CLO's 'Swing' lindy hops back to big band era
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Don't be surprised if you get a case of happy feet during Pittsburgh CLO's "Swing!," a song-and-dance musical that celebrates the big-band era and the kind of precision partner dancing that's made a comeback through TV reality competitions.
Matthew Scott returns to his CLO roots for "Swing!" at the Benedum Center Saturday through June 26. He's one of four singers who keep pace with the Lindy Hopping, jitterbugging, swing-dancing swirl of a musical that relies on synchronicity -- or someone could get hurt.
- Where: Pittsburgh CLO at the Benedum Center, Downtown.
- When: Sat. through June 26. Sat. 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m. Tues.-Wed. and Fri. 8 p.m.; Thurs. 1 and 8 p.m.
- Tickets: $18.50-$70.50; 412-456-6666 or pittsburghCLO.org.
"There are a lot of red flags that go off, and they say to you, get the hell out of the way, because someone is charging at you," says Scott, a New Jersey native and Carnegie Mellon grad.
Scott says he marvels at the ability of the dancers, but it can be harrowing, too.
"Within a second, there can be a stage full of dancers, doing all sorts of crazy stuff," Scott says. "They're flipping each other in the air, they're throwing each other around, and it's pretty tight up on that stage."
Musicians, dancers and singers all share the space, making it a three-way exercise in pace and timing.
Dana Solimando, the director/choreographer and a member of the original Broadway cast, has worked with seven productions of "Swing!" and knows all of the potential pitfalls of a crowded stage with lots of movement.
"So, Dana, have there ever been any ..."
She completes the sentence with, "Catastrophes? That is a really good point," she admits.
"Yes, it is a dangerous show, people have sprained their ankles and pulled their hamstrings and a couple of years ago, we had a huge accident on stage and one of the girls, actually Beverly [Durand, an original cast member who's in the CLO show], she got dropped on her face. So the very first thing I ask for, I try to keep the dancers as safe as possible. In a short process like this, I try to make sure I get couples together who are familiar with each other rather than try to pair up two dancers who have never worked together before."
She also insists on "physical therapy tools, to keep these guys healthy."
With four singers and a music director, Craig Barna, who are new to the show, Solimando feels lucky to have dancers with so much "Swing!" experience. Durand, Desiree Duarte, Lori Barber, Mark Eckstein and Paul Romero give her a dance team that reduces the learning curve dramatically.
There's no dialogue in this show; songs, medleys and dances do the storytelling. Scott's partners in song are Deb Lyons, Allan H. Green and Kate Loprest, in her CLO debut. Their job is to prepare for "tight intricate harmonies, and there's scatting in it -- how often do you get to do a show where there's scatting?" Scott says.
He was a "swing" in the Broadway ensemble of "Jersey Boys," ready at any minute to go in the roles of Bob, Tommy, Frankie and more. He also was an understudy during the Broadway run of the musical "A Catered Affair" in 2008.
Before shipping off to a stage career in New York City, Scott earned his BFA from Carnegie Mellon, where he met his fiancee, Kirsten Bracken of Fox Chapel. They will be married right after Scott finishes the runs of "Swing!" and "Les Miserables" with CLO.
Solimando returns to CLO after choreographing "Peter Pan" last year.
Among her favorite moments in "Swing!" is the dancers' competition number, "Throw That Girl Around," between the West Coast swing couple and the Latin couple. "That's a highlight. I love, also, the Lindy couple, which is a number called 'Kitchen Mechanics: Shout and Feel It.' "
Duarte is the West Coast Swing Girl from the original Broadway cast, "and she had a huge part in the creation of that number," Solimando added.
Scott, meantime, has been learning lyrics in bunches, memorizing three songs in the evening and coming in to have them staged the next day. He grew up hearing the music of the swing era, sounds created by the Glenn Miller Band, the Andrews Sisters and Duke Ellington.
The arrangements and orchestrations of songs such as "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," "I'll Be Seeing You," "In the Mood" and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" may be different in the musical, "but you're going to recognize it in a way that will instantly place you back in a moment," Scott promises.
"There's a whole World War II segment, there are just lyrics in there, like 'I'll be seeing you,' that instantly transports you to a time. And if you're of that era, or you are of the next generation and you heard your parents and grandparents tell those stories of falling in love and going off to war, it's going to resonate."
Solimando sees a link between that era and today that gives the 10-year-old show a higher purpose as it relates to new audiences. "The swing movement came out of the Great Depression," she says. "People wanted to have a good time and forget about things. And right now with the economy, where we are in the world, we're sort of paralleling that. I think people want that again, that excitement, that fun. They want to be joyful, and that's what I want for them."
First Published June 18, 2009 12:00 am
