As popular as the company's earlier Disney fare has been — 2022's Beauty and the Beast came first, followed by The Little Mermaid in 2023 — fans who saw artistic director Giancarlo Rodaz's reimagined Annie at the company's South Miami space in 2021 know that his passion for creating inventive immersive productions of all sorts of shows is boundless.
Lionel Bart's much-loved Oliver! opens Saturday, February 10, and is the next big musical to ignite Rodaz's imagination. The production runs through Sunday, February 25.
"Oliver! is a project, like Annie, that is very personal to me," says Rodaz, who succeeded his father John as Area's artistic director in July. "It has been many years of thinking about it."
Bart wrote the 1960 British musical's book, music, and lyrics, basing it on Charles Dickens's hefty 1838 novel Oliver Twist, which was inspired in part by Dickens's boyhood experiences living with his family in a London debtors' prison as well as his adult opposition to prison-like workhouses. The musical follows the impoverished orphan Oliver (played in Area Stage's production by Hallie Walker) from the workhouse to a forced apprenticeship with an undertaker to a street life with the wily Fagin (John Mazuelos) and his gang of pickpocket kids.
"Oliver! is a project that I immediately hooked onto because I was profoundly moved by the story and how it manages to connect us with these characters from all walks of life," says Rodaz. "The musical is equally masterful in how it captures the spirit of the novel's winding story in a two-hour show."
Giancarlo Rodaz (left) and Frank Oliva have brought Area Stage Company's immersive sets to life.
Photo by Andres Hernandez
"The adults will walk on stilts, so you see the show from Oliver's perspective. I wanted to reorient it to the perspective of a child — they are towering over you. It's creepy and cool. You understand his fears," says Rodaz.
A key partner in making the director's immersive dreams come true is Carbonell Award-winning set designer Frank Oliva, who smiles over Zoom as he calls Rodaz "the brains of the operation." Oliva got his start in theater at Area Stage when he was 15 and now designs for theaters throughout the U.S. — most recently, the set for Washington, D.C.'s Gala Hispanic Theatre world premiere of Cristina Garcia's Las Hermanas Palacios, a version of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters set in 1985 Miami.
Oliva and Rodaz sent drawings and images of life in Victorian London to each other, did screen sharing, texted, or just spoke on the phone throughout the creative process.
"We knew that the set had to be an oppressive, historically accurate, dynamic space," says Oliva of his Victorian workhouse design. "We went through 25 to 30 orientations, and I think it was ultimately iteration 25 that we chose."
As he did with Annie, Rodaz is using a smaller-than-usual cast of ten adult actors (four of whom play two roles each) and no children. He had intended to cast a boy in the title role but asked Walker, who played Ariel's sidekick Flounder in Area's The Little Mermaid, to audition.
She sent me a video of her singing 'Where Is Love?' The depth of character, the heartbreak...I had to cast her as Oliver," says Rodaz.
Cast members Hallie Walker (left) and Luke Surretsky (right) as director Giancarlo Rodaz makes a point during a rehearsal.
Photo by Anjuli Kaufman
"It's a very new take, and it works pretty well," says the actress. "There's so much Oliver has seen, so much innocence he's lost. A lot of the adults use stilts, so it really does look as if I'm a child."
The juicy part of the persuasive Artful Dodger is being played by Staci Stout, who had the title role in Area's Annie. She stepped away from acting after that show to focus on writing music, but she's finding a connection with her role in the production.
"I have a lot in common with him. I feel naturally masculine and androgynous. When I sing, I drop into more of a growl. I had a lot of practice with this hardcore band I've been in..and I get to play the banjo and play the bucket as a drum," says Stout.
The other boy pickpockets in Fagin's gang will be played by puppets designed by the New York-based Phantom Limb Company. Rodaz says the effect will be like having 20 actors onstage instead of ten.
Of course, Oliver! has plenty of unforgettable adult roles, too.
Frank Montoto plays the violent and abusive Bill Sikes, as well as the cruel workhouse beadle Mr. Bumble. Mazuelos has the major role of Fagin and a smaller one as Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker. Annette Rodriguez is the Widow Corney, who joins Mr. Bumble in mistreating the orphans. Katie Duerr is Mrs. Sowerberry and Ms. Bedwin, Greta Hicks plays Bet and Charlotte, Luke Surretsky is Noah Claypool, and Carbonell winner Tico Chiriboga is Mr. Brownlow, the man who makes a true difference in Oliver's life.
Hallie Walker as Oliver and Staci Stout's the Artful Dodger in Area Stage’s Oliver! at the Arsht Center
Photo by Giancarlo Rodaz
"That was one of my bucket list characters to revisit," says the New York-based Waldbauer, who heard about Area Stage through her friend Marilyn Caserta, who starred in many Area shows and went on to appear on Broadway in Six the Musical.
"I've never done immersive theater," says Waldbauer. "I wanted to try something new. I haven't been in a space in a very long time where everything was so collaborative...Nancy is a light to Fagin's boys. I'm not afraid to lean into her hope."
Nor is Rodaz afraid to lean into treating a musical classic like Oliver! the same way he would a new work.
"Being able to approach it in a new way makes it feel like I discovered one of the greatest stories of all time, and I get to bring it to life how I see fit," he says. "How often does a storyteller get that opportunity?"
– Christine Dolen, ArtburstMiami.com
Area Stage Company's Oliver! Previews 7:30 p.m. Friday, February 9, and 1 p.m. Saturday, February 10. Opens 7 p.m. Saturday, February 10, through Sunday, February 25, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 305-949-6722; arshtcenter.org. Tickets cost $31 to $68. Performances on 7:30 p.m. Friday, 1 and 7 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m. Sunday.
