In September, the Seattle Men’s Chorus will have officially been a local institution for 35 years, and when counted with the Seattle Women’s Chorus (founded in 2002), they’re the largest gay chorus in the world.
This weekend, the Seattle Men’s Chorus is paying tribute to the music of Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz with a production called Totally Wicked at McCaw Hall. It features all music from Schwartz’s legacy, particularly Wicked, one of his most famous musicals (which also include Pippin and Godspell). The show also features a guest appearance from Megan Hilty, a Bellevue native who played Glinda in the Wicked on Broadway and in Los Angeles.
To learn more about the SMC and what they’re doing this weekend, and for the near future, I spoke with executive director Frank Stilwagner about Totally Wicked, the Chorus, and their big plans for the summer.
What goes into putting together a program like Totally Wicked?
That’s a big question. (laughs) The simple answer is: a lot. We start planning our seasons about a year and a half in advance. Our artistic director determines the season and we have a great production team that we work with. A lot of it is discovering what kind of music we want to perform, a mixture of entertainment and conveys the missions of the choruses, which is to, through words and music that our world values its gay and lesbian citizens. Music needs to speak to us on many levels, not just as entertainment, but as a way to drive our mission forward.
If you come see one of our concerts, we may not have gay in our title, we’re Seattle Men’s Chorus, but you know that we are a gay chorus and we’re accepting of everybody that is in our audience and we hope that through what we do and what we perform on stage, when you walk away you’ll know that a person is a person no matter who they are or who they love. We find music to be a great equalizer, a way to communicate our mission and vision without being too much in everybody’s face. It’s a vehicle that has worked for us throughout for the last 34 years, as well as choruses throughout the nation to provide a common ground where people can come together to enjoy art and be enlightened.
With Totally Wicked in particular, what was it about Wicked the musical that stood out to you to want to do this production?
It’s a show about the music of Stephen Schwartz. He’s one of the most prolific Broadway and film writers of our time. Iterations of this concert have been performed by other gay choruses throughout the United States in the past year. I believe we’re the fourth chorus to perform it. We’ve taken what other choruses have done and adapted it to make it our own. Mr. Schwartz did a piece called “Testimony” in response to the It Gets Better Project, which you may know began in Seattle with Dan Savage and his husband. Mr. Schwartz gave permission for the choruses to perform his music, but wanted to speak to the mission through this new song. It is the second to last song we do in the concert. It’s very powerful. It has four young people who sing about their struggles in life and accepting who they are themselves and wanting to be accepted by others. Then it has the adult members of our chorus singing back to them that it does get better and life gets better. It may not be the easiest but there are people out there like us, our chorus, where people can find a home where people are accepted and valued for who they are. That song has driven all of the choruses, like much of the music that is done in the concert, he writes about acceptance. Even the show Wicked is about someone who is different and looks inside themselves to find the strength and power to accept who they are.
From the show Wicked, there are at least six or seven songs from the show. They are being performed by different groups in the show. The Seattle Men’s Chorus, The Seattle Women’s Chorus is doing two songs from “Wicked” as well as our special guest. And then Megan Hilty, who is our guest star, will be doing “Popular,” which is a number she is known for when she did the role on Broadway and in LA.
What does having a star like Megan Hilty, who is known for playing Galinda in Wicked already, bring to a performance like the one you’re putting together this weekend?
One, she is very supportive of the LGBT community. She’s a hometown girl, she grew up in Bellevue. The fact that she is known for this role written by Stephen Schwartz is a really lovely tie-in. She’ll be doing five songs total, I think three solo and two backed by the chorus.
If you’ve never been to a Seattle Men’s Chorus show before, is there anything you want someone to take away from the performance or should know beforehand?
I want people to not only be surprised by the caliber of the performance, we pride ourselves on that we are singers first and foremost. You must audition to be a part of the chorus. The sound that 200 men singing together is not only powerful but beautiful and it’s meaningful. The fact that when I was a young gay man, if I had known there was an opportunity to see 200 people on stage that are out and proud, and an audience of thousands that are there supporting them, it would have been life-changing for me. We hear that all the time that people are affected or changed by our performances. Not just gay people but people with families that may not have been as accepting. If they could come and watch a performance, they could start to find ways to build a bridge to mend whatever might be happening in their family. It runs the gamut. Some people have accepting and loving families when they come out, and others are not as accepting. When you get them all together in one room, it helps everybody.
How did you become involved with Chorus?
I actually moved to Seattle from Chicago in 1997 and I was an actor/performer by trade, moved out here with my partner; life had changed a lot. I was working at ArtsWest when they first opened. Some people said I should check out Seattle Men’s Chorus. I had no idea who they were but walked into their office and learned when they had auditions and auditioned. That was fifteen years ago. This concert actually marks my fifteen years with the Chorus. I started singing with them, and I was working as director of marketing for the Village Theater. Then the director of marketing position opened up for the chorus and I applied and the rest is sort of history. Then I was honored to have been offered the job of executive director.
What’s coming up for the Seattle Men’s Chorus after Totally Wicked?
We’re going to Germany. We’re going on tour and taking a piece called For a Look or a Touch, which is an opera that we co-commissioned for an actor/baritone in a men’s chorus. It deals with love lost during the Holocaust but through the eyes of two gay lovers. It’s a true story. It’s the story of Gad Beck and Manfred Lewin. Gad Beck died about a year and a half ago, was known to be the sole gay survivor of the Holocaust. Paragraph 175 where Gad told his story and it resonated with Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, who write this opera. We first performed it in 2011 in Seattle and we are taking it to Germany, performing it in Berlin, Leipzig, and Cologne. That’s what we’re doing next. We’ll do one performance in Seattle at the Paramount Theater of the 14th of June. And 130 members of this chorus will be travelling to Germany to perform this opera.
Germany, as you may or may not know, has the largest gay pride celebration in Europe with over a million people who attend. We’ll be marching in their parade and performing at their gay pride celebration. That’s how we’ll be kicking off our the tour in Berlin and travel through Germany through Cologne.
{Tickets to Totally Wicked can be found here. It runs on Saturday, March 29 and Sunday, March 30 at McCaw Hall.}