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ISU gives 'Tommy' a try

By Dan Craft
dcraft@pantagraph.com

NORMAL -- How far back into the mist has the world's first great rock opera receded?

Let's put it this way:

By the time the cast of Illinois State University's impending production was being born back in the mid-to-late '80s, The Who's "Tommy" was nearing its 20th anniversary.

The movie version was already 15 years old.

And one of its key architects, drummer Keith Moon, had been dead for nearly 10 years.

By the time the cast of the new version was in junior high school, another of its creators, bass player John Entwistle, had split for that big Tommy's Holiday Camp in the sky.

Even the seemingly recent Broadway rendition, officially titled "The Who's Tommy," is fast-approaching its 15th anniversary.

So as all pop culture institutions eventually must, "Tommy" is en route to becoming a museum piece.

But not this weekend ... not by a long pinball shot.

On the stage of ISU's Center for the Performing Arts Theatre, director Lori Adams and her cast and crew are having the time of their lives seeing, feeling and touching Pete Townshend & Co.'s 1969 milestone.

And they're learning just how timeless and universal this fable about the deaf, dumb and blind kid really is.

Premiering an eight-performance run at 7:30 p.m. Friday, "The Who's Tommy" is a rendition of the 1993 stage adaptation -- the first performance of that version at the local level.

Adams, a child of the original "Tommy" era, petitioned to direct the show after the play selection committee at ISU placed it in the 2007-8 season roster (for the record, all directors must petition to direct desired shows, and give the reasons why).

Her reasons were simple enough: "I love rock 'n' roll, and I understand it, and I'd been listening to it since I was a kid," she begins. "My wanting to do it had everything to do with the fact that it was a rock 'n' roll musical."

And despite her long track record of helming operas and other kinds of musicals, she had never gotten the chance to rock the proscenium arch.

This was her big chance, "even though I was a little overwhelmed thinking of how I was going to do it."

Soon, though, she wrapped her sensibility around it and found the solution.

In lieu of the over-the-top production glitz associated with the Broadway version, not to mention director Ken Russell's delirious 1975 film version, Adams says she decided to return to basics.

"The thing that struck me for the first time when I listened to it again was: you can't do 'The Who's Tommy' without it being about the band. I'm not sure that's the main intention of the Broadway show, which is highly theatrical, of course -- all singing and dancing."

So Adams' first plan of attack was to put The Who, figuratively speaking, back front and center.

"That's what I felt from the very first moment," she continues, which will explain the presence of the band directly on stage instead of off to the side or in the pit, a la the Broadway edition. "When people come to see 'Tommy,' it should be like they're going to see a rock concert."

One problem with that decision, though: Putting a band on stage representing The Who in "Tommy" is like being asked to put your money where your mouth is.

Adams realized that creating a rock band from scratch in the ISU School of Theare might be a stretch. So she put out a call to the Bloomington-Normal community last May for musicians who would be Townshend, Daltrey, Entwistle and Moon.

In the end, music director Pete Guither (also pitching in himself on keyboards) assembled a house band comprised mostly of ... ISU students.

"They're the most amazing group of young people," Adams marvels. "They've been rehearsing all summer, and are totally committed to the show. And now they're energized."

Meaning, yes, they've mastered not only The Who's musical style, but also the band's infamous stage anarchy, with all manner of jumping, leaping and doing splits.

Also deeply into it at this point, says Adams, are the youthful cast members who were unborn when the deaf, dumb and blind "Tommy" first came into the world as an album in 1969.

"I've been sort of amazed to find all these kids who sing the way they do," says Adams. "I didn't realize it going in, but all the men singers have to be tenors, and all the women have to be altos. To find as many tenors as we have is quite a feat. And they can sing like rock stars."

Yes, but do they relate to a show 40 years removed in time?

"I think they do," says Adams. "I know that one of the funny things I've learned is that when students were auditioning for the show, they'd tell me their parents loved The Who, and they knew the music because their parents had played it."

Keeping the production's Who moorings upfront, Adams also knew the actor she cast in the title role of the messianic Tommy had to look like the man who created the role on record and, later, on film: Who lead singer Roger Daltry.

"He had to have that child-like, boyish, cute look, with a sweet voice," she says. "I thought, who (pun possibly intended) in the world are we going to get to play that part? That was the thing that concerned me going in: who can we find able to embrace that sort of rock spirit and innocence, and be good-looking enough that people in the audience will want to crawl up on stage with him like they do at a rock concert?"

Enter Nick Harden, who, says Adams, "is marvelous" and has made the deaf, dumb and blind kid everything she thinks he needs to be.

As, she adds, have all the youthful actors, musicians and crew members involved.

The moment she knew "The Who's Tommy" had transformed itself into "ISU's Tommy" occurred the first time the curtain call part of the show was rehearsed.

The actors on stage "just started going and moving, and it didn't matter what generation they were from. Then everybody in the theater, crew included, got caught up in it, and started singing and dancing and pretending they were smashing guitars and jumping around."

They were seeing, touching, feeling "Tommy," with no holds barred.

That's the spirit Adams hopes infects the show's potential audience.

"My hope is that we tap into people who never thought they'd come to see a theater production, or who never thought it would interest them," she says. "If they go this weekend, the word will spread."

And, to paraphrase one of the show's key anthems, they'll get excitement at their feet.

Who's who

The cast

Narrator/Tommy: Nick Harden

Captain Walker: Peter Schwartz

Mrs. Walker: Kristina Belgio

Uncle Ernie: Bill Daniel

Cousin Kevin: Kyle Rehder

The Judge/Kevin's father: Keith Habersberger

Acid Queen: Fania Bourn

The band

Guitars: Matt "Tinz" Herzau, Chris Cornell

Keyboards: Pete Guither, Matt Richert

Bass: Ron Gillis

Drums: Brian Stewart

French horn: Lisa Fumagalli

The crew

Director: Lori Adams

Musical director: Pete Guither

Choreographer: Pam Walden

Scenic design: John C. Stark

Costume design: Lauren Lowell

Lighting design: Ryan Finley

At a glance

What: "The Who's Tommy"

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and Wednesday through Oct. 13; 2 p.m. Sunday and Oct. 14

Where: Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts

Tickets: $10 to $15

Box office number: (309) 438-2535

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Kyle Rehder, Ben Danielowski, Steve Wisegarver and Nick Harden, from left, star in Illinois State University's production of "The Who's Tommy," opening Friday in ISU's Center for the Performing Arts. (For The Pantagraph/PETE GUITHER)

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