Erin McNally Inducts the Summer Players into Sondheim Boot Camp

The idea came to Erin McNally out of the blue, as most inspirations do when it comes to teaching musical theatre in ways that break convention.

Appropriate, since Stephen Sondheim broke convention when he wrote the music and lyrics to Into theWoods. Turning this classic Sondheim work loose on the Summer Players, however, comes with its own challenges—challenges that force music director McNally and director Hisa Takakuwa into the unconventional.

So McNally created Boot Camp—Sondheim Boot Camp.

It’s a way for her students to get their voices around the difficult time signatures and pinpoint timing demands of Into the Woods. Two weeks before rehearsals for the Summer Players began, McNally set up special sessions with certain cast members to meet with Assistant Directors Lauren Dong and Sarah Sparks—themselves Summer Players alums. A week before rehearsals, Dong and Sparks met with cast members, answered questions and helped build a level of comfort on what can be a difficult musical for young actors.

“When they weren’t with me working on their solos or duets, we would send everyone up to classrooms with Sarah and Lauren. They would help the group prepare for the next day’s work,” McNally said.

“To see 12/8 and 6/8 and 3/2 signatures, for a kid who hasn’t read a lot of music, that can be scary. I demystify it with a sheet of all the time signatures This is what it means, this is what it looks like and this is how you count it. When they’re coming in with their parts, it has to be exact because there isn’t any room for error.”

Again, it’s that eye for detail and McNally’s mastery of her musical craft that brings out the best in the 28 members of the Summer Players, some of the most talented students in SCR’s Youth Conservatory. To perform in the Summer Players, cast members have to complete at least a year in the conservatory, then audition for their roles.

McNally’s practiced eye doesn’t miss anything. She and Takakuwa selected Into the Woods—tricky as the Sondheim and James Lapine work is—for several reasons. First, there’s the obvious challenge. Takakuwa speaks often about wanting to challenge her students, many of whom have spent numerous years learning acting and musical theatre through the Conservatory’s process-based method of teaching. They need and deserve an outlet worthy of showcasing those lessons.

And Into the Woods is that worthy outlet. It’s challenging, yet so enticing that McNally calls it “a holy grail for Hisa and I.”

“It’s important to us that it be a show that can be driven and seen through the eyes of a young person, that they can really bite into it on a real level,” McNally said. “Into theWoods has become that pinnacle (show) of truly putting on an ensemble, giving everyone a meaty and challenging role, and then for them to work together to create this world. We don’t always have the opportunity to do that. …

“You know you should love Sondheim, but the music is challenging. What’s hard about it is the counting, the time signatures change constantly. It makes you learn to sing with precision. There’s a lot of quick tempo pieces and you have to utilize diction. How do we shape that? There’s not a lot of room for error, not a lot of room for laziness. You have to be alert and ready to jump in. It’s difficult because the vocal range of a lot of the characters is weighty.”

The second reason? The ensemble cast. You have 28 talented young actors and Into the Woods gives everyone the perfect vehicle to shine.

“Again, because we’re all about ensemble, we love it,” McNally said.

There’s something else McNally loves about this summer’s production. The preparation her students put into absorbing that difficult material. She said between their homework, her lessons and Sondheim Boot Camp, they learned the musical numbers in three days.

That’s not only learning, but understanding and delivering, the vocal demands of Stephen Sondheim in three days.

“It was crazy, but we did it,” she said. “What was great for me as a longtime musical director and music teacher is my kids all knew what to do. They’ve been taught how to walk into a room on the first day of rehearsal making confident choices and knowing the music. They came in singing as confidently as they could. I was ecstatic they came in doing their job. It was great.”

Come Into the Woods with the Summer Players for eight performances Aug. 5-13 on the Julianne Argyros Stage.