New Partnership With Major Performing Arts Center Big Step Forward
By Charlotte Libov
Area Stage Company has been part of the Miami theater scene for decades. Now it is taking what its associate artistic director said is a "major step forward."
On Saturday, its Mainstage season opens with the South Florida premiere of the Broadway cult classic “Be More Chill” inside the Adrienne Arsht Center's Carnival Studio Theater.
And it marks a new relationship between Area Stage Company and the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts’ as it becomes the arts center's newest community partner.
“This partnership supports our stated and deliberate heartfelt desire to connect with the community in any way we can, with artists and organizations we haven’t met before,” says Johann Zietsman, the Arsht Center’s president and CEO.
Rodaz said that the relationship had been “a while coming, due to the pandemic, but we felt we were ready, so, when the opportunity arose, we jumped in.”
Zietsman hadn’t known of the theater company before meeting Maria Banda-Rodaz, who along with her husband, John, founded Area Stage three decades ago. Zietsman said he was at a “listening session” that the Arsht hosted “way before COVID,” he says.
“Area Stage sounded like an organization we needed to know more about, so we had a meeting to discuss how to transform our desire into action. So now here we are, and this hopefully will be the beginning of a long relationship," Zeitsman said.
Giancarlo Rodaz grew up with the award-winning theater company. At 26 years old, he has directed many of the company's shows including “She Kills Monsters,” and “The Wizard of Oz” for which he won a South Florida's theater excellence award, the Silver Palm. He also runs the theater company’s conservatory program.
With original music and lyrics by Joe Iconis, and a book by Joe Tracz, “Be More Chill,” is based on a 2004 novel by the same name. It premiered at the Two River Theatre in Red Bank, N.J. in 2015, and moved to off-Broadway and then to Broadway. After it closed, a West End production opened in February of 2020, but closed due to the pandemic. A film adaptation is said to be in the works and a novel.
The action takes place in a high school, where Jeremy Heere, who is considered a loser by his peers, decides to take the SQUIP (Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor), a supercomputer in the form of a pill that travels to his brain upon ingestion, which radically transforms his behavior and social status by giving him advice on how to be cool.
According to Rodaz, the show was an internet sensation and captured viewers’ imaginations due to its originality.
"This is a new idea for a show, not another rehash, with a great script and fantastic music, so I’m really excited to be presenting it,” says Rodaz.
For “Be More Chill,” Rodaz had an exact vision of what he wanted to achieve. The show is about high school students, and, he says, one thing he didn’t want to do was fall into the trap of what happened with “Grease,” and other musicals set in a high school.
“I didn’t want to cast actors who were actually older than the parts they play. We have tons of wonderful actors here, but they didn’t look 16, 17, or 18 years old, so we had to go out of our way, and we ended up with a cast of 12 that is half from Miami, and half from New York,” he says.
And while “Be More Chill” is billed as a musical, Rodaz says it is not in the usual sense.
“This show isn’t a musical in that there are no big dance numbers, you can’t start dancing, there’s a very smart bob-and-weave to the script. It feels like a play and talks like a play but it’s a musical, so we have to find very clever ways to integrate the choreography,” he says.
The show’s opening is not the only event that will mark the theater company’s new partnership with the Arsht. Also on tap following the Feb. 18 performance is a special celebration, chaired by, chaired by Grammy award-winning Latin singer and songwriter Jon Secada, which will include a silent auction, light bites, and a chance to mingle with the cast, and other notables in attendance. The proceeds from that event will go towards supporting ASC’s professional season fund to ensure a lasting partnership with the Arsht Center.