Eugene weekly., June 14, 2012, Page 11, Image 11

written precisely with each individual actor in mind,
playing to their unique strengths and tapping the natural
harmony that exists among artists who, in some cases, have
been performing together for years.
And it might just be that Huls knows each of them better
than anyone: For instance, Roos, at 24, has been working
with Huls for 10 years, and the director first started teaching
Amanda when Lawrence was in seventh grade.
LEGEND OF THE RED CANE
Having spent several evenings seated beside Huls as she
prepares her cast for its inaugural show, I’ve arrived at a
new appreciation for terms like “tough love” and “thick
skin” and “mutual respect.” Huls is a dynamo, and you spin
with her or get the hell out of the way. Her spirit is
unflagging, her enthusiasm infectious as buttery popcorn.
One afternoon, as the cast ran through the entire first act,
I actually heard Huls start growling at a flubbed line; the
growl grew louder and louder until Huls was forced to
speak. “Don’t correct yourself on stage,” she reiterated,
reaching for the infamous red cane propped against her leg.
“Ever,” she added, shaking the cane in mock-threat.
The red cane, Huls explains, is an age-old theatrical
tradition, and there’s a wry irony in naming the Phoinix
Players’ theater after the stick once used to rap actors on the
noggin for continually botching lines.
Huls wouldn’t hurt a fly, of course, though she might
reprimand it for missing its mark. During rehearsals, seated
front and center before the stage, perpetually scribbling
notes and mouthing small cues to her cast, Huls is the off-
Broadway version of a benevolent dictator: focused, refined,
camera-shy but confident, kind but firm. She is as quick
with a remedial bark as she is with a pleased laugh.
Actually, she spends a good portion of rehearsals giggling
uncontrollably, genuinely engaged and entertained by what
she’s seeing on stage.
And when there’s a hitch, Huls jumps into action:
“Pause,” she’ll shout, and the action on stage freezes;
“backing it up, please,” she says, and like a videotape on
rewind, the actors shuffle methodically backward, hitting
each mark in reverse order.
“Guys!” Huls shouts during one of Silver Spur Saloon’s
more raucous song-and-dance routines. “Fix your blocking.
Talk to each other. Figure out where you are. It looks like a
traffic jam. Fix your blocking yourselves, because if I fix it
you might not like it.” And, just like that, the muddle is
straightened out, and the number, flowing smoothly in
space, improves tenfold.
Because, individually and as a group, the Phoinix
Players exhibit little patience for puerile politics or passive-
aggressive mischief. Forget it. A minimum of psychic
baggage clutters the lines of communication between Huls
and her cast, or among the cast members themselves. The
professional atmosphere inside the Red Cane Theatre is
clear and sharp, part workshop and part thespian boot camp,
and yet what might sound, in theory, like corporal militancy
is only the static-free hum of open collaboration — earnest
criticism that doesn’t spark crying fits, suggestions that are
accepted and considered, praise that trumps flattery.
Nothing among this clan of entertainers is taken personally,
because — to cop a cliché — everyone on this mission is
committed to the goal of creating a top-notch show. The
show is everything.
“We’re all perfectionists,” says actor Emmelene Romer,
19, who plays a slatternly vamp in the new production. “We
all want it to look as wonderful as it can,” Romer says of
Silver Spur Saloon. “We want the best from us. Everybody
does the hard work. Nobody is exempt.”
As Huls puts it: “We have no stars here.”
This means that, in the Phoinix Players’ No Diva Zone,
ego inflation and hissy fits are about as effective as tap-
dancing on ice. When Huls at last nailed down the new space
at 11th and Chambers, after “a solid nine months” of
searching, the cast immediately became the crew — laborers
tasked with dismantling fixtures and removing years of
distinctly unglamorous grime. “It sucked,” says 21-year-old
DANIEL HALSTEAD (RIGHT), EMMY ROMER,
AMANDA LAWRENCE, RICHARD DEYHLE
AND ELISE NEWELL RUN THROUGH
“ANY MAN OF MINE”
actor Scott Perkins. “We had to tear up all the carpet. Parts of
it were really, really gummy. It took about a week.”
Austin Roos, who at 24 is the old man of the group, says
that this egalitarian, hands-on approach advocated by Huls
helps build a sense of investment in the cast members, each
of whom speaks eloquently on the subject of her craft. “The
art of making art is putting it together,” Roos says,
paraphrasing an adage by Broadway legend Stephen
Sondheim.
And if putting it together means floor scrapers and cans of
black paint, so be it. No one bitches. Nobody complains. One
of Huls’ major pet peeves is “playing the blame game,” an
offense punishable by push-up: “Drop and give me 10,” Huls
will command, grinning deviously, and the actor, laughing,
hits the floor. Moments such as these, however, are rare.
“This is probably one of the most rigorous schedules that
we’ve had,” Roos says about preparing for the debut of
Silver Spur Saloon at the end of the month. “We’re just go
go go.”
Even when they’re done in, wiped out and dripping
sweat, backing it up for the umpteenth time, Huls’ players
genuinely enjoy the exhausting pragmatics of piecing
together a brand-new show for their brand-new theater.
There’s no faking it. Because, amidst all the dreamy
disarray of the Silver Spur Saloon under construction — the
endless reiterations and revisions of the show-to-be — I
caught a glimpse of something rare and hard-won.
“They’re all good communicators,” Huls says of her
actors. “This group is extremely patient with each other and,
honestly, they do love each other.”
THEATER IS THE LIFE FOR YOU
In Silver Spur Saloon, Huls — who refuses to put her
name as author on any of the several musicals she’s penned
— makes good use of the familiarity and closeness she
shares with her cast, mining the wisdom of years to best
advantage.
“First of all,” Huls says, “I have an amazing group of
talented people, so I want them all to have their moment.”
There is also an educational aspect to writing her own plays,
having to do with the scant exposure most audiences have
had to Broadway musicals from the Tin Pan era of big,
flashy productions to the rousing song-and-dance routines
of Vaudeville. The idea, Huls says, is to channel the seminal
work of masters like Gershwin and Sondheim to create an
entertaining, smart, accessible musical that will draw people
in with its sense of romance and fun.
“We’re writing for an audience that is as educated as
they can be about musical theater,” Huls explains, which is
a very nice way of saying that, unless you’re gay or living
in New York, the Broadway musical seems as remote and
frozen in time as bread lines and Rosie the Riveter. Huls is
determined to change this — to get the exotic bird of
musical theater off the endangered list. Hence the hard
work, the continuous evenings of rehearsal, the hours and
hours of repetition and detail work.
And hence the self-creation of Phoinix Players’ Silver
Spur Saloon, with its drunken cowboys and preening
vamps, its rousing ballads and tap dancing, its bawdy banter
and batting eyelashes. There is nothing reconstructed or
postmodern about Huls’ musical: It unapologetically
grooves to the time-tested formula of Broadway musicals
by way of Elizabethan comedy — boy meets girl, boy loses
girl, shit happens but all’s well that ends well — conjuring
the innocent (though hardly stupid) air of optimism and
glamour that enjoyed its heyday during this country’s
previous Depression.
For Huls, this is not an act of sentimentality or nostalgia-
indulgence but a kind of revitalization. “Musical theater is
about making something old new again,” she explains.
More than anything, she says, the Phoinix Players want to
bring that brand-new shine to the local theater scene.
“Theater is an old-fashioned idea about gathering, learning
and inspiring people,” Huls says. “Eugene needs options. We
want to be the one people choose for a night out — to laugh,
to engage. We want to share talent, story and the wonder of
theater with those who come to our space,” she adds.
“We like to think what we are bringing to the party,”
Huls says, “is fun.”
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For info about Silver Spur Saloon at Red Cane Theatre, visit http://
theredcanetheatre.yolasite.com
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