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| Michael Wallot |
With over 20 years of experience in various theatrical capacities, Michael Wallot is certainly a veteran in the theatre world. However, this award winning stage director is also someone who likes to try new things, which is why he is bringing a new series of shows to the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, where Wallot serves as the Artist Services Manager.
The two shows in question are The World Goes ‘Round and Ain’t Misbehavin’, two musical revues that showcase two very different, but both spectacular, musical styles.
The World Goes ‘Round, which opens this Thursday, is an evening that highlights the work of Tony winning composers John Kander and Fred Ebb, the duo behind such classic musicals as Cabaret and Chicago.
In a review of the original production of this show, the New York Times said:
“...an unexpected delight: a handsome, tasteful...outpouring of song and dance that celebrates all the virtues of the Kander-Ebb catalogue while scrupulously avoiding most of the cloying cliches of and-then-I-wrote anthologies. The revue is sophisticated enough to satisfy aficionados...and welcoming enough to convert new audiences to the Kander-Ebb fold. The five fresh performers...are the best team of its sort to hit town since the quintet in Ain't Misbehavin'.”
A show that gets compared to the highly regarded Ain’t Misbehavin should only be accompanied by the formerly mentioned show itself. The World Goes ‘Round opens October 11th, 2018 and runs until the 27th, and the Tony award winning Ain’t Misbehavin’, which represents music from the 1920 and 1930 Harlem Renaissance, arrives February 8th, 2019 and stays until the 24th.
Despite his stacked schedule and busy tech week, Wallot took a few moments to sit down with me for a phone call, and answer a few questions about the upcoming musical revues.
I know this season, after presenting several engagements of Sister’s Late Night Catechism in past years, you are starting a new series of full length productions for Scottsdale Arts with The World Goes 'Round and Ain’t Misbehavin as well as a return of Late Night Catechism. Why the decision to present these two shows, which are musical revues, and not present a more traditional musical?
“Well these shows are in our cabaret space, Stage Two, which only seats 137. It’s a small space, the stage is not very big. Late Night Catechism is just a one person show on a unit set so it’s kind of been a great fit for that space for a long time, and the actress who has been doing it is cutting back on her performances so she’s just going to do the Christmas Catechism this year which is in December, and that’s probably the most popular of all the Catechisms that we do.
We thought that musical revues would fit well in there, just because we can fit five or six people on the stage with a band and that’s about all we can fit on there at the same time. We just thought it was time to reintroduce some live musical theatre to our audience since we haven’t done so since 2009.”
For someone who doesn’t know about these two shows, what can you tell them about The World Goes ‘Round and Ain’t Misbehavin?
"The World Goes ‘Round is a musical revue of the music of John Kander and Fred Ebb. They have written a lot of well known musicals, like Chicago and Cabaret, and movies like New York, New York. Those are probably the most well know, but the show includes music from other shows too like smaller ones or shows off-Broadway as well, a lot of specialty materials they’ve written over the years and they have written a lot of songs for Liza Minnelli and others so there are a lot of novelty and fun songs thrown in there that people might not know as well as they do songs from Chicago or New York, New York. It’s a five person show, three women and two men.
Ain’t Misbehavin’ is kind of a very similar format, it’s three women and two men, and that features the music of Fats Waller which is all from the 30’s. It’s Jazz Music. It takes place in a nightclub in Harlem, and it’s an all African American Cast singing all of his great songs from that era. 'Ain’t Misbehavin’' is a well known song that people know from that show but there are a lot of familiar songs that people know in the show as well.”
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| the cast of The World Goes Round photo courtesy Scottsdale Arts |
“Well, Kander and Ebb’s stuff, for the most part is really light and fun, and kind of about life. Their general attitude in the songs they write are positive. The world goes round, which is the title but a song too, is happy. It’s about how you still get up and life goes on. The seasons keep coming and you should just keep moving forward and be positive. We just felt that it was a great message to be putting out in this tough political time and we thought something light and fun would be the best remedy for kind of that mood. It’s mostly light and fun, there is a lot of dancing.
For Ain’t Misbehavin’, we have a lot of older patrons who just love the music of the 20’s and 30’s, so we just thought it would be kind of a good match for our standard patron base. The World Goes 'Round is a little more contemporary so we thought it would be a good match and be something that younger people would be interested in as well. We’re also doing it during Black History Month as a way to celebrate the black community as well.”
What are your favorite songs in each show?
“[in The World Goes 'Round] I love "New York, New York", because as soon as you hear the introduction you know it’s "New York, New York" and I feel like it just fills people with such happiness because you think of Frank Sinatra singing or Liza Minnelli and the way they do it in the show it’s a very interesting twist, because there is a big globe that hangs over the stage and at the end we spin it and pick a country and sing a little bit of "New York, New York" in that counties language. It’s a very cute little spin on it.
For Ain’t Misbehavin, it’s so hard to choose because there are so many fun songs in that show. I mean I guess maybe the title number just because it’s a song I think a lot of people have heard. It’s in a lot of movies. Ain’t Misbehavin’ is also just kind of a good time. Both shows are just great for the era we’re in right now. Just lots of laughs and iconic music.”
What do you hope audiences take away from The World Goes 'Round and Ain’t Misbehavin?
“I think just a positive message. Both of those shows have the idea that even though times are tough right now that we keep positive and keep moving forward and know that there will be a better tomorrow, even though sometimes we don’t feel like there is. You just have to say yes to life and to giving it a shot. See what’s out there and don’t get into a place where you just say no, just because you’re not in a positive mood.”
Generally the shows presented at Scottsdale Arts are one night concerts. What are your plans to present more longer running shows like these two in the future?
“We’re going to kind of see how these do first. We have done some theatre here in the past and we used to have another space that was where we did some long running musicals, like Girls Night. They did well but we don’t run that space anymore so theatre has just kind of fallen off the calendar so we’re just trying to stick some more in and see if we have an audience that is interested in it. We’re trying to present a professional product, and we’re producing it which is new for us because usually we present one night acts that come in and prepare the show and put it on, but were doing all of this from scratch for the first time ourselves. We’re getting a chance to use those skills, and see if it turns into to something to add back into our repertoire. I feel like it will.”
What other concerts at Scottsdale Arts are you most looking forward to this season?
“I’m really looking forward to Wiesenthal. It’s a show about a man named Simon Wiesenthal and they called him the Nazi Hunter. He was a man who kind of went back after [the Jews] were chased out of Germany and he went back and found the people who caused a lot of that stuff to happen and had them held accountable and jailed. They called him the Jewish James Bond. I think it’s something that our audiences haven’t seen before, because it never toured through this area. We’re also doing an exhibition called the Violin of Hope in one of our galleries in the spring featuring these violins that were all from Germany and they were owned by Jews during the Holocaust and a lot of them have the Jewish Star on the back and they’re very old violins. We’re going to do a concert and the orchestra will play those violins. Which is why we’re doing Wiesenthal while that is also here. We also have a great Broadway series coming up this year. We have Jessie Mueller who won the Tony award for Beautiful a couple years ago. We have her coming in November. In December we have Sutton Foster, who, of course, has won many Tony awards and is a big Broadway star. In January we have Audra McDonald back who is a six time Tony Award winner and has been here a couple times. She’s talking about all of the shows she won Tony’s for and is singing songs from them too. Somehow we had her in the past and she didn’t talk about all the shows she won Tony’s for because she has had so many shows in her career. Then we’re closing out this season with Jeremy Jordan who was in the TV show Smash and played the lead in Newsies on Broadway. He’s a great young talent and he’s going to close out the Broadway series. That’s going to be a super fun set.”
CLICK HERE for more information on The World Goes 'Round and the other offerings this season at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts
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