She’s Making an Instrumental Difference

When you’re watching Ana Marcu in the first seven minutes of Outside SCR’s The Old Man and The Old Moon at Mission San Juan Capistrano, it’s best not to blink. And not just because you’ll miss her playing three of the six instruments she plays during the performance.

You’ll miss a true feat of theatre quick-change wizardry—mixed with rarely seen musical versatility. And it’s Marcu’s favorite part of the show.

During the pre-show mini-concert, you’ll see Marcu walk amid the audience playing a guitar (instrument No. 1). You’ll see her take the stage and sit down at the piano (instrument No. 2), before she picks up an accordion (instrument No. 3). After the first song, she sets down her accordion, does a costume change and picks up her violin (instrument No. 4). She plays a piece on the violin, sets it down, takes off a piece of her costume, picks up the accordion again and plays the production’s second song. As soon as she finishes the last note, Marcu heads to the piano and plays an underscoring piece. Then, she puts on a new jacket and hat for her scene as a boatsman in the epic story by PigPen Theatre Co. that takes audiences across land, sea and sky.

“I have two seconds to not worry about anything,” she said.

If you’re exhausted reading that description, imagine performing it five nights a week. Without blinking. Those opening seven minutes take Marcu across every instrument except the flute (Instrument No. 5) and tambourine (instrument No. 6), which come later.

And they serve as a prelude to Marcu playing several roles throughout the 100-minute production. Marcu sings, dances and roams the stage with the authority and assurance of someone comfortable with complexity.

“I love it when I’m very busy in a show. When I have a lot to do and a lot to think about. It’s kind of like a puzzle to me and I love puzzles,” she said.

“I have three seconds to take off this costume, put this costume on, get to this instrument and begin playing. It’s a fun challenge for me and exciting and entertaining for me to get to figure all of that out and know where my whole track is throughout the show.”

Marcu’s life track led her to this moment and she freely admits her extensive training and ability to solve musical puzzles makes her don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-something routine look far easier than it is. Growing up in Oregon, it was a track filled with music, starting with singing when she was old enough to speak. That segued into the piano at age 6, where Marcu completed all 10 levels of the Oregon Music Teachers Association piano syllabus by the time she was in her middle teens. Each level required proficiency in scales, theory, repertoire, sight reading and ear training.

“I think I was born with some natural talent for it. It always made sense to me. I always was really good at reading music,” she said. “I was always good at sight reading and my teachers would give me music to sight-read to motivate me to practice my other stuff.”

Marcu picked up the flute in fifth grade, played it in her school band for a couple years, then quit. The following year—not long before she starting playing the difficult likes of Beethoven, Chopin and Rachmaninoff on the piano—Marcu picked up the violin. She spent two years taking violin lessons, putting it aside when her teacher asked her to give up the piano. At 14, Marcu picked up her sister’s guitar and taught herself how to play.

As for the accordion? Marcu never played it before The Old Man and The Old Moon. She learned it on the fly during rehearsals.

“When I first met with (Director) Kim (Martin-Cotten) and (Music Director) Matt (MacNelly) about doing the show, they asked me about the accordion and I said ‘I have held an accordion before and pressed the buttons and the keys, but I don’t know how it works,” she said. “A friend of mine offered to give me her accordion and I took her up on it and brought it to California and learned it.

“This goes with every other instrument I learned, because of my knowledge of piano and music theory, it’s much easier for me to pick up new instruments. And an accordion on the right side is just like a piano, it’s a little keyboard. The left side, with the buttons, is the complicated side. It can be intimidating at first, but I realized it wasn’t that scary. There’s a button on the left side that has an indent and it’s a C. You find that button and you find out where everything else is.”

Knowing her first love was musical theatre and knowing she always wanted to live in New York, Marcu honed that 3D chess level of musical foresight at Syracuse, which she credits with her ability to seamlessly provide the foundation to “find out where everything else is” artistically. That led to off-Broadway roles in 90210 TheMusical and Georama and regional productions at Syracuse Stage, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Arizona Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Disney On Classic, where she played Pocahontas, Jasmine and Moana.

In nearly all of her roles, Marcu’s voice brought the same attention as her instrumental prowess is bringing for The Old Man and The Old Moon. After all, it all started with singing, which made her a natural for roles such as Girl in two productions of Once: at Syracuse Stage and at California Center for the Arts/Escondido. In both productions, the critics swooned.

“Marcu has a beautiful singing voice and plays her non-nonsense character with straightforward likability, and her performance of ‘The Hill’ brought ears to my eyes,” wrote the San Diego Union-Tribune.

“Marcu’s vocals are beautiful and clear, and her character instantly wins the audience over,” wrote BroadwayWorld.

Now, SCR audiences are getting to experience Marcu’s virtuosity for the first time. Kelly Perong Costakes, who saw a recent show, said, “The woman who plays all the instruments is fantastic. She’s so talented.”

This would be a good place to mention Marcu plays another instrument you won’t see in The Old Man and The Old Moon—the upright bass. It won’t surprise you she learned it on the fly, playing Antonia in Arizona Theatre Company’s production of Man of La Mancha. She also plays the ukulele and mandolin.

All of this is to say that a production like The Old Man and The Old Moon gives Marcu the ability to display 90% of her considerable artistic skill sets. It’s the perfect production for an artist who enjoys telling the story in multiple ways.

And one she clearly enjoys with her fellow cast members, all of whom you can see for one more week in The Old Man and The Old Moon, running through Sunday, Aug. 11. Don’t miss this final opportunity to see theatre under the stars at Mission San Juan Capistrano.