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April 24, 2000
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As everyone else in the academic world winds down for summer break, Roger Bennett Riggle, associate producer of TheatreFest, is gearing up for summer‹his busiest time of the year.
Among his duties, Riggle picks the shows for the season and decides on celebrities. He also works with the budget, allocates money for each of the shows and coordinates the annual fund-raiser. Then it's off to New York, where he holds auditions. "We hire everybody through an interview process," Riggle explained. "We're in full swing into casting and finalizing all the hires for the 2000 season, and we begin rehearsal May 30."
This season Riggle gets to play another role as he choreographs "High Spirits," a musical starring Kim Zimmer (Reva on "Guiding Light") and directed by Geoffrey Newman, dean of the School of the Arts. "High Spirits" will run from July 20-Aug. 6. (See page 4 for the entire TheatreFest lineup.)
Riggle recently "took five" to talk about the show, TheatreFest's 15th birthday and how he has been groomed all his life for this job.
INSIGHT: What are some of TheatreFest's highlights after 15 years?
Riggle: Our ability to solicit celebrities over the years. Being close to New York sometimes helps that happen. We've done several world and New Jersey premieres, and we're into the third season of our Regional Playwriting Contest. We're very much into promoting theater, doing innovative, non-traditional casting and presenting artistic variation.
We've also increased our children's programming, which exposes and gives art education to our future audiences, especially to children at risk‹those who may not have the money to come to the theater, children who are handicapped, hearing impaired, etc. We have a program now of raising money to bring them to the theater for free and experience workshops in art to increase their learning capacity.
INSIGHT: What are some of the opportunities TheatreFest offers MSU students?
Riggle: As the professional wing of the School of the Arts, we can use our own students in the apprenticeship program. In addition to performing, that includes the technical and administrative aspects of theater. We want our students in the apprenticeship program to walk out having a real-world professional experience. It's nice to take the academic and actually apply it.
INSIGHT: Tell us about "High Spirits."
Riggle: It's not a well-known show but it's absolutely delightful. It's a musical version of the ghost story "Blythe Spirit," written by Noel Coward. This production is a celebration of Coward's 100th anniversary. A lot of ingenious design work is going into the sets so the audience will feel that they're inhabited by a spiritual presence. Slides, conveyer belts and turntables will give the illusion of non-human movement.
We're excited and lucky to have Kim Zimmer playing the lead role. She recently won Outstanding Lead Actress at the 16th annual Soap Opera Digest Awards.
INSIGHT: What is your process of choreographing a show?
Riggle: It's one of the toughest things I've done. A choreographer needs to have a dance background and, in my opinion, a background in music as well. The music tells me what the style and the flavor of the dance should be. From there I create the steps and teach them to the cast. Then I modify and enhance. It's an interesting but tedious process to make that moment happen as best I can. I'm looking to use roller skates in "High Spirits" to simulate bicycles behind an English hedge. The audience will see the actors only from the waist up with bicycle handlebars.
INSIGHT: How did you get your start in show business?
Riggle: My mother had studied dance and she played classical piano. My sister and I would sit at the piano with her and learn songs from musicals, and we were enrolled in dance classes with a teacher who was a Rockette. She would give these incredibly large productions, and my sister and I were asked to sing the beginning songs of these thematic segments. We also performed at organizations, church assemblies and nightclubs. So from age four I grew up dancing and singing. I was in almost all the school productions from the first grade on. I enjoy choreographing or directing 20 in the chorus with eight to 10 leads, and I owe it all to the Rockettes.