Maureen Janson Heintz
Thomas Kasdorf plays Cosme McMoon and Sarah Day portrays Florence Foster Jenkins in the two-person musical.
For some performers, singing badly comes naturally. Not for American Players Theatre core company member Sarah Day, who is playing the role of Florence Foster Jenkins in Four Seasons Theatre’s upcoming production of Souvenir.
Before Meryl Streep starred in the 2016 film Florence Foster Jenkins, there was this musical theater homage to the “unforgettable” opera star from the 1930s and ’40s, whose generosity and love of opera was matched only by her own delusions of vocal grandeur. The two-person “fantasia” imagines scenes that illustrate the special relationship Jenkins shared with her accompanist and coach, Cosme McMoon, played by Four Seasons’ artistic associate Thomas Kasdorf.
In order to approximate Jenkins’ sometimes cringe-worthy performances, Day and Kasdorf are concentrating first on learning to sing the many challenging classical pieces in the musical correctly. Then, working with director Miranda Hawk, they are tweaking certain notes to be slightly sharp or flat — phrasing to be slightly off — just enough to have the entire audience grit their teeth.
Day, who began her career in musical theater at the Fireside in Fort Atkinson and the Wilson Street East Dinner Theater in Madison, does not consider herself a singer. But the pieces she’ll be performing are not Rodgers and Hammerstein standards — they are operatic arias in French, Italian, Latin and Spanish. Why take on such a daunting role, so far from her classical theater background? “Well, I just turned 60,” Day says, smiling. “... and I wanted to do a project that really challenged me. And frightened me a little.”
Fortunately, she couldn’t have a co-star more well suited for his role. Kasdorf not only teaches voice privately; he is a doctoral candidate at UW-Madison in collaborative piano. He also accompanies many vocal students in the music school, and currently leads a class in musical theater for the university’s drama department. He’s also a big fan of Souvenir. “The Madison Theatre Guild did the show in 2009, and I was actually on the reading committee at the time,” he says. “I voted to put Souvenir in the season. I was so taken with the story, just reading it.” The 2011 production was a smash hit; it starred the late Terry Kiss Frank, a local music theater luminary who died in November. Kasdorf says he was also familiar with Jenkins’ performances from an early age. “My grandmother had some Florence Foster Jenkins records, and I would play them whenever I wanted to annoy her,” he says.
So how does one explain the success and fame that Jenkins achieved over her career, despite her off-key performances? “She was such a kind and generous woman in her life, and did so much as a patron of the arts,” Day says. “And the way the people around her cared for her in turn is so touching. Jenkins had this amazing confidence, which is so enviable as a performing artist. She believed that her singing was beautiful, although she admitted she needed some coaching. She had an overriding love of music that was so deep — she simply wanted to share it with an audience.”
Director Hawk admits that she was hesitant to helm the piece at first because she had seen a few bad productions of the play. “Not in Wisconsin,” she adds quickly, “but productions where they played the show for laughs, making fun of Florence and her lack of singing ability, and it just didn’t work. They missed the beautiful relationship between these two extraordinary people. That’s really the heart of the story.”
Hawk also believes that the special bond that Jenkins and McMoon shared makes Souvenir a great choice during the holiday season. “It’s all about supporting each other and building others up instead of tearing them down. I think this is a story we really need right now.”
Day sums up perfectly how she’s approaching the challenging part. “As the character says in one of the first lines in the play, ‘What matters most is the music you hear in your head. The beauty not quite in your grasp.’”
Souvenir will run in the Playhouse at Overture, Dec. 6-16
