Colette Collage: The UK Premiere
Imperial Productions announce auditions for the UK premiere of the musical
COLETTE COLLAGE
Book & Lyrics by Tom Jones
Music by Harvey Schmidt
From the writers of The Fantasticks comes the UK premiere of a musical about the writer of Gigi and Cheri.
26 October - 6 November 2010 at the Barons Court Theatre
After writing three songs for a play about Colette starring Zoe Caldwell, Jones and Schmidt decided to try to make a full-length musical out of Colette’s life and thus began the long struggle to compress her lengthy and colourful career into the “two hours traffic of the stage.” The first attempt reached its climax (and demise) in 1982 when a very elaborate version closed out of town. Although it starred Diana Rigg as Colette and featured Sir Robert Helpman, the show seemed caught between its rather straightforward origins and its glitzy presentation.
A second version, considerably clarified and shorn of its large cast and elaborate production numbers, was well received when it was presented by the York Theatre Company in New York in 1983. Even so, the authors were not completely satisfied with the results, feeling that some of the better songs from the Broadway version had been unnecessarily tossed aside. And thus it was that in 1991, in a production by Music Theatre Works at St. Peter’s Church, Colette Collage achieved its final form. It is this version that we bring to the Barons Court Theatre in October, marking the UK premiere of the work.
This Production
Brought to you by Imperial Productions, who recently visited Barons Court with their sell-out productions of Silence! The Musical and Stephen Sondheim’s Company. Imperial Productions also produced the world premiere of The Last Maharajah – the musical at Hoxton Hall.
This production will be directed by David Phipps-Davis. The musical director will be Edmund Connolly, with Jenny Perry as choreographer/assistant director.
The show runs at the Barons Court Theatre from Tuesday 26th October – Saturday 6th November 2010 for eleven performances only (nightly at 7.30pm Tuesday to Saturday with one matinee on the 6th November at 3.00pm).
Rehearsals
Rehearsals begin on Friday 3rd September and will be as listed below:-
SEPTEMBER
Friday 3rd (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Saturday 4th (10.00am-6.00pm)
Monday 6th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Friday 10th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Saturday 11th (10.00am-6.00pm)
Friday 17th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Saturday 18th (10.00am-6.00pm)
Monday 20th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Friday 24th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Saturday 25th (2.00pm-10.00pm)
Monday 27th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
OCTOBER
Friday 1st (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Saturday 2nd (10.00am-6.00pm)
Monday 4th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Friday 8th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Saturday 9th (10.00am-6.00pm)
Monday 11th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Friday 15th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Sunday 17th (2.30pm-8.30pm)
Monday 18th (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Friday 22nd (7.30pm-10.30pm)
Saturday 23rd (10.00am-6.00pm)
All rehearsals will be at St. Gabriel’s Halls, Pimlico. Not everyone will be called for every rehearsal. All taking part in the show will need to be available all afternoon and evening for both Monday 25th and Tuesday 26th October for technical and dress rehearsals.
Please note – there is no wage or fee for this show. You do not pay to be in it and you do not get paid to be in it. However, you will be in a show that is the UK premiere so we hope that will create a lot of attention for the work and for the cast therein. A high level of dedication and commitment is required from all cast members. If you know in advance that you will miss a significant number of rehearsals (say, more than four), please discuss this with the casting director immediately. All cast members must attend every rehearsal from 11th October onwards.
Audition Information
Auditions take place on Saturday 7th August from 2.00pm – 9.00pm. These auditions will be at St. Gabriel’s Halls, Glasgow Terrace, Churchill Gardens, Pimlico, London SW1V 3AA.
To book an audition, please contact the casting director at improdcasting@live.co.uk.
Below you will find details of the characters you can audition for. When you book your audition, dialogue and song choice guidance will be e-mailed to you.
MEN
There are four male tracks in the show:-
• Willy - His actual name is Henri Gautier-Villars. Thirty-four years old at the beginning and ages to forty-seven. A rather fat man (though the actor could be padded). A Parisian journalist. Class-mate of Colette’s father. Colette’s first-love. Quasi classical baritone. Needs to be a half-decent dancer. Also appears in the ensemble.
• Captain Colette - Colette’s father, Sido’s husband. Also plays Boudou (an elderly stage doorman with a limp), a news reporter and a German Officer, plus appears in the ensemble. Fifties to seventies. Baritone.
• Maurice - Twenty-five, ageing to thirty-four. Traditional romantic lead. Broadway tenor. Also plays Monsieur Bouparthius, a bookish-looking, nervous little man. One of Willy’s ghost writers, plus appears in the ensemble.
• Jacques - Sometime music hall performer and Willy’s secretary. Over fifty. Broadway bass-baritone.
WOMEN
There are six female tracks in the show:-
• Older Colette - Late fifties to eighty years old. Acts as the narrator of our story. Needs to be an attractive older woman. Quasi-classical mezzo-soprano.
• Young Colette - Seventeen years old at the start of the show and ages to mid-forties. Doubles as Colette de Jouvenal, Colette’s thirteen year old daughter. Quasi classical mezzo-soprano with belt.
• Sido/Middle-aged Colette – Sido is Colette’s mother. Fifties – seventies. Doubles as Colette in middle-age. Mid-forties – late fifties. Needs to be an attractive older woman. Quasi classical mezzo-soprano.
• Nita - A promiscuous young girl. Also plays Fourth Claudine and a news reporter, plus appears in the ensemble. Teens to twenties. Belting mezzo-soprano.
• Pauline – Colette’s servant. Also plays Polaire (an actress) and a reporter, plus appears in the ensemble. Twenties. Belting mezzo-soprano.
• Missy - the Marquise de Belbeuf, daughter of the Duc de Mornay, niece of Napoleon the third, great-granddaughter of the Empress Josephine, but better known in the lesbian world simply as “Missy”. Also plays Third Claudine, a reporter and a French collaborator, plus appears in the ensemble. Twenties. Belting mezzo-soprano.
About Colette
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette was born in 1873 in the little village of Saint Sauveur in Burgundy. She died in 1953 in Paris. She was the only woman in France to be given a state funeral, after which she was refused burial in consecrated ground. She was a mass of contradictions. Her country upbringing and her love of nature always remained part of her while at the same time she came to epitomise urban sophistication. She has been called the most truly liberated woman of the twentieth century; yet she was dominated, manipulated and humiliated by the first two of her three husbands (the second of which is only given a passing mention in the musical). She was a very moral woman with a strong code of honour, yet her private and public behaviour shocked the libertine Paris of her time. She was a journalist, a beauty shop operator, a music hall performer, but most of all, she was a writer. Her more than seventy books, plays, operas and films established her as one of the most vibrant and personal stylists in the French language, and many of the tales, such as the Cheri and Gigi (the latter becoming the classic MGM musical film by Lerner and Loewe), are familiar to millions of people around the world.
Synopsis
The lights come up on Colettte, eighty years old, seated at her desk, surrounded by her memories. As she begins to write the story of her life, she sings of her desire to embrace and savour all experience, both good and bad. As her seventeen-year-old self, she encounters Willy, pen name for a worldly Parisian twice her age, famous for his risqué novels and his much publicised love affairs. Charmed by her country innocence and eagerness, he lures her with visions of the colourful world of Paris and, despite the misgivings of her parents, Colette and Willy are married.
When they arrive in Paris, Colette is disillusioned to discover that Willy is a cheat. Not only does he employ “ghosts” to write his books, he continues his many lover affairs, especially with young women. To keep him interested in her, Colette dresses as a school girl and pretends innocence. She tells him stories of her childhood, which he publishes, after encouraging her to include sexual sequences. Published under Willy’s name, Claudine is so successful that Willy demands first one sequel and then several more. Claudine becomes the rage of Paris, and Willy, as the apparent author, achieves the success he has always dreamed of.
Colette, however, is restless. She has nothing of her own. When she asks to sign her own name to the next book, Willy refuses. And when protests, he throws open the door and dares her to try to make it on her own without money or contacts. Colette can’t make the move. Her friend Jacques comes to the rescue with an offer for her to tour with him in the Music Hall, and Colette jumps at the chance. On tour, Colette gets a letter from her mother Sido and finds warmth and protection with the wealthy Marquise de Belbeuf, better known in the lesbian world as Missy.
Colette’s brief fling is interrupted by Willy, who bullies and cajoles her into writing another book, this one to be signed by both of them together. Before it can be done, however, Colette’s father dies, leaving the family destitute. After the funeral, Colette’s mother warns her to break free, not to be afraid, and not to be trapped by love, as she was. And finally, inspired by her mother’s courage, Colette breaks with Willy and goes through the doorway, determined to sign her own name.
Act Two opens in the twenties in the south of France where Colette, now rich and famous, savours her autumn years and recounts the story of how she created the character Cheri. During a visit to a local bistro to hear her friend Jacques perform, Colette is literally swept off her feet by a handsome, dark young merchant named Maurice Goudeket.
Having spent the night together, Colette and Maurice declare their intentions not to become romantically involved and, in a rather mocking duet, they make fun of each other’s cautious condition. Still and all, they are attracted, so they agree to continue the affair for a little longer, until one of them gets bored. Despite their protestations, the relationship continues, lasting for years and years as Colette becomes ever more famous.
Finally, Colette decided to end the affair. She is much older than Maurice and she can envision, all too clearly, a future when he will be repelled by this aging woman. Despite his protestations to the contrary, Colette overrules her own emotions and sends him away. It is not until the early days of the war when Maurice, as a Jew, is interned by the Nazis, that Colette realises she cannot live without him. Risking all her money and her prestige, Colette bribes the Germans and finally manages to get Maurice out of the camp and, as victory arrives, they are reunited.
Colette now turns into the “Grande Colette,” the famous elderly woman known throughout the world. Maurice remains loving and faithful to the end, and finally, when she is dying at the age of eighty, she sees a vision of all her husbands and lovers and friends and family as they join her in reprising her vision of the joys of life.
About the playwrights: Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones
Together they wrote revue material for Julius Monk’s Upstairs at the Downstairs shows and Ben Bagley’s Shoestring Revues as well as a musical version of Edmund Rostand’s play Les Romanesques that evolved into The Fantasticks, receiving its first performance as a one-act musical created at the request of Word Baker, who had directed the University of Texas musical revue that first brought Schmidt and Jones together in 1950. Having attracted the attention of the professional theatre, The Fantasticks made its way to the Sullivan Street Theatre on 3rd May 1960 and not closing until 13th January 2002, after a record-breaking 17,162 performances making it the world’s longest running musical. Notable actors who appeared in the off-Broadway and touring production throughout its long run included Liza Minnelli, Elliott Gould, F. Murray Abraham, Glenn Close and Kristin Chenoweth. On 23rd August 23 2006, a revival of The Fantasticks opened at the off-Broadway Snapple Theatre Centre where it continues to run to this day.
Following writing The Fantasticks, Schmidt and Jones wrote 110 in the Shade, their first Broadway show. Opening in 1963, this musical version of N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker boasted a score which was especially singled out by the critics. Three years later, I Do! I Do!, adapted from Jan de Hartog’s comedy, The Fourposter, opened with Mary Martin and Robert Preston appearing in the roles originally performed by Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn.
Celebration appeared in 1969 as an attempt to expand the scope of the Broadway musical by combining aspects of myth and ritual with popular entertainment. Concentrating on small-scale musicals in new and often untried forms, they created The Bone Room, Portfolio Revue, and Philemon, which won the Outer Critics Circle Award and was later produced by Hollywood Television Theatre.
While endeavouring to perfect Colette Collage, Schmidt and Jones also worked on Grover's Corners, a musical version of Thornton Wilders’ Our Town. Working within the restraints of rights to Our Town that were initially limited to two years, the two have seen the musical through many versions, including a production in Chicago that received great acclaim. Mirette, the third most notable production in recent years, is based on the Caldecott Award book Mirette on the High Wire written by Emily Arnold McCully. The 1994 Sundance Festival included a first draft workshop reading of Mirette. A rare second Sundance workshop, this semi-staged for an audience, followed in 1995, led to a July 1996 production at Sundance’s children’s theatre.
In the 1997-98 season, Jones and Schmidt appeared off-Broadway in The Show Goes On, a new revue based on their theatre songs. Their dedication, involvement and enthusiasm for their collaboration have earned them an Obie Award, the 1992 Special Tony for The Fantasticks, and the ASCAP-Richard Rodgers Award. In February of 1999 they were inducted into the Broadway Hall of Fame and on 3rd May 1999, their “stars” were added to the Off-Broadway Walk of Fame outside the Lucille Lortel Theatre.
If you have any questions then please don’t hesitate to get in contact.
improdcasting@live.co.uk