arts & entertainment

44die6t, 'Who- tuttch

1

The L.A.-based stage director, composer and writer of At the Bistro Garden have all
come to Michigan to work on the musical's Midwest premiere at Two Muses Theatre.

Suzanne Chessler
I Contributing Writer

p

rofessional and personal con-
nections resulted in Jules Aaron
becoming director of At the Bistro
Garden as it opens the 2014-2015 season
of Two Muses Theatre in West Bloomfield.
Aaron, a former Oak Parker who special-
izes in new productions across the country,
was asked to join the creative team by play-
wright Deborah Pearl, who had seen one of
his productions in New York.
Frances Aaron, the director's mom,
helped with the venue. She had suggested
Two Muses as an appropriate company
for her son's talents after she had watched
other shows the troupe had presented.
The musical, running Sept. 26-Oct. 19
at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in West
Bloomfield, explores the relationship of
three friends living in Beverly Hills, Calif.,
and regularly meeting for lunch at the
popular restaurant in the title of the work.
The friendship, set in the late 1980s,
offers support through betrayals, infideli-
ties, a daughter going astray, love lost and
love found.
The cast includes Diane Hill (BJ),
Amy Lauter (Abigail), Carrie Jay Sayer
(Cheyenne), Alissa Beth Morton (Destiny),
John DeMerell (as the maitre d'), and
Rusty Daugherty and Miles Bond (who
play waiters).
"This show is illuminating and enter-
taining with a terrific score says Aaron,
whose mother picked up on his career
track by putting on senior shows at the
Jewish Community Center in Oak Park
and, at age 95, is working on one based on
a Two Muses production.
"It shows that, through thick and thin,
friends are the most important things
we have except for the self-esteem of the
individuals we are. We move out of the
restaurant to find out what's going on in
their lives:'
Aaron, who lived in Brooklyn until he
was 12, was a child performer singing and
doing ventriloquism. After participat-
ing in theater programs at Wayne State
University and earning a doctoral degree
in theater criticism and dramaturgy at
New York University, he became interested
in new works.
"I began to direct environmental pieces
and decided I was a better director than
performer:' says Aaron, who had his bar
mitzvah at the Birmingham Temple and
graduated from Oak Park High School.

At the Bistro Garden: BJ (played by Diane Hill) gossips with best friends Abigail

(Amy Lauter) and Cheyenne (Carrie Jay Sayer) while the maitre d' (John DeMerell)
listens in.

Director Jules Aaron

Composer David Kole

"I was offered work to head up the
directing program at the California
Institute of the Arts and worked profes-
sionally in regional theaters"
Aaron, who just finished directing The
Ghost of Gershwin in Los Angeles, has devel-
oped more than 70 premieres among 250
directorial assignments. A concurrent stage
project has to do with Sammy Davis Jr.
Another former Michigander, David
Kole, came up with the idea for the play
and developed five songs before asking
Deborah Pearl to sing the demos and then
complete the script as he added more
music and lyrics.
"I used to live within walking distance of
the restaurant referred to in the play and
first went there with Cloris Leachman,"

Playwright Deborah
Pearl

says Kole, the composer for films made
by the actress' former husband, George
Englund, and the arranger for Leachman's
appearance on Dancing With the Stars.
"I started going to the restaurant for
lunch, and the clientele was pretty impres-
sive. I observed the ladies and tailored
some of the characters after people I know.
I wrote songs designed to introduce them"
The song "A Sale at Neiman's" defines
the main characters as they react to an
annual event.
"Each character is quite different from
the others" says Kole, a Grammy and
Emmy Award nominee who grew up in
Grosse Pointe. "I'm not Jewish, but I am
associated with the Jewish community
doing musical programming for Temple

Emanuel in Beverly Hills and benefit con-
certs"
The composer, whose television cred-
its include music for Challenger and The
Karen Carpenter Story, is working on a
stage musical, Revenge, about the Count of
Monte Cristo.
Pearl connected with the characters
Kole introduced.
"I love the way they come to life and are
illuminated to make the audience laugh
and feel [their emotions[:' Pearl says. "As
a writer, I enjoy substantiating action with
some emotional underpinning.
"The play is about growth and becom-
ing better people, and I would hope that is
what living a Jewish life is about"
Pearl, who has studied Torah and sings
at Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles, has writ-
ten lyrics for the music of jazz legend
Benny Carter. She can be heard on the
recording of that project, Souvenir of You.
A graduate of Barnard College, she
moved to Los Angeles to write sitcoms and
worked on Designing Women and Head of
the Class.
"Playwriting was what I always longed
to do" she says. "It took me a while to
get to it. I have a play called Fathers and
Sons about the similar relationship among
Jewish, African-American and Palestinian
fathers and how it forms the roots of
political leanings:'
Pearl, who just finished a screenplay
adaptation of the Israeli graphic novel
Exit Wounds, was a semifinalist in the
2014 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights
Conference for her play Incomplete
Strangers.
The two other members of the creative
team — all based in California — have
joined Pearl in Michigan to work with the
cast and will return for the opening.
"Every time a work of mine is presented,
I find out more about what I've written:'
she says. "I hope women will come with
their friends to see the musical and cel-
ebrate the friendship of women. There's
something so special about that friend-
ship"

❑

At the Bistro Garden runs Sept.

26-Oct.19 at Barnes & Noble
Booksellers, 6800 Orchard
Lake Road, in West Bloomfield.
Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays-
Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays.
$18-$25. (248) 850-9919; www.
twomusestheatre.org .

September 25 • 2014

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