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Loverly indeed
Foothill College’s production of My Fair Lady featured twin Boston grand pianos on stage.
At the new Lohman Theatre at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, Calif., the curtain rose recently on Lerner and Loewe’s musical masterwork, My Fair Lady, starring 28 talented cast members... and two Steinway-designed Boston pianos.
And how fitting that this famed Broadway show was staged with a rediscovered two-piano rendition of Loewe’s score created by Trude Rittman, My Fair Lady’s original dance orchestrator. Director Jay Manley, artistic director of the Foothill Music Theatre, says he stumbled on it while researching the show. Best of all, during its four-week run, the musical was greeted with critical acclaim and enthusiastic audiences… and was the first Foothill production to sell out.
To accomplish this unique musical feat, though, Mr. Manley needed two identical grand pianos. And while this community college recently acquired three Steinway grand pianos from Sherman Clay Pianos in Santa Clara, Calif., no two hand-crafted Steinway pianos are identical in sound. Each has its own voice and personality to suit a vast range of musical styles and tastes. That’s why fine arts dean Duncan Graham appealed to Dr. Chris Hepp, northern California institutional sales manager at Sherman Clay, the exclusive dealer for the family of Steinway-designed pianos in northern California.
As a gesture of support for the college’s award-winning theater program, Sherman Clay provided two Boston GP-156 grand pianos for the performances. Better still, the Steinway dealer made those Bostons available for sale at the end of the musical’s run… earmarking a portion of the proceeds for the Foothill College Theatre Arts Department.
“My biggest challenge was presenting this jewel-box production in our new, intimate theater,” says Mr. Manley. His response to the challenge was to envision the pianos center stage as the cast worked with and around the instruments while interacting with the pianists throughout the production.
According to Bruce McLeod, director of theatre technology and design at the college, the entire production was staged around the two pianos that were seen as well as heard during performances. The Boston pianos played their part well and proved the perfect size for the 175-seat theater’s 48-by-24-foot stage.
And while the audience loved the performance, Mr. McLeod adds, “The musicians were very impressed with the Boston pianos’ sound and power.”
The $8 million Lohman Theatre opened as part of Foothill College’s 50th anniversary celebration, and was made possible with seed money from the late Betty Lohman, a longtime resident of Los Altos Hills and friend of the theater-arts department. The theater is built on the site of John and Betty Lohman’s former residence.
The college boasts an extensive fine-arts curriculum including an active musical-theater program with two productions annually. The summer production is staged in the college’s 1,000-seat theater elsewhere on campus, but the new, state-of-the-art theater marks a giant leap forward from the converted classrooms where winter productions have been staged for the past 25 years, says Mr. Manley.
“Staging this production would have been extremely difficult if it hadn’t been for the Boston pianos,” he observes. “Because they are designed by Steinway, we knew what to expect as far as touch and tone.”