It began a year ago. Handpicked from a host of candidates, three seniors emerged as the new leaders of an epic project. From the beginning, they knew that stress and many sleepless nights would accompany their quest to showcase history in a contemporary framework.
A year ago, Music senior Charlie Siebert and Communication seniors Liz Kimball and Antonette Balestreri initiated the creation of the next Waa-Mu production. As the co-chairs for a musical theater tradition that once featured the likes of Hollywood stars Warren Beatty and Garry Marshall, they signed on for a serious commitment.
“Waa-Mu is like a full-time job,” Siebert says. “It’s a tremendous amount of work, but it’s also tremendously rewarding. In the end, we took part in maintaining Waa-Mu’s storied history.”
Most importantly, they selected the show’s material, designed its structure and decided how that material would fall into place. Their guidance on the matter of material was crucial because, with the exception of three years, every edition of Waa-Mu is entirely student-written.
“Anyone can write for Waa-Mu, no matter what your major,” says Music sophomore and Waa-Mu writer Daniel Green, who assisted in the writing process his freshman year as well. “I had no formal experience writing music or lyrics, but the chairs liked my material and it went into the show.”
As Waa-Mu loses student writers every year to graduation and study abroad, the production annually overhauls in the material department. The dynamic nature of the show means that direction is always an issue.
“Part of it is simply a matter of trust,” says Northwestern’s music theatre program director Dominic Missimi, who also directs Waa-Mu. “It’s hard because it’s still my name under the ‘directed by’ field, but I try to use Waa-Mu as a teaching and learning lab.”
Missimi, who is only the third director in Waa-Mu history, contends that through his constant critiques and high standards, the students elevate the level of their work. In short, Waa-Mu is in no way treated as your average student musical. The show’s preparation requires a level of professionalism that is more analogous to Broadway than your run-of-the-mill student production.
“I think that by putting the students in the driver’s seat, instead of vice versa, you give them a taste of what they can expect at the next level,” Missimi says. “It gives students a greater investment in the process, because they put their stamp on the show. In this way, their leadership gives way to a greater sense of ownership and pride.”
Every year Waa-Mu follows this process. The co-chairs nurture the production from infancy to opening night, with the help of student writers, actors and musicians.
This year, however, all bets are off. It’s Waa-Mu’s 75th birthday. A 100-page souvenir book will mark the occasion with pictures, posters and stories from years past. There will be a 400-person gala dinner before and a 700-person party after opening night at the Hotel Orrington, 1710 Orrington Ave. The anniversary show even boasts prerecorded footage of birthday wishes from fans across the country, including NU alum and Garden State writer/director Zach Braff and The Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert.
Given the significance of this event, the show attempts to focus on the past and the present simultaneously. And in their attempt to pay homage to the show’s illustrious tradition, co-chairs Siebert, Kimball and Balestreri sifted through Waa-Mu material dating back to the 1920s.
“Our goal was to create a new show, without overlooking the past,” Siebert says. “So we decided to divide the show into parts, in order to salute those who came before us.”
The resulting show is a semi-organized compilation of material. Unlike conventional theater -where through lines connect the piece from start to finish – Waa-Mu is more akin to a collection of vignettes, where the settings, characters and storylines transform drastically from scene to scene.
“We had to clean every scene up so that it fits nicely into its niche and move on,” says Communication senior and Waa-Mu performer Sean Carroll. “We could not stress one scene over another because they don’t build upon each other.”
While the show does lack a defined structure, it succeeds in linking the scenes thematically. From its examination of family – with a high school graduate, her younger sister and mother representing the beginning, middle and end of life – to the three-sided dance number with teenagers, newlyweds and pregnant couples, Waa-Mu explores the concepts of age and time.
“Somewhere in between honoring the past, saluting the present and looking toward the future, we arrived at our perfect medium: A celebration of all phases of life,” Carroll says.
Waa-Mu Show 2006: Jubilee! is playing at Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., April 28-30 and May 3-7. Tickets cost $11 to $27. Tickets are available by calling (847) 491-7282.
Medill junior Michael Burgner is the PLAY theater editor. He can be reached at [email protected].
