Baldwin Wallace Conservatory students bring excitement and romance to the Cleveland Museum of Art in the Cleveland premiere of the comic opera “Speed Dating Tonight!” this Valentine’s Day.
Presented at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Valentine’s Day weekend, this one-act English opera by composer Michael Ching centers on a speed dating event where daters hope to find their perfect match.
Director Scott Skiba, the director of opera studies at BW, said Ching and his stage director Dean Anthony crafted this concept where the story would be “modular,” and Ching composed multiple dates that could be chosen from depending on the cast available for each production. The Baldwin Wallace production will feature two newly composed dates.
“It started off with a certain collection of dates… then [Ching] started writing and composing different dates for different organizations that would do it.” Skiba said. “So, when I reached out to him last year, I was like, ‘Hey, Michael, I’m thinking about producing this.’ He’s like, ‘Well, I told myself I’d stop at 100 dates, if you want [me] to compose the last couple.’”
While in talks with Ching, Skiba also said that the composer advised them not to over-rehearse, as the piece is “supposed to feel real.” So, there will be both choreographed moments by the director and improvised moments by the cast onstage.
Junior voice performance student Leah Kania, who plays dating coordinator Kaylee for two performances, said that while multiple organizations have done this show, they’re always different based on the dates they choose to incorporate. So, by not over-rehearsing, the cast can keep their acting very natural and not remain “bound” by past performances.
“I think the audience will really be able to see … how much fun we’re having on stage, and some things may come up and be new in the performance because we’re trying not to rehearse it as much,” Kania said. “We’re going to be prepared, but we want to have some aspect of fluidity and some improv in it, so some little moments might come up.”
Sophomore voice performance student Charles Bohrer, who plays dater Car Man, echoed Kania’s sentiment. The cast must be on stage for the entire hour-long run time, and they continue to interact with each other in the background, improvising conversations.
“As we’ve been able to practice, we’ve developed conversations to have, and that’s been very helpful, and I think that that’s like adding to that improvisation element of the show,” Bohrer said. “Every night we might have something new to talk about, like, maybe something crazy happened that day.
There are twelve daters in the BW production, and each performs an aria that reveals something about themselves. Skiba said that these arias may be “funny,” “poignant,” “realism-based” or “existential.”
“Speed Dating Tonight!” is BW’s first-ever collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art, which brings the challenge of translating rehearsal space at the university into the final performance space.
Skiba said he visited the auditorium before rehearsals began to understand the “parameters” of the space and figure out how to tie in the resident pieces of the space with the set dressing, so they do not get stressed with adding new elements.
The cast has been rehearsing in Kleist’s Black Box theater on a precisely taped ground plan, which Skiba said would keep them from needing to change anything significantly when they move into the Gartner Auditorium.
“Speed Dating Tonight!” features a diverse cast of characters with multiple personalities and life experiences, which affects how they interact with the other daters. Bohrer said that these characters are “very much representative of where we are in society today.”
Kania described her character Kaylee as a fun and bubbly individual who is grappling with her past relationship failures, so she wants to help others find their love to remind herself that there is still a chance to find love.
According to Kania, the opera sends the message that there is no “specific … time in your life that you’re supposed to find someone to love,” which is an especially important message to send on Valentine’s Day weekend. Kania also said that Skiba did a great job “showcasing all different types of love.”
“We show dates with LGBTQ characters and characters who may be questioning their gender,” Kania said. “It’s not just like one person, one type fits all … [there is] finding love in all aspects of life, like through friendships, through relationships through co-workers, things like that.”
Bohrer hopes that the audience will engage with the cast and feel a human connection with the characters and the story that is being told onstage in real time, which is something fundamental in live theater and opera performances.
“I hope that the audience feels like they’re a part of the story,” Bohrer said. “This one, especially, is very modern, so I think people will really relate to it, and especially in a space like [the museum] where it’s a lot of paintings and just art everywhere, and it’s kind of just an explosion of creativity.”
Skiba said that new work, such as this opera, is important for him to produce because it is another chance to show a story to an audience that has not experienced it yet. Additionally, “Speed Dating Tonight!” is very accessible to new audiences because it is in English and has contemporary music styles such as rock and jazz.
“This is a very often produced opera. It’s probably the most produced contemporary opera because of its flexibility, but it’s the Cleveland premiere” Skiba said. “I’ve been committed to producing a work by a person of color in this new opera spot, so we get to continue to deliver on that.”
No version of “Speed Dating Tonight!” is quite like the other, with its mix-and-match possibilities, and BW will continue this legacy by performing a show that is different from any other version that any other school has done.
Skiba said: “It’s a piece that I feel like we’re going to do it great justice. And I told the cast, I said, ‘I want to do the best version of this piece that’s ever been done. … We’re going to put our own stamp on this, so I think that’s the exciting part.”
“Speed Dating Tonight!” runs from Feb. 14-16 in the Gartner Auditorium in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tickets for non-CMA members range from $18-$35, and tickets can be purchased here.
