work with, and I consider each of them my friends. They supported me throughout this process, and were always ready to jump in with ideas. It’s a joy to perform with them each day, and as we go we find new ways to explore the text and music. And we have created our own little Christmas family band of storytellers and singers.

Could you share with us some Christmas memories from your own childhood that might have had an impact on the way you directed this show?

Aaron: Creating the moment on stage when we light our candles just before we sing “Silent Night.” That was something I remember doing fondly at my church growing up. From my childhood memories, I also relate closely to the idea that from day-to-day, tundra could be a place to explore. Almost as if, when you’re young, the same place you were yesterday becomes an undiscovered lot to create new stories today.

Matthew: Growing up taking piano lessons and loving to sing, I would learn to play Christmas carols and make my family sing along with me at Christmastime. I still make them sing with me every year, and my brother takes out his guitar and we have our little family Christmas band. I would also write some songs and perform them for my family when I was younger.
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So for the song “I Don’t Want a Lot for Christmas,” I wanted the arrangement to sound as if children wrote this song as their Christmas wish-list to sing for their parents. For this arrangement, we therefore use a lot of “toy instruments” like a ukulele, melodica, triangle, and a guiro to give it that child-like sound.

What makes this production of A Child’s Christmas in Wales different from the original production?

Matthew: The original production of this show only used a piano for all the songs, so our production has all the same songs, but what makes it unique are the arrangements of the songs. The opening song in particular has a unique arrangement that I wrote to set up the way music and our instruments will be used throughout the evening. We open the show with “Deck the Halls,” and each instrument gives a little solo to welcome the audience in.

Aaron: Merry Christmas everyone!

Running Time: 70 minutes, with no intermission.

​A Child’s Christmas in Wales plays through December 23, 2016, at Walnut Street Theatre’s Independence Studio on 3—825 Walnut Street, in Philadelphia, PA. For tickets, call the box office at (215) 574-3550 or (800)-982-2787, or purchase them online.

This interview was originally published by DC Metro Theater Arts on December 10, 2016.