NEW YORK — In the Broadway musical “Water for Elephants,” you don’t see the whole elephant at first. It’s kind of like a tease. First comes a pair of big ears. Then a trunk. And then legs.
This was implemented by director Jessica Stone, who wanted to make it even more special for the audience when they get to see the big reveal at the end of the first act. She thought it should be awe-inspiring, tender and have the spirit of an elephant.
“People were talking about how emotional they were when they finally saw it finished, and I was thinking, ‘OK, I guess everything’s going to be OK,'” Stone says.
That’s worked out just fine for Stone, whose show received seven Tony Award nominations, including one for best new musical and one for his valiant efforts to seamlessly create a big Broadway musical with circus elements.
Stone creates puppets and vaudeville tricks, songs and acrobatics, uniting two groups who might not have shared a lunch table in high school — athletes and theater buffs.
“It’s a very humble, disciplined, hardworking and loving cast,” she says. “I use this metaphor a lot, but it couldn’t be more true: We literally and figuratively spread our arms and grabbed each other.”
The show — based on the popular 2006 historical romance novel by Sara Gruen and featuring music by the Pigpen Theatre Company Band — tells the story of a love triangle in a traveling circus during the Great Depression.
The New York Times called it “a stunning, emotional production that is full of movement, eye-pleasing and awe-inspiring.” Variety praised how Stone “brought it all together under a magnificent tent without forgetting the human – and animal – heart.”
Their talent is on display in the first big song — “The Road Don’t Make You Young” — a rousing nine-minute number featuring 23 performers who sing, dance and gyrate. It’s based on circus designer Shana Carroll, who is co-choreographer with Jesse Robb, both of whom have also earned Tony accolades.
The number begins with a circus train arriving in town, and the audience learns about each character as they disembark and set up a tent. Soon we’re in the middle of a circus stunt, with acrobats flying through the air, spinning on ropes and poles.
It took two years to develop, and Stone calls it “the gateway to the rest of the show.” She credits the producers for giving their team the time to create it and figure out how to connect Broadway timing to the circus.
“Circus actually has to have a little bit of wiggle room because you’re not flying in the air for the same count every time,” she says. “So there’s always a little bit of wiggle room during shows and numbers. We had to build that in for safety.”
Rick Elice, the playwright of “Jersey Boys” and “Peter and the Starcatcher” who won a Tony Award for “Water for Elephants,” said he was surprised when Stone auditioned as director and expressed his opinions even about elements that seemed non-negotiable, such as his opening framing device.
“She’s brilliant. She’s funny. She’s always on point. She’s very sharp. She’s the kind of girl you like to have lunch with because you have a good laugh and discuss ideas, which to me is a great lunch,” he says.
“Water for Elephants,” which is portrayed by an elderly former circus worker looking fondly back on the past, joins a string of recent plays on Broadway such as “Mother Play,” “The Notebook,” “A Beautiful Noise” and “Harmony.”
“It’s not like we all sat in a room and said, ‘You know what? 2024 is going to be the season of memories,'” she says, laughing. She thinks it’s a byproduct of the pandemic.
“Memory plays are about looking back on your life and determining whether or not you did the right thing, and whether or not you’re still doing the right thing,” she says.
This became the key to connecting the circus elements in “Water for Elephants” – they are hazy memories for the main character, fragmented and not fully developed.
“I really didn’t want people to arbitrarily peel into a back handspring for no reason at all. It was really to honor their most important memories,” says Stone.
“Once you realize you’re looking at it through that prism, you don’t really want to see a real animal. If you want to see a real animal go to the zoo. What you want to see is a fragment.”
Thus, a lion is represented as only a head and jaws, and a horse writhing in pain is depicted with a mask on an actor’s lap, while French artist Antoine Boissero leaps high from a white cloth, the animal’s spirit oscillating between life and death.
Before turning to directing, Stone was an actor for decades on and off Broadway, in television and film. She previously won a Tony Award for directing the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” which beautifully portrayed sadness with humor.
“That duality is the most interesting thing to me – that you can feel a lot of pain and yet there can be something that makes you laugh in that moment. That’s what I look for when I tell stories.”
Ellis says Stone’s background as an actor gives him the ability to know how to talk to actors, comparing him to the late, great Mike Nichols, which says a lot.
“I’ve never seen anybody better than Nichols at talking to actors. He has a knack for cutting through a lot of the nonsense and saying exactly the right thing to get a great performance.”
Stone is the sister of directors who overcame a Broadway hurdle this year: Seven women took the 10 musical and play directing nomination slots. Only 10 women have ever won the directing crown.
Stone, who is married to Broadway veteran Christopher Fitzgerald, celebrated her nomination in a very New York way: She ate a toasted bagel with cream cheese and got a manicure.
It’s for the director who likes to add a little depth to something simple. “You can be nominated for an award and just want a bagel,” she says, laughing.
Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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