4B - Thursday, March 22, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4B - Thursday, March 22, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom PINBALL WIZARD From Page 1B Media savvy Tomorrow night, more than 40 years after the album premiered, the revisited and overhauled "Tommy" will be presented by MUSKET, the University's only student-run musical-theater organization. As MUSKET pre- pares to unveil its 21st-century version of "Tommy," director Taylor Norton, a School of Music, Theatre & Dance freshman, dis- cussed the advantages and com- plexities that revamping such a popular show entailed. "In the original show, Cap- tain Walker is a pilot in the British army," Norton said. "So what is he in America in 2001? There needed to be an event that spurred Captain Walker's release, so the whole show hing- es around the 'Mission Accom- plished' speech that Bush gave in 2003." Finding appropriate backsto- ries for characters was just the tip of The Who-sized iceberg. Due to the rock musical's concept-album beginnings, connecting the mul- tiple layers present in the origi- nal work has been a challenge from the show's first production, no matter the time and place in which the show is situated. "Trying to highlight the moments that aren't about a huge rock show, the moments where there's really something happen- ing between two people onstage - even if it's something horrific - how do we communicate it without it being uncomfortable?" Norton said. "How do we tell the story rather than demonstrating (it) onstage?" In keeping with the theme of modernity, the 21st century is woven into the show: Not only do characters carry cell phones and iPods, but the back wall of the set will also be a series of muslin screens onto which video clips will be projected. The reason behind the mar- riage of social media and rock opera is the intense cultural connection people have with the Internet today: Sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube allow ordinary individuals to skyrocket to fame overnight. The show portrays Tommy as a You- Tube phenomenon, made famous instantaneously for his skills playing pinball. "The idea of Tommy as a You- Tube sensation really clicked for me because it happens all the time, and it happens instantly, so we're using the projections to pull from the media," Norton said. "Sure plays a mean pinball" MT&D senior Lance Fletke plays war veteran Captain Walker, Tommy's father. After he murders his wife's lover, Cap- tain Walker must deal with the fallout of his actions: Tommy is traumatized after witness- ing this struggle and becomes catatonic. Throughout the show, Captain Walker tries to resolve his relationship with his son and his wife, wanting to return to the pre-war familial life he shared with them. "He's a murderer, and (though) he got away with it, he's trauma- tized his son," Fletke said. "But through it all, his main goal is to TERESA MATHEW/Daily MUSKET's version of "The Who's 'Tommy' " adopts motifs related to the culture surrounding social media, featuring Tommy as a YouTube sensation. come back to this woman that got him through the war, to reconcile and fall back in love with Mrs. Walker." Captain Walker soon learns that it is not as simple as apolo- gizing and moving forward. As Tommy grows older, hope for a cure is sparse. He and Mrs. Walk- er continue to take Tommy from doctor to doctor, hoping that a new therapy or medicine is avail- able for their son. "You can never really have what you've lost, but you can have something different, some- thing new, and so, to do that, he's trying to get his son better," Fletke said. "There's a lot of guilt there, not only with killing the lover and affecting Tommy but also from the war. Captain Walk- er is very laden down with guilt, and so he's trying to find a way to peel that off and live a typical, normal life." Despite the setbacks and trag- edies Tommy has faced, he has a secret that begins to set in motion his recovery: As one of the songs describes, he is a "Pinball Wiz- ard." After discovering his tal- ent for pinball, Tommy becomes a YouTube sensation, garnering him fans and recognition every- where. Uplifting in music and tone, "Pinball Wizard" brings the spirit and energy of The Who to the stage with inspiring lyr- ics and catchy beats, reminding audience members of how very rock 'n' roll the musical is. "In the show, 'Pinball Wiz- ard' is a huge number - a lot of dancing, movement. And that's the point: It's a huge,, climactic moment when you discover this kid you thought was helpless is actually this god of a pinball player," Fletke said. "Anything that happens at the end of Act One is important because it sets the tone for Act Two, and so then (inActTwo), Tommy'sgrownup and he's this pinball wizard. It's a big party scene." A song of strife Along with the larger- than-life sequences, there are moments in "Tommy" that require tenderness and delicacy on the part of the actors and the audience. LSA junior Rachel Gubow, who plays Mrs. Walker, described the necessity of the intense scenes that occur in the show. "We see murder, abuse, drugs and bullying," Gubow said. "Delving into those things and understanding them allows the character to have passions and regrets and troubles, and that's what makes it interesting to watch." In order to convey the darker elements of the story, "Tommy" turned to media once again. By projecting pre-recorded clips such as the abuse scene involv- ing babysitter Uncle Ernie and 10-year-old Tommy, the show was able to utilize its technological motifs as well as convey a power- ful image to the audience. In the scene, Tommy, dressed in all white, sits in a chair while the looming figure of Uncle Ernie in a business suit stands eerily behind him. Ernie puts a hand on Tommy's shoulder as a represen- tation of the abusive relationship between the young boy and his uncle. The audience can extrapo- late the rest of the scene without witnessing it, and the show relies on this understanding on the part of the audience. "For us now, we understand so much more about the cycle of violence and sexual abuse," Nor- ton said. "We don't have to go so far and be abrasive with those moments because everyone will understand them." According to Gubow, the greatest difficulty in conveying emotion during the show's more intense moments lies in getting past the music and focusing on the lyrics. "It's easy to sing what's writ- ten, but finding the meaning behind all those lyrics is the chal- lenge," Gubow said. "When you're given a script of lines, there's no set melody to say the lines to. You get to inter- pret the speed, your inflection, and you put meaning behind them. But when the lyrics are set to a song with a specific melody, it takes a lot more effort to put intent behind them - to not just sing a pretty song, but mean it," she added. During "I Believe My Own Eyes," a song Townshend wrote especially for the musical, there is a scene between Captain and Mrs. Walker that Fletke noted for its misleadingly upbeat music covering for a brewing inten- sity between the married couple. Though it's easily sung as a large number, when probed further, it uncovers the demise of a rela- tionship and the desire to bring it back. "It's a big, sweeping song that you can get caught up in, when really, all they're doing is having a fight (and) trying to find some common ground. "It's not a big ballad; it's that we'rebeinginvestedinone anoth- er and trying to help our kid," he added. "It's about remembering (that) lyrics come first. It's our job as storytellers to piece everything together: All these things bring light to the stories we're trying to tell and the people we portray." Putting the'rock'in rock 'n' roll To help the story unfold with- out succumbing to the vastness of the music, the set was created to portray the inside of Tommy's mind. Along with the projection screens, the set boasts an array of newspaper clippings, photos and memories from Tommy's child- hood that link the scenes happen- ing onstage to the setting of the show. "You walk onto the set, and you walk into Tommy's mind," Norton said. "It's like a control room, and all the colors are subdued, and the projections on the back wall will also have old media on it. You see pictures of Tommy's first steps, newspaper clips that have to do with 'Tommy.' ... It will be a col- lage of things that have to do with the show." But the premise of the rock opera is an album: a really loud, jamming album. Rather than trying to convince the audience that this rock musical can stand alone without The Who, Norton said the goal of the production is to incorporate rock and emotion into one excitingshow. "We're trying to remember that this is a rock 'n' roll show, and as much as you want it to be a musical, it can't be, so we're trying to highlight the plot we've created and tying loose ends together, and then letting the big rock moments that everyone loves kind of explode and take over," Norton said. To get the people excited at the right moments in the perfor- mance, Norton explained that there will be surprises and excit- ing additions for the audience, such as Tommy's YouTube fan- girls appearing in the audience and interacting with the charac- ters onstage. "There's a lot of stuff happen- ing in the audience, because we really want to have the feel of a rock show," Norton said. "With the way we have crazy fangirls from the show run up to the stage from the audience, or the way we shoot T-shirts into the crowd, we will hopefully be able to reel the audience in." 0 So. You want one good reason to earna pharmnacy .degree from the Universit of Michian? Here are 12 good reasons, fo Yst ar teiS. 1. FawnuIl supprf uneita lled by any other UI 5. ph arnimcy school. 3, Job ilec2Or l y- in economically uncertain times 4. Unlisited !{ ppolrtsnuties to rmpro{e pewe'N ot's. S. Unoparalleled career dhkces. 7. Lfe an d cdareer miobiliy. 8. 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I ll 1 , ! , PINBALL PETE'S From Page 3B as bountiful as they once were, but Pinball Pete's is still find- ing new avenues to make money. Aside fromhosting private parties and lending their machines for corporate events, the arcade has kept afloat with its "street route" strategy: giving game machines to bars, restaurants and other estab- lishments and taking a cut of the revenue. All these savvy business decisions have paid off - Pinball Pete's has survived the arcade apocalypse and has a bright future. It's recognized as one of the "Five Best Arcades in Amer- ica" by Tips & Tricks magazine. "We're not planning on going anywhere," Arnold said. "We've got a long-term lease." Tuesday, Mar. 27, 2012- 4-5 pilC, CC. Little Builkding Room l5467 'tdvXpr bJ0 t2 u vdv llcttlsa Your future never looked bighter. A