By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com
Main Street Productions (MSP) Director Brenna Whitaker is wearing two hats as she works to bring The Spitfire Grill to stage at Basile Westfield Playhouse, 220 N. Union St. The show is a small-cast musical with only seven actors, and Whitaker is both the stage director and the vocal director.
The Reporter spoke to Whitaker about the play itself, how she discovered this story, and what it is like to compartmentalize when handling two production roles at the same time.
“It’s a show about a young woman who is setting up to start a new life for herself after having spent five years in prison,” Whitaker told The Reporter. “She finds a picture in a travel book of a place that looks to her like the ideal place to start over, so she gets on a bus and heads for this new place. It’s a small town where she is trying to just start over. Through the people that she meets, you encounter a lot of the things that you would expect when someone is fresh out of prison moving to a new town.”
Photo provided by Main Street Productions
Whitaker said it is a story of starting over, not just for the protagonist, but for all of the characters as well.
“It’s about finding forgiveness, of finding that fresh start, of realizing that it’s really never too late for second chances, it’s never too late to forgive and be forgiven and really just start over,” Whitaker said.
Whitaker’s first experience with this story was 10 years ago when she was involved in a production of it at another local theater.
“It was the first time I had seen the show and it just stuck with me,” Whitaker said. “Having the opportunity to be involved with it again has been a wonderful trip down memory lane. As you grow and change, your perspective on shows frows and changes. The things I find myself thinking of are different than what I thought of ten years ago. I’ve always found there is something enjoyable about revisiting a show that you’ve done just because your life journey impacts how you view it.”
While there are challenges in being both the director and vocal director, there are also rewards. One of those showed up for Whitaker right at the beginning of auditions.
Photo provided by Main Street Productions
“A lot of time there is some conflict between the director and the vocal director between who might be right vocally, but they are not right maybe from an acting perspective,” Whitaker said. “This show is complex material, and every part is really significant role. It’s important that across the board you have strong actors and strong singers. This is an amazing cast. Every single person has the capability of being a lead. It’s a cast full of leads and a fantastic group of people that I’m really lucky to get to work with.”
When speaking about the challenges of being responsible for both the vocal and stage performances, Whitaker said it came down to doing one thing at a time.
“A lot of it is just being present with the intention of that particular rehearsal,” Whitaker said. “There were a couple nights when we were transitioning away from vocals and we were getting into blocking for the first time that I had to tell the cast, ‘Look, your vocal director is not paying attention right now. It’s okay. Things are going to slip as we are putting the pieces together and focusing on character.’”
Giving her cast permission to focus on the right things at the right time was also a way to giver herself the same permission and not fall into the perfectionist trap too early.
“I had to give myself permission to say, ‘We’re going to let those things go and there is plenty of time to clean it up again and fix it later,’” Whitaker said. “If that rehearsal’s intention is to work on music, that is what we’re going to focus on in the early stages. I think it’s been really nice [playing both roles] because we can have a rehearsal where we are focused on doing scene work or running an act, but I can take 15 minutes at the end to clean a song up or fix an entrance. It’s been a really nice holistic approach to it because we can work on whatever needs to be worked on in that particular moment.”
The Spitfire Grill is staging April 13 to 23 at Basile Westfield Playhouse, 220 N. Union St. Thursday, Friday and Saturday shows are at 7:30 p.m. Sunday matinees are at 2:30 p.m. You can get tickets online at WestfieldPlayhouse.org or by calling (317) 402-3341.
Photo provided by Main Street Productions