The Granite Theatre Stages The Sound of Music This Month

Granite Theatre is alive with The Sound of Music, and veteran actor and director David Jepson helms the production. Having been in the acting industry for more than 55 years, three of those decades spent directing, Jepson has been around the block more than once. But only now is he returning to The Sound of Music for the second time.
“With a show like The Sound of Music, it’s one of those shows that’s so iconic, you can’t change anything about it, as you would, say, Christmas Carol,” says Jepson. “It almost cries out for variety, though.”

The first time Jepson produced The Sound of Music, he owned a theatre in Pawtucket, The City Nights Dinner Theatre. That theatre’s stage included a “full two-story area with fly space and a stage 50 feet across,” which made it possible to create huge, elaborate environments and settings. At Granite Theatre, however, Jepson is limited to “maybe 32 feet” of stage space, so he has to get creative with the set pieces. And that, he claims, is how he can add some variety to a play as classic and unchangeable as The Sound of Music.

“We had to find inventive ways to [create scenes], because there are a number of settings – the mansion, out- side terrace, the abbey – that we haven’t got the benefit of being able to fly our scenery up and off into the wings,” says Jepson. “We have to make everything quite convertible, and we’ve been doing it here for 13 seasons now, for shows like My Fair Lady and Gypsy. Somehow we find ways to make these things fit.”

Jepson points to Granite Theatre’s presentation of Annie as an example of their successful convertible scenery. In that production, entire walls were “hinged and swung out to create the illusion of different settings,” says Jepson. Each side of the wall depicted a different backdrop, or even fragments of backdrops so as to “suggest an area.”

Of course, sometimes even the most creative ideas fall prey to a production’s inherent inability to change. For The Sound of Music’s opening number, there’s “that iconic scene where Maria is on the mountainside for five minutes, singing ‘The Sound of Music’ itself, so we created a ten-by-26-foot drop of the mountainside... for a mere five minutes,” says Jepson. “That component of the show alone cost a little more than $1,000, all for that one short moment. It’s something that the audience expects, so I felt it necessary to represent it in full form.”

While working with a compact stage presents technical difficulties, Jepson finds that the challenge makes it all the more satisfying when a play is success- fully produced. “People comment on how amazed they are with what can be done in a limited space,” he says. “They can’t believe that within 11 days there’s a total transformation from the previous show to what’s presented next.”

A testament to just how amazed people can be, Melvin Jolly, once an audience member at one of Granite Theatre’s productions, was so blown away by their convertible and well-built scenery, he asked to volunteer as a set builder. “He was fascinated by the changes of the sets and was curious about how it was pulled off,” says Jepson. Now, for three years and counting, Jolly has been on the other side, wowing the seats in which he once sat. “He still comes to every show, too,” says Jepson.

Although Granite Theatre’s presentation of The Sound of Music won’t win any awards for revolutionizing or revamping the classic play, its creative set designs will send audiences on a wild, unfamiliar trip down what they may have expected to be a predict- able production.