Rubbing Elbows with the Emperor - An Interview with DC Scarpelli

  Photo by Ben Krantz

Today, I interview DC Scarpelli who will be playing the role of The Emperor in The Song of the Nightingale. DC is one of the most talented, creative and intelligent individuals I know - though his humility might protest otherwise. It is an honor to have him as my Emperor.

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MIN: Tell me a bit about your performance background.

DC: Let's see…. I was one of those kids who hit musical theater geekdom early. It was essentially my version of puberty (the other version of puberty being pretty distasteful and, frankly, disastrous). In middle school, I knew the whole Rodgers and Hammerstein canon backward and  forward (Things like Pipe Dream and Me and Juliet have subsequently slipped my mind). I hit major Sondheim geekdom in 8th grade or so, and never looked back.

I got my BA in theater at Yale (concentrating on playwrighting), but the real theater boot camp was performing with The Purple Crayon, Yale's oldest improv group. That gave me four years of INTENSE improvisational theater training which has served me every single day of my life since -- onstage and off. It also gave me my amazing husband, Peter Budinger, who's been my writing partner, theatrical collaborator and significantly  better half for twenty years.

DC and his husband Peter sharing the stage. 

We spent ten years or so producing our own plays in the Bay Area (got "Best in  Fringe" at the SF Fringe Festival a few times—woohoo! Go us!) and then we sort of ended up doing musical theater, which we really hadn't done a lot of since high school. (How'd that happen?)

M: And what about outside of theater?

DC: Outside of theater, I'd always had an aptitude for design, and in 2003 I got a BFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Spent a bunch of years designing, and went back to the AAU to teach. I'm now the Design Lead for their School of Web Design + New Media. My concentration is in visual design, typography and type design. I love letters. And I love passing on that love to others.

M: You actually designed the logo for The Song of the Nightingale. How long have you been working in graphic design/typography, etc? Do you find "cross-inspiration" between your work with visual design and your work as a performer? Do they inform each other at all?

DC: I'd say that love of theater and storytelling inform my design work far more than my designs inform my stagework.

Growing up, I had an obsession for theatrical art and illustration. Listening to cast albums while staring at the jacket art really makes you see the connections between a show and its design. The theater poster has always been an amazing thing to me -- a visual distillation of an entire show into one image. Think of Al Hirschfeld's marionette caricature of God/Shaw manipulating Rex Harrison manipulating Julie Andrews or Saul  Bass's gritty fire escape design for West Side Story.

As a little kid in the late '70s and '80s, there were lots of theatrical graphic designers that had a signature look. That really left its mark on me. Gilbert Lesser's posters are iconic — just stark type and geometry (Equus, The Elephant Man…). David Edward Byrd's posters were amazing (Godspell, Follies...). But James McMullen's posters for Lincoln Center Theater are masterpieces. He's the most long-lived resident artist at any theater company, and his works are absolute wonders, capturing the essence of each show (Anything Goes, A Delicate Balance, Carousel… dozens of others…). In the late '80s, when Cameron Mackintosh took over Broadway, posters drifted toward corporate branding (Phantom, Cats, Les Miz...), which has its own kind of storytelling behind it.

I always thought to myself that theatrical illustration seemed like such a wonderful thing to do — capturing the essence of an experience and putting a face on it. And it offered infinite variety. How could you not love that?

It don't pay the bills, but it's a labor of love.

M: What draws you to playing the role of the Emperor?

DC: Oh, there's absolutely NOTHING as fun as playing someone who's essentially a child. That's what theater is about, right? Returning to a sense of play and pretend? Well, the Emperor's just an overindulged, overindulgent little kid who likes shiny things and always wants his way. All the best villains are just overgrown children with moustaches to twirl.

But this one gets to grow up and be a man, too. Big plus.

M: Anything else you'd like to add?

DC: I will add one thing: Doing new work is one of the most thrilling things we get to do in the theater, and we don't do enough of it. We need to take chances more as creators. We need to embrace the new. Doing six thousand productions of Dolly or Seussical or Urinetown is just fine, but helping to birth an entirely new experience for theatergoers? Wow! What a gift!

Thanks for this, Min. We need more of you in the world. I hope someday people are listening to your work while staring at the album cover, amazed.

M: Thank YOU, DC. It's hard to imagine anyone else playing the Emperor for this show. I'll see you at rehearsal.

Dressing up the Nightingale - Liz Martin & Pink Depford Designs

Feng (Isabel To) and Long (Christopher Juan)

Note to self: when you write a show featuring a cast of 16 out of which 13 of those actors have two or more costume changes, and when that same show has not one, but TWO fashion show scenes in it, you better be sure you have a damn, good costume designer and team in your corner. Amazingly, that is exactly what I have for The Song of the Nightingale.

Yesterday was our costume parade, and I was blown away by what Costume Designer Liz Martin and her team at Pink Depford Designs have created. Wait - I need to emphasize that last word: created. In the East Bay world of locally produced theatre, costumes are rarely created (I can't tell you how many times I've sat in the audience, looked on stage and said "I've worn those pants before!"). But for Nightingale, we are getting to see costumes that have never been seen - anywhere! Keep that in mind when you come see the show!

I won't give away too much, but Liz and her team were able to use historical Chinese garb as the springboard for pieces with modern touches and imaginative surprises. This was important to me as the show itself whimsically straddles history and fantasy. The costumes are vibrant, eye-catching and will play an undeniably large role in the storytelling. And some of the outfits are just downright beautiful.

"Brown is in!" (Ji-Yun Kim, Lindsay Hirata, Naomi Davis, Miyoko Sakatani)

In spite of the heavy load of work and the long hours it has taken to get to this point, Liz told me that she and her team still had a lot of fun putting the pieces together. They enjoyed letting their creative juices flow while at the same time considering the reality of budget and logistical limitations. I once read somewhere that creativity bursts forth more vigorously in the face of constraints. And the costumes for The Song of the Nightingale are no exception. I am so thankful to have such passionate and talented collaborators. They truly are giving the small, brown bird her wings - and her own line of clothing.

Becoming the Nightingale - An Interview with Deedra Wong

Theater is arguably the most collaborative artform in existence. It requires a reliance on others bringing their talents, skills and expertise, and a trust in their decisions and intuition. With The Song of the Nightingale opening at Altarena Playhouse in a few weeks, I wanted to showcase some of the amazing people who are helping me bring this show to life. First, I interview Deedra Wong who is playing the title role of The Nightingale.

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MIN: One of the most fascinating things to me about this project is the fact that most of the actors in this show do so much more than perform. Can you describe a little of what you do beyond performing?

DEEDRA: I like to read tarot cards and help people gain insight into their life.  I love the mystical arts and I love sharing what I know with people. I  started reading cards in 1986 and started my business Tarot Perspectives in 2012. I read for people over the telephone or in person.

I teach dance and choreograph musicals as well, and I like helping people become  better performers. In addition to Nightingale, I am choreographing The Gold Rush Musical! produced by Bay Area Children's Theatre, which will go on tour to local elementary schools in October.

Deedra's album Pisces Dream is available on iTunes or Amazon

I also wrote an album called, Pisces Dream. It's a  self-produced electronica album on iTunes. I hope to write another album  again at some point. Maybe I'll write a book too. The artist in me  needs to constantly be creative!

M: What drew you to work on The Song of the Nightingale?

D: A friend told me there was a local playwright in the Bay Area who wrote a  musical written for an all Asian cast featuring a dancing bird. I knew at  that moment I wanted to be in the show. I wanted to be a part of a local,  original project and help bring it to life. When I saw the first staged  reading in 2010, I originally thought I wanted to be play Feng because I  wanted to use my voice and be comedic. But then as time went on, I  realized the Nightingale role was more fitting since I am primarily a  dancer. I like the challenge of not using my voice at all and only using  movement to convey my character. To be graceful and smooth is a good  challenge for me.

Photo by Peter Lichty

M: What are your creative sources of inspiration in working to craft the  character of the Nightingale?

D: The music is my true source of inspiration for the Nightingale. The  music tells me what to do.

M:What kinds of dance are influencing her  movement?

D: I use a little bit of everything to craft  her movement: ballet, modern, jazz, latin dance, hip hop, Chinese  dance. The one thing I knew about the Nightingale was that she is not  only one style but all styles mixed in one body.

M: Well, I'm certainly thankful that you are a part of this project. Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions as well.

The Surprise of the Nightingale

The creative process is unpredictable. Case in point, check out these drawings:

"What am I looking at?" you ask. These are character sketches I created for my upcoming musical The Song of the Nightingale from about 20 years ago. Of course, back then I wanted to be a Disney animator, which is why I drew the characters out. Do you see how I even created a Nightingale logo (check out the upper left hand corner)? Ever the brand marketer I was.

Starting from the top right corner, you see the earliest iterations of the characters now known as Madam Wu, Xiao Hai, The Emperor (who uncannily looks like the Sultan from Disney's Aladdin; that film must have been fresh on my mind), Mei Lin, The Nightingale, The Fake Nightingale and Lord Liu Bing Wen.

This drawing had been tucked away in an old sketch book until recent years. And there was a good stretch of time when I thought it was all just meant to be a relic of a child's imagination. In fact, I used to consider making a living in the arts to be wishful thinking (would you believe I once thought of going to business school because I had no idea what else to do with my life?). Thank God I snapped out of it. Thank God I actually decided to take that first acting class after college. And I auditioned for that first show. And I volunteered to vocal direct for that first community production.

All this to say, the creative process for The Song of the Nightingale has been a circuitous one. It has been as much about how I have arrived here as it has been about how did I write this. Just as the Emperor in the fairy tale is surprised by the effect of the Nightingale's song, I find myself repeatedly surprised that this show is actually being realized. But I think the me from twenty years ago is sticking out his tongue at me and saying "I told you so."