From the latest issue of The Jewish News: Flautist-pianist and music teacher Rebecca Biber adds a flourishing new career as a music director.
By Suzanne Chessler | Jewish News Contributing Writer Ann Arbor (http://www.thejewishnews.com/)
Rebecca Biber, music director for the production of Little Me by Ann Arbor's Penny Seats heatre Company, easily explains why she likes the songs in the Tony Award-winning score.
The musical -- Jewish members of the 1962 show's creative team include composer Cy Coleman, lyricist Carolyn Leigh and book writer Neil Simon -- will be presented July 11-27 in Ann Arbor's West Park and feature Biber conducting from the keyboard.
"Every song typifies what it's supposed to be," says Biber, who taught the songs to the cast, accompanied the rehearsals, hired the orchestra and coordinated the singers and musicians.
"With just a few chords and a few musical gestures, Cy Coleman can evoke whatever time period, mood or genre that's called for in the scene.
"There's a cabaret number, `Boom, Boom,' that actually sounds like a French can-can. There's a hoedown piece, `Deep Down Inside,' that sounds like a hoedown. And there's a vaudeville number, `Be a Performer,' that sounds like shtick."
Little Me tells the story of Belle, who looks back on her rise into wealth as she prepares her memoir. Jewish actress and Penny Seats co-founder Lauren London plays the younger Belle, and Sarah Faix portrays the elder Belle. Also in the cast, directed by Shannon McNutt, are Roy Sexton (re-creating parts originally played on Broadway by Sid Caesar), Kelly Cameron, Matt Cameron, Zach London, Barbara Bruno, Debbie Dolney, Angela Elowsky, Nigel Turtle and Selene Whalen.
"Nearly everybody in the show plays multiple roles, and that makes it really hilarious," Biber says. "The actors have bonded with each other and the staff so it's like a real-life version of what's happening in the show. We keep turning up in each other's lives as friends and coworkers."
Biber, whose professional commitments include giving private piano and flute lessons, began instrumental studies while living in Huntington Woods. "Early experience hearing people play piano and flute attracted me to the sounds," recalls Biber... "My parents (Irene and Daniel Biber) were able to enroll me in piano lessons when I was 7, and I had an instinctive drive to practice.
"I started flute in fifth grade, when all the kids in the Berkley School District had the opportunity to join band or orchestra. I was drawn to the flute and picked it up as my second instrument."
While attending religious classes at Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park, Biber was invited to join the choir and performed at festivals and special events. She also played piano for ceremonies at Workmen's Circle.
Biber, who earned bachelor's and master's degrees in music education from the University of Michigan, worked Michigan, worked as a band director and music teacher in Hartland before deciding to structure her career around independent instrumental lessons.
"I've been teaching privately for about 10 years," she explains. "The music-directing came about through taking a fun workshop about musicals in grad school.
"The professor leading the workshop directed in the area, and while he was working on Carousel with the Spotlight Players in Canton, I auditioned as a chorus member and got in. I learned how [stage production] worked by being in the show.
"I was able to go to other theaters where he worked, observing and learning the craft of music-directing. As I was starting to learn, there was a big demand for music directors in the area. I was hired by Spotlight Players and then by Novi theaters."
Biber became involved with Penny Seats through teaching the children of the founders and developing friendships with them.
"When it became time for the company to do musical projects, I became their go-to person," she says. "I have been their music consultant since they founded the group, and I have helped with fundraisers. "I slowly stepped up my involvement, and then this summer, the timing worked out well so that I was able to music-direct a full-scale show for them."
As Biber plans out the musical performances for Little Me, she particularly connects to the song "Goodbye," sung by a character who appears to be dying but is saved.
"The character has to have a thick, ambiguous Russian or Polish accent," she explains. "In the course of teaching the song to the cast, I was reminded of my Polish grandfather, Henry Kupfer, who recently passed away.
"The song reminds me of him because he had a thick Polish accent and a way of changing English expressions to make them his own. The song brings a smile to my lips as I think of him.
"He also had a sense of humor, and I think he would have appreciated the parody inherent in the song, which takes something that sounds like it's going to be a klezmer tune and spins it into something absurd. I think he would have smiled and winked."
Little Me will be performed at 7 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, July 11-27, at the West Park Band Shell, 215 Chapin, in Ann Arbor. $7-$10. (734) 276-2832; pennyseats.org. Dinner packages will be available at 5:30 p.m. by catering partner A La Rouge grilling in the park.
