Journalist: What attracted you to this story?
Mel Lenoir: It is told from another point of view and perspective. We all know about the attacks on the Twin Towers but here other issues are thought. What happened that day with the control towers that had to divert 200 planes and relocate them so they wouldn’t fall. What is behind this island town in the Atlantic where planes usually go down to refuel and that day housed 7000 people in 4 hours. They are real cases and names, stories that are in documentaries and here are the characters of the work. There is a heroic thing that happened with feeling the responsibility to house all those people and make them feel at home, because they came from all over the world, and they had to be made to understand, in the African language if necessary, what was happening. They found a way to explain themselves through passages from the Bible. That day the world changed, changed laws and ways of flying, security, and those people who had to be in that place, acknowledge having felt humanity and solidarity like never before.
Q.: What is it like to produce international musicals in such an unstable Argentina?
Carla Calabrese: It is a complicated country to make productions and charge an entrance fee of a maximum of 17 dollars. But although the equation almost never works, being able to risk money in this way is a luxury. You have to manage yourself to be able to continue making productions every year and not leave everything here. With this valuable and quality content, I am not waiting for the investment to return and there will be returns, I am aware that this is achieved only by keeping the work over time and that the public values and recommends it. With “The curious incident” it worked for 9 months in a row to a full house, then the pandemic arrived and we had recovered the investment. The time for profit was lacking but it did not come. Now we are renegotiating the rights that expired.
P.: He speaks with the spirit of the independent theater that knows what he does to lose money, tie or, in the least of the times, win.
DC: Yes, that is the spirit, and we can finance quality set design and design. The public wonders how it is possible that we make these productions without a sure return, and does not question so many activities that are stopped and lose money. I choose to use my money to do theater, pay actors, generate work and generate quality productions that reflect human and transformative behaviors. For me this is the most interesting place to risk my money.
Q.: The musicals were mutating in themes and went from the most trivial to more committed stories, why?
ML: Everything adapts to the social and political context. It was trivialized a lot in post-war times because it had to entertain, distract, lighten, and like all artistic expression it mutated and used its music based on the story. There is a search for authors and playwrights who point to depth and the musical is trans-
formed despite being a language of pure entertainment and pastime. When music strikes a chord and that is added to a moving story the result is strong.
DC: I can’t make a text musical that doesn’t have a mobilizing content, it doesn’t work out for me. I see many works and few I like, of those I try to buy the rights.
Q.: What would you like to buy?
DC: “Book of Mormons”, I think it is one of the most important musicals of the moment but they do not answer us. If it has to be ours, it will be. Next year we are going to co-direct the English play “Consent” with Mela, and from everything I saw in London I really liked the group Mischief and “The play that went wrong”, for example I saw “Peter Pan went wrong”. I am also interested in American realism when I am in New York.
Q.: How do you see the musical scene in Argentina?
ML: In recent years there has been a very strong takeoff because people study from a very young age, and it is also one of the few genres that has a legion of fans who watch the shows up to ten times. Perhaps there is also the influence of TV talent shows, which push artists to want to perfect themselves, and at the same time, teachers encourage writing. There was a moment of brake between the 90 and 2000 but then it resurfaced and here we go. It is a genre that involves a lot of work, a lot of rehearsal, we are all soldiers.
Source: Ambito
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