For Ian Diedrich, Westover’s Technical and Audio/Visual Director and a veteran performer in a number of community and regional theatre productions over the years, the opportunity to recreate one of his favorite roles — John Wilkes Booth in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins — was a chance to perform before a live audience despite the pandemic.
Only after the show did Ian learn that among those in the audience that night was none other than the legendary composer himself.
Ian’s reaction to the news was summed up in a post he added to his Facebook account later that evening:
“It’s going to be hard to sleep tonight.”
On September 23, Ian and his fellow assassins took to the stage — technically the beds of a row of pickup trucks lined up on either side of the outdoor screen of the Pleasant Valley Drive-In in Barkhamsted — for a special, one-night performance of the Sondheim musical. The production was being offered as a fundraiser for the Warner Theatre in Torrington.
Only the Warner Theatre’s producers and the show’s director and musical director were told in advance that Sondheim might be attending the show, and they were sworn to secrecy. As a result, the cast and crew were not told about their special guest until after the award-winning, 90-year-old composer left the drive-in in his car. (Sondheim is reported to have a home in Roxbury, about 45 miles south of Barkhamsted.)
At hearing the news, Ian said he was simply stunned. Sondheim never spoke to anyone after the performance, but Ian was told that Sondheim was seen “smiling a bunch” as the production’s director, Katherine Ray, looked on from a nearby car.
“I really couldn’t believe that I had just performed a Sondheim musical in front of Stephen Sondheim himself,” Ian added.
“We had done Assassins in 2015 at the Warner,” Ian said. “Katherine had an idea about doing a show at the drive-in as a fundraiser, so we brainstormed which ones among the shows we had already done might work best.” The relatively simple staging of the Warner’s well-received production of Assassins would work within the limitations that a musical would face when being performed at a drive-in movie theatre.
Most of the cast from the 2015 show were available, though a couple of the roles were taken on by other members of the earlier production’s ensemble when the original performers weren’t available. In the two months leading up to the show, rehearsals were held mostly on Wednesdays and consisted of read-throughs of the script, with the cast and crew connected via Zoom.
“We didn’t have any actual musical rehearsals until a week before we opened,” Ian said, “so we were mostly on our own. We had a couple rehearsals in person at the drive-in, and the dress rehearsal the night before.”
When not “on stage” the cast members worn masks but remained “on stage” in their respective truck beds — in keeping with the social-distancing rules imposed by the pandemic.
Throughout the show, several cameras were trained on the cast members so their performances could be projected on the drive-in’s large screen. The audience in their vehicles could listen to the performance by tuning in their radios to a special frequency.
Ian has always been intrigued by the offbeat subject matter of Sondheim’s Assassins. With a cast of characters made up of infamous presidential assassins and would-be assassins, the show is one of Sondheim’s most unusual and admittedly controversial musicals.
“It’s probably one of the favorite roles I have ever done,” Ian said, acknowledging that Booth is indeed “a horrible human being, but he’s an interesting character, so I was excited to play it again. It’s an amazing role.”
Just as the pandemic hit in March, Ian had been starring as Lenny in a production of the stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men at the Thomaston Opera House. That production’s run was unfortunately cut short because of the pandemic. Over the summer Ian also had a chance to perform in a couple of Warner Theatre productions of one-act plays offered on Zoom.
While Ian is looking forward to getting back on stage in more traditional settings after the pandemic is over, in the meantime he is keeping busy at Westover.
This semester he is teaching a studio arts course, Foundry: Building and Aluminum Casting. For a second class, Creative Problem Solving, he is co-teaching with science teacher Jana Dunbar; it is being offered as a co-curricular offering in both studio arts and Women In Science and Engineering.
Ian also is working this semester as an advisor with Natalie Brown ’21 for her Independent Senior Project, which is focused on fabricating models.
Finally, Ian is working as the technical director — and meeting a fresh set of challenges in producing theatre in the time of COVID19 — on Westover’s upcoming production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is scheduled to be performed on Thursday, October 29, and Friday, October 30, at 7 pm in Westover’s Quad. This “hybrid” production directed by Marla Truini will feature a cast, crew, dancers, and musicians who are both on-site and virtual — some of the cast will be performing from as far away as Africa, South Korea, and China.
On-site students will interact in real time with recordings of their distant cast members, so Ian will be busy off-stage helping to make sure the production captures the magic and mayhem of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedy. Masks, social-distancing, and registration will be required for all audience members.
Because the production is only open to members of the Westover community, Sondheim will unfortunately not be in the audience.
