Coaching off Broadway

On a rainy Monday in early March, Judith Farris walks into a classroom in Brandt Music Hall in bare feet.

She's just gotten a pedicure from a hometown friend and doesn't want to mess it up. This is not the informality one would expect from an accomplished New York opera singer and voice instructor, but as Farris starts to work with her students at Southeast Missouri State University, it becomes clear that formalities are not her emphasis -- results are.

Awaiting her in the classroom is theater major Nick Cutelli, who will play the part of gambling man Sky Masterson in the university's upcoming production of "Guys and Dolls."

Cutelli and other student actors who will be in the musical are Farris' reason for returning to Cape Girardeau, her hometown and the place she learned to sing.

Her task is to teach them how to sing for musical theater, just as she taught Hollywood performers Matthew Broderick and Marilu Henner before they went on Broadway. The way Farris characterizes her technique, she teaches them to talk while they're singing.

"In theater, the actor has to be true to the spoken word," Farris said. "Music people are so into the sound of the music, sometimes they forget the diction.

"I'm a stylist. The style of Broadway is very different from the style of classical."

She doesn't want to take anything from Southeast's music instructors, though. "The teachers here have done a fabulous job," Farris said. "They do a great job in classical instruction."

Farris greets Cutelli, and after delivering a summary of her pedicure adventure, sits down at the piano to give her lesson.

"Turn to hymn No. 25 in your book," she tells Cutelli, joking, and begins banging out the chords to "Luck be a Lady Tonight."

Cutelli begins to sing, talking in song voice to his a pair of dice as he would to a woman.

Farris issues her encouragement -- "Good! Talk to them!"

As she does so, an audible change happens in Cutelli's voice -- it takes on new power, a full, forceful clarity that wasn't there before.

Cutelli belts out "So the best I can do is PRAYYYYY!"

"Isn't that cool?" she asks. "Doesn't he sound good?"

Coaching the cast

Before the production begins April 5, she'll have coached all 37 members of the cast -- a large job she's more than prepared to tackle.

Director Kenn Stilson said it's the largest production Southeast has ever brought to the Rose Theatre stage, not in numbers of cast, but in terms of overall production and professional resources. In addition to the cast members, there are about 20 orchestra members and 15 to 20 people doing production work behind the scenes.

"With all of our productions we put an extraordinary amount of time and energy and resources into them, and this production is no different," Stilson said.

It's a show that couldn't be pulled off without the work of people like Farris.

"Judith is a very talented woman," Stilson said. "Her impact working with the students is pretty immediate. She has a different approach than most voice instructors who come at from the perspective of tonal quality.

"She approaches it from character, that singing for musical theater is about revealing the character through song and that not all songs are intended to be pretty. It's to reveal character."

But Farris is only one part of a talented group. Stilson delivers great praise for musical director Dr. Chris Goeke, vocal director Dr. Leslie Jones, choreographer Kari Schroeder and guest scenic designer Chris Pickart from Washington University in St. Louis.

"Really we have a very talented group of people, and Judith of course complements the other working professionals in this company."

Stilson, Farris and the others are banking on the fact that plenty of people will want to see a musical, what they call an "American art form," and even those who aren't familiar with musical theater will recognize the standards from "Guys and Dolls," such as "Luck be a Lady."

The romantic comedy revolves around the story of Cutelli's Masterson and Sarah Brown, a puritanical antithesis of the gambling, partying Masterson.

Amanda Eades, who plays Brown, is a vocal music major who has little experience in theater. Her history is a contrast to Cutelli's -- he's a theater major who was never in choir and, before working with Farris, couldn't even read music.

Farris has taken Eades' training as a vocalist in the classical tradition -- she's a high soprano -- and modified it to fit the style of musical theater.

"It takes a lot more energy," Eades said. "You have to be thinking chest high and open so you can feel it in here," she said as she gestured to her upper chest and throat.

"You better be able to withstand that breath pressure," Farris said. "Not the pressure of air going out, but the pressure of the air that's not going out."

The new singing style Eades has learned requires, almost more than anything else, projection and diction -- and keeping a strong reservoir of air in the chest with which to push. This means she has had to learn Farris' technique of treating singing as speaking loudly and in tune, instead of as just singing.

"It's almost like playing with a full orchestra, instead of just violins," Farris said.

The students have listened closely to their new teacher, trying to heed her lessons before opening day.

Both the students and Farris are confident that, at least musically, they'll have it nailed. But the lessons will stick with them long after the curtain falls.

"After working with her, I understood a new part of music," Eades said.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182