SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Sept. 6, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Fans of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” are in for a treat later this month as the concert version of the musical comes to the Eccles Theater downtown.
Live at The Eccles will present the show from Sept. 21 to Sept. 23, with performances on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. with a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m.
The piece stars Utah favorites Casey Elliott of the award-winning musical group GENTRI as Joseph, and Lexi Walker as the Narrator. Other notable performers include comedian and musician Shaun Johnson of comedy channel “The Johnson Files” as Pharaoh, and musical talents Yahosh Bonner, Kyle Olsen, Mark McCormack, and Ryan Christensen, with more to be announced.
The production will also feature One Voice Children’s Choir of “America’s Got Talent” fame and a live orchestra.
Gephardt Daily spoke with the producer and director of the show, Tanner Christensen. He told us a little about his background.
“I’m actually from Washington, so I grew up in Washington my whole life and ended up marrying a girl from Idaho, and I actually live up in Rexburg, Idaho,” he said. “My in-laws own the Playmill Theater in West Yellowstone, Montana. So I was born and raised a farmer but married into a theater family and started working with them, started producing shows with them then we started doing these concert versions of shows this last year; this is our second one, we did one in January at the Eccles.”
That show was “Bright Star,” written and composed by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell.
“It’s one of our family’s favorite shows and we had some mutual connections with Carmen [Cusack, who originated the role of Alice Murphy],” Christensen added. “So I reached out to see if she’d be interested and she was. When we performed it, it was five years to the week since she closed the show, and she had actually closed it in Utah after running it in pre-Broadway shows, on Broadway and then its tour that finished in Utah, so it’s kind of full circle moment for her.”
Christensen told us more about the concert version of “Joseph.”
“So it’s the full show in the aspect of the music, there’s no dialogue, it’s a sung-through show, so the entire show, top to bottom, the concert version has a couple of changes,” he said. “We reduced the costumes in the show so everyone just has one costume for the entire show. And there’s also a very simple set. Just some risers and lighting and stuff like that. And so we reduced the set and the costumes, but we actually added the orchestra on stage for the entire show then we also have a 75-person children’s choir, One Voice.”
Christensen said that in total there will be over 100 people on stage performing.
“This is probably a mix between the full show and just a straight concert. There will be blocking in the show. There is some choreography; it’s not a fully choreographed show but I don’t know if you can do ‘Joseph’ without having some dancing and singing. There’s definitely the big dance numbers that you love and flashy costumes.”
Christensen also told us more about how the cast was assembled.
“When we did ‘Bright Star’ we did it with Casey [Elliott], and during that rehearsal process I pitched him the idea of if he’d be interested in this, he said yes, so kind of off to the races we went. The group that I have, a lot of them are friends or have performed together before. So once you get one, then the other, then the other and soon enough you’ve got basically all the main performers in Utah.”
Christensen added that there are four other people in the cast who have played Joseph before, and there are three people who have played the Narrator.
“I think everyone… there’s 27 cast members, everyone except I think three of them have been in the show before,” he said.
He said the cast will rehearse for less than a week before the show goes up.
“It’s pretty crazy to say the least, so we will mount the entire show in four days,” he said. “The cast has already been sent all the choreography and music so they have to show up fully memorized in their music and dance and then Saturday, we’ll rehearse for about six hours, kind of just all the choreography they’ve learned, we’ll put it together in sequences and formations. Then Sunday off, then Monday morning will be the first time they’ll sing the show through with the music. And then we’ll spend the next day-and-a-half just kind of starting to show top to bottom; where you’re going, where you’re standing, then on Tuesday night we’ll add in the choir, then on Wednesday night we’ll add in tech, and the orchestra, then the show will be Thursday, so it’s a very tight rehearsal process.
“Other shows that I produce we’ll spend three to 10 hours or longer on just one scene. In this, it’s a lot more trying to find the best performers and they’re just gonna have to put on a show, so it’s not necessarily improv but it’s definitely not as robotic as most shows are.”
He added: “Some of the biggest performers in the world started in theater and love theater, but the commitment to do a theatrical show is normally six months to a year, right? So it’s usually a three-month rehearsal process and then your run can be anywhere from three months to a year, and so a lot of performers who started in theater or love theater just can’t keep that schedule. So by doing these concert versions, we’re able to get performers who want to do it but just don’t do it as much anymore because of their schedules.
“The concert version is a very popular format on the east coast; the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, these shows are done frequently with A-list celebrities. We have a show we’re working on next year that we’re still trying to sign the rights for that will hopefully have that form as well, and we have a couple of A-list celebrities we can bring in, but this one, we had enough people, we had enough local talent.”
Christensen said the show is suitable for all the family.
“This is definitely an all ages show, we always joke that it’s kind of a baptism into theater, whether you’re watching it or performing in it, just about everyone’s done the show and so it’s a great opportunity to bring the entire family out to listen to music, to watch dancing, to see flashy costumes,” he said. “It’s a shorter show. It’s only about 90 minutes, as opposed to something longer, two or three hours.”
We also asked Christensen about what other musicals would be on his bucket list to produce as concert shows.
“Right now we’re looking at doing “Into the Woods,” “Music Man,” are some of the ones we have on our list, those classics that haven’t been done in a long time,” he said. “We’re also just finishing up some contracts to do a Broadway review at the Eccles; some of the biggest Broadway names over the last two decades to come and perform. There’s not many names bigger than the ones we’re trying to get.”
Christensen said the plan in 2024 is to do the Broadway review show then another show as a full concert version. He said he would love to get performers such as Donny Osmond, Kristin Chenoweth and Audra McDonald onto the Eccles stage.
We also asked Christensen, who is also an actor, what is still on his bucket list to achieve.
“That’s a good question; five years ago was one of the first times I’d really ever stepped on stage and obviously a lot has changed in those few years,” he said. “Who knows what’s to come? I think the world of theater has been similar for the last 10 years, done in the same style. I think there’s a lot of changes that could come with technology, having a family environment; a lot of theater is done where everyone dresses nice, where everyone comes and sits properly and watches the show and then they leave. And I think because of that style, kids miss out a lot of time on the joy of theater. And so I’d love to create theater that is more interactive, more family friendly. And just the whole experience from when you walk in the door to when you leave and not just sitting and watching the show.”
Tickets and more information about “Joseph” are available here.
