Research Guides
Nancy Thomas John Vallier Honors 394 B 8 June 2012
Seattle in the Spotlight
The Puget Sounds Archive brings together regional music recordings across genres into a University of Washington Libraries collection. While this archive contains local recordings falling under the more traditional definition of music, it has grown to include more obscure music from published and unpublished recordings. Individual recordings within the archive like the Crocodile Café Collection capture the flavor of a local art form. Musical theatre, a uniquely American performing art, has thrived in Seattle with the influence of The 5th Avenue Theatre Company. My interview with David Armstrong, Executive Producer and Artistic Director of The 5th Avenue, gave compelling evidence of the unique interaction between Pacific Northwest culture and musical theatre. By including musical theatre recordings into the Puget Sounds archive, the archive would capture a unique, important Seattle flavor.
Seattle has long been home to a large musical theatre community. As Seattle’s population flourished in the late 1800s, the city rose to the demands for a bigger theatre industry. As vaudeville groups first came into fashion in the 1880s, “musicales, minstrels, and melodramas drew people by the carriage load, and by the late nineties Seattle was considered one of the West’s top theatre towns” (Armbruster 17). Vaudeville continued to grow in the late 1920s and became especially popular in the 1930s. Over time, musical theatre has grown in popularity as more and more Seattleites go to see musical productions in the city’s several venues including The 5th Avenue Theatre and The ACT. Today, Seattle is considered “one of three major centers
for musical theatre in the country, along with New York City and Chicago” (Armstrong). As Seattle has long been a hub of theatre and music, it was only natural that great musicals would be produced in Seattle.
The 5th Avenue Theatre has changed its role in Seattle many times since it was originally designed in 1924. Robert C. Reamer, an architect who planned other noteworthy buildings, from the Seattle Times headquarters to The Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone National Park, designed the theatre with ornate Chinese designs like the golden dragon holding the pearl chandelier in its teeth to remind patrons of the Imperial Palace in Beijing’s Forbidden City. The 5th Avenue Theatre opened with great fanfare on September 24, 1926. Newspapers reported that the opening night crowd was “larger than the crowd that gathered at the end of World War I for the Armistice celebration” (“Official Website of The 5th Avenue Theatre”). The theatre opened as a lavish vaudeville house hosting acts like the Fanchon and Marco Company and entertainer Eddie Peabody. In the 1930s, as vaudeville lost popularity, The 5th Avenue continued to flourish by becoming the premier downtown movie house. The theatre drew large crowds to movie showings into the 1970s by using promotions like mechanical bears and costumes. But as television gained popularity and with economic recession, the theatre lost popularity and struggled to stay open. In 1978, The 5th Avenue Theatre closed its doors.
Thanks to the work of a committee composed of 43 local companies and business leaders, a nonprofit organization called The 5th Avenue Theatre Association was formed. They worked to renovate and preserve the theatre leading to renovations starting in 1979. The 5th Avenue Theatre renovations would cost $2.6 million – all without federal or local funding (“Official Website of The 5th Avenue Theatre”). In 1980, the 5th Avenue re-opened its doors with a production of the musical, Annie. Even through an economic recession from 1983 to 1989, The 5th Avenue Theatre
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remained open while, nationally, many other theatres, including many on Broadway, “went dark.” The 5th Avenue continues to be a major draw of the downtown Seattle area today. In 1992, the number of ticket subscribers reached an all-time high of 36,040 (“Official Website of The 5th Avenue Theatre”). The 5th Avenue continues to be one of the most highly subscribed musical theatres in the country.
According to Armstrong, “in the musical theatre business, competition benefits all the theatres in town” (Armstrong). By having many thriving theatres in the area, musicals receive more attention. When people go to a good show, they are more likely to go see other musical performances. The Seattle area theatres generate business for each other by hosting great shows and gaining the attention of the Seattle public. In addition, when there are more musical theatre jobs available in the area, actors and musicians will be drawn to perform here. Since Seattle offers some of the best roles in musical theatre, the city draws great musical talent. More great musical talent furthers the popularity of Seattle musical theatre companies – the cycle continues.
In addition to hosting touring musical companies, the 5th Avenue produces brand new musicals and American theatre classics. By maintaining an emphasis on producing and utilizing Northwest-based artists, the 5th Avenue both produces and presents musical theatre performance with the highest standards of artistic excellence. Every year, approximately two thirds of the musicals shown at the 5th Avenue are produced specifically for Seattle theatregoers with actors, sets and costumes all specifically tailored for performances at The 5th Avenue Theatre. As these shows are designed with Seattle in mind, the sense of humor and emphasis cater to the local audience (Armstrong).
The 5th Avenue has been intimately involved with the development and presentation of new works. In recent years, musicals originating in the Pacific Northwest have received national
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acclaim. Over the past 11 years, The 5th Avenue Theatre has produced 14 new musicals. Five of those shows have gone to Broadway, and have garnered total of 14 Tonys for The 5th Avenue. They have partnered with outside producers to develop numerous shows for their mainstage such as Hairspray, The Wedding Singer, Memphis, Aladdin, Catch Me if You Can, and A Christmas Story.
Hairspray, a recent musical with music written by Marc Shaiman, with lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman and book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, first opened at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre in 2002. Hairspray was based on a 1988 John Waters film and incorporated 1960s dance music and “downtown” rhythm and blues. After a successful tryout in Seattle, the musical opened on Broadway in 2002. Hairspray went on to win 8 awards at the 2003 Tony Awards including awards for Best Musical, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. Riding a wave of popularity that originated in Seattle, Hairspray was then adapted into a 2007 film staring John Travolta, Zac Efron, and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Similarly, Memphis, a musical by David Bryan (music and lyrics) and Joe DiPietro (lyrics and book), was performed at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre in 2009 immediately before the show moved on to open on Broadway in 2009 with 75 percent of the original Seattle cast (“Opening Night: October 19, 2009”). The musical, set in the underground black dance clubs of Memphis, Tennessee, is loosely based on the life of disc jockey Dewey Philips, a white radio DJ who changed the rock and roll world by broadcasting a black singer. Still open on Broadway, Memphis received four Tony Awards in 2010 for Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score and Best Orchestration. Memphis will return to Seattle and The 5th Avenue as a touring production in the 2012-2013 theatre season.
The 5th Avenue is committed to the development and production of new works. Through
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their recently established New Works Program, The 5th Avenue will be able to work with writers and composers to provide a home for the development of new musicals, from initial idea through full production. Funded by grants and gifts to The 5th Avenue, The New Works Program will encompass a wide variety of activities, from writers’ residences and retreats, table readings and workshops, to fully-staged productions. According to David Armstrong, the Executive Producer and Artistic Director of the 5th Avenue, this program is especially useful because musical theatre is a highly collaborative art form – a show cannot be created in a vacuum. As soon as a draft is complete – and even sometimes before – it is vital to see and hear your work being rehearsed and performed by actors because “you don’t know what you really have until you see and hear other people performing it” (Armstrong).
In addition, The 5th Avenue is in its second year of a fruitful partnership with the ACT Theatre, Seattle’s other leading not-for-profit theatre company. Since its founding in 1965, ACT has been an incubator for the creation of new plays with many notable successes over the years, including Lonely Planet, First Class, Mitzi’s Abortion, and Becky’s New Car, which has gone on to more than twenty productions. Despite years of fiscal struggle and near bankruptcy in 2003, recent bold tactics at the ACT have allowed them do more with less. This coming season alone, ACT will feature three world premiere productions. ACT has been partnering with an array of local arts groups – from tiny dance companies to The 5th Avenue Theatre – to keep as many as three or four of its multiplex’s venues busy at a time.
The 5th Avenue and ACT Theatres are combining resources to co-produce smaller-scaled musical shows – musicals that might be lost on the large 5th Avenue stage. As was the case with last year’s co-production of the musical Vanities, First Date is being jointly produced and presented this year as part of both theatres’ subscription seasons. This collaboration provides
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each organization with the opportunity to fulfill artistic goals that would be difficult to accomplish outside of this creative partnership. According to Armstrong, it allows The 5th Avenue the chance to bring to their audience some of the many wonderful, smaller-scale musicals that would not be a good fit for their large home theatre, and it allows ACT the opportunity to include musical theatre in its programming on a regular basis. Perhaps most importantly, the collaboration provides both theatres the chance to facilitate and guide the world premiere of a new musical – and new works have long been at the center of both theatres’ artistic missions.
I was fortunate enough to experience parts of the production process of Damn Yankees, a recent musical shown at The 5th Avenue Theatre. The 5th Avenue and New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse collaborated to produce Damn Yankees, a classic musical comedy that opened in 1955, with book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop and music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. Damn Yankees had been on the wish list for both Paper Mill Producing Artistic Director Markus Hoebee and 5th Avenue Executive Artistic Director David Armstrong. The 5th Avenue had never produced this Tony Award-winning musical before. The last time it was produced at Paper Mill was in 1988, when it was directed by its book-writer and original director George Abbott. The two theatres decided to collaborate because the economy of collaborations has become a necessity according to Armstrong. Paper Mill’s Associate Artistic Director Patrick Parker says “it is our goal to collaborate on as many productions as possible” (Kelly 5). But
given that the theatres are on opposite coasts, collaborating proved demanding.
Damn Yankees originated at Paper Mill with Hoebee directing, though most past collaborations have originated at The 5th. The 5th Avenue staff worked closely with Paper Mill over the past year on the design and casting of the show. As soon as the Paper Mill production
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closed on April 1, 2012, the sets, costumes, and props were impeccably packed and organized and safely transported so that the production looked as new and as fresh at The 5th Avenue as it did on Paper Mill’s opening night. Hoebee and his creative team also flew out to Seattle to rehearse with the new cast for The 5th Avenue’s opening on April 21, 2012. David Armstrong concluded, “It makes sense to pool our resources. The synergy allows us to do things on a level that adds quality and excitement. I’m such a fan of collaborating with other theatres because the work we do is hard, but also so good, that we want to let these productions have a life beyond the three or five weeks that we would each be able to give” (Kelly 5).
To get a better understanding of the musical production process, I attended the Damn Yankees wandelprobe at The 5th Avenue. A wandelprobe is a rehearsal in musical theatre where the actors and the orchestra come together for the first time. I learned that as part of the production of Damn Yankees at The 5th Avenue Theatre, the Seattle cast had met for four weeks to learn and practice all their parts. Costumes, props, and sets were introduced in the last week of regular rehearsal before opening. The orchestra was given their parts as soon as they were cast a month earlier – whether or not they practiced before beginning rehearsals just depended on the individual musician. The wandelprobe rehearsal takes place the night before opening night – by this point, the orchestra and the actors are expected to know their parts completely. It is by far one of the most exciting nights in the musical production process as the full scale and scope of the musical is finally recognized. For the actors, hearing their parts with the full orchestra as written helps them fully realize their characters and mood of the musical.
Sitting in on the Damn Yankees wandelprobe, I could sense the excitement and nervous energy from all the performers. The entire rehearsal was under high pressure as everyone made last minute preparations for opening night. Even though they were performing without costumes,
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the actors all brought their characters to life with the help of the orchestra – earning cheers and applause from the small audience gathered to watch the rehearsal. The main focus seemed to be reaching the right balance in volume between the actors and orchestra throughout the theatre. Technicians stationed at three separate sound stations communicated to ensure all systems were working. The conductor leading the wandelprobe divided his attention between the 18 person full orchestra and the actors on stage. While they did run through every number, the rehearsal did not follow the script order as different groups of the cast were brought on and off stage. The conductor would first have them run through the number standing still to check sound balance, then they added back in choreography to check the number again.
After the wandelprobe, the cast of Damn Yankees had just one more dress rehearsal with the entire orchestra, costumes and staging before the opening performance on April 21, 2012. I was fortunate enough to experience the opening night performance of recent production of Damn Yankees firsthand at The 5th Avenue Theatre. The show’s April 21st to May 20th run received great local critical acclaim. The Stranger commented that “if you’re one of those people who loves a good cornball musical full of vaudevillian gag lines and familiar, hummable classics ..., you’d be hard-pressed to find a more likable production of Damn Yankees short of Broadway itself” (Goldstein).
The 5th Avenue Theatre has further helped develop Seattle’s musical theatre community by engaging youth in the area. This year marks the 10th anniversary of celebrating Washington State high schools through The 5th Avenue Awards: Honoring High school Musical Theatre. The first 5th Avenue Awards included 24 productions; this year, their evaluators will see 91 productions and reach over 9,000 students statewide (Bennion 9). The Award’s mission has always been the same: “to honor the work, talent and commitment that students, parents and
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faculty devote to their school’s yearly musical productions” (Bennion 10). According to Armstrong, this program is particularly important because the power of participating in the arts is profound and has a lasting impact. Many past participants of The 5th Avenue Awards have gone on to have notable careers as actors, directors, designers and theatre administrators. Past participants have included 5th Avenue favorites and several participants have also had careers outside of Seattle, enjoying national acclaim. The students who have been involved in the Awards have gained confidence, a sense of accomplishment and an understanding of the value of theatre in any community.
The musical theatre business presents a unique challenging in terms of archiving its work due to the sheer number of collaborators involved in the production process. Each show requires the cooperation of actors, musicians, choreographers, costume designers, set designers and many more. While in most local concert venues, the performers are only constrained by their band and recording label, each performer in the musical theatre business is part of a union. Only with the cooperation of each and every union can recordings of musical performances or rehearsals be used. These permissions are often hard to gain, so even archiving musicals for educational purposes will take considerable time.
In my interview with David Armstrong, I learned that The 5th Avenue Theatre makes an archive recording of every single musical performance at their theatre. They have an agreement arranged with all of the unions allowing archive recordings to be taken and stored. The recordings are currently stored in VHS format at The 5th Avenue Theatre, and a large percentage of the more recent recordings are also saved digitally. David expressed a willingness to work with the University of Washington to share these valuable recordings for educational purposes. He cited the Lincoln Center Archive in New York City as an example of the type of collection he
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could envision in the University of Washington Libraries Puget Sounds Archive. Lincoln Center contains recordings of many Broadway productions – even including some of the most famous musical performances of all time. Armstrong commented on how much he enjoys visiting the popular archive to view recordings, so I think that the Lincoln Center Archive could be an excellent template for a 5th Avenue archive collection.
As all of The 5th Avenue Archive recordings have copyrights held by the various Seattle musical theatre unions, in order to include these videos in the Puget Sounds Archive, agreements must be made with every individual union. Reaching out and contacting the unions for permissions actually presents an easier challenge than the task of contacting each individual artist involved in the creation and presentation of the musical – a practically impossible task. Communication and agreement with the unions is a feasible task; although, according to Armstrong, any access to The 5th Avenue recordings will likely be extremely limited by the unions. Since the actors, musicians and crew stand to earn money from recordings of their performances, online access would likely not be granted. However, under the umbrella of educational use, Puget Sounds could house The 5th Avenue’s archive and provide library access to students and interested members of the public.
The 5th Avenue recordings, currently in VHS format with some more recent recordings also saved in digital format, can be better conserved as part of the Puget Sounds Archive. It is important to both our local and national history that this unique piece of American culture be preserved. For convenience and preservation purposes, I would recommend housing both VHS and digital copies of the performances. Because VHS tapes degrade relatively quickly with frequent use, transferring the tapes to digital storage would preserve the recordings while allowing for easier access and playback within the University of Washington Libraries
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collections.
This archival plan for The 5th Avenue collection is, of course, highly idealized. Receiving
all the necessary permissions from the unions would take a lot of time and effort. Even transferring the VHS recordings into digital format would take time and funding. Funding this collection will be especially difficult since the musical theatre community relies so much on outside funding as well. The cost of tickets alone does not begin to cover the cost of a musical production at The 5th Avenue, so they rely on the support of donors in the community. To fund this collection, I would suggest also turning to the same group of donors – who already have a passion for musical theatre and a desire to support its growth. I would focus on outreach events engaging Seattle musical theatre patrons to gather their support and fundraise for this unique collection.
Through the years, The 5th Avenue Theatre has been a steady influence on Seattle through a variety of forms – from vaudeville to movies. Currently, The 5th Avenue is especially an influence on the community of Seattle through programs like New Works and The 5th Avenue Awards. As The 5th Avenue Theatre has played such an important part in the culture of our city, Seattle has been the driving factor behind the current nationally acclaimed theatre community. The presence of such great actors and musicians in local musical productions gives credibility to the special type of local musical talent in Seattle. The great musical theatre performances occurring in Seattle need to be included in the University of Washington Puget Sounds archive as an excellent example of our unique culture and local flavor. This preservation even extends to a larger national scale, as musical theatre is one of America’s greatest indigenous performing art forms.
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Works Cited
Armbruster, Kurt E. 2011. Before Seattle rocked: a city and its music. Seattle: University of
Washington Press: pp. 3-31.
Armstrong, David. Personal interview. 22 May 2012.
Bennion, Chris. “High School Awards: 10th Anniversary.” Take 5, April 2012: 9-10.
Berson, Misha. “The Revivalist.” The Seattle Times: Pacific Northwest, 15 April 2012: 6-10. Biegle, Stuart. "Basic Principles of US Copyright Law." UCLA Dept. of Information Studies.
2003.
Evans, Albert. “From Page to Stage: Making a New Musical.” Encore, March 2012: 10-11. Goldstein, David. “A Review of Damn Yankees at 5th Avenue Theate.” The Stranger, 1 May
2012. Web.
Kelly, Sean. “A Home Run Collaboration.” Take 5, April 2012: 5.
Nadal, Jacob. “Digital Preservation: Audio and Video Formats.” Infopeople, 2012. Web. 9 May
2012.
Official Website of The 5th Avenue Theatre. The 5th Avenue Theatre, 2012. Web. 15 May 2012. “Opening Night: October 19, 2009.” Playbill: Memphis, 19 Oct. 2009: 20-32.
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