![\"Dr.](\"http:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/pryor-and-cross.jpg\" "\\"pryor-and-cross\\"")
<\/a>Dr. Ben Pryor, dean of the College of Innovative Learning and assistant vice provost, and UT alumnus Pete Cross rehearsed with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra at the Peristyle while projections designed by UT film major Brandon Boettler played behind them.<\/p><\/div>The phone rang early last August; it was Bill Connor from CAPA, the group that manages the Valentine Theatre, where the Glacity Theatre Collective performs. He said the Toledo Symphony Orchestra (TSO) needed a theater component for a piece they wanted to do in the spring; it was going to be big, but he couldn\u2019t say much then. Would Glacity and\/or UT be interested? I said, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
That \u201cyes\u201d led to a lunch meeting with the president and conductor of the symphony and I learned more of the details \u2014 that the \u201ctheater component\u201d was a play and a symphony by Tom Stoppard and Andr\u00e9 Previn called \u201cEvery Good Boy Deserves Favour,\u201d and that it would be performed in the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle and at Carnegie Hall in New York as part of a new festival. Did I think I could put a group together to do it? Again, I said, \u201cYes,\u201d and went back to my office to e-mail my UT and Glacity colleague, Cornel Gabara, who was in Italy: Could I count on him to direct? Another \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>Dave DeChristopher, UT theatre instructor, and Toledo Symphony Orchestra Conductor Stefan Sanderling are seen in this rehearsal scene.<\/p><\/div>Months later, we were at the Peristyle. \u201cEvery Good Boy Deserves Favour\u201d is quite a unique piece, and the difficulties involved in staging it have caused it to be infrequently performed, even more infrequently with the full orchestration as originally composed. But it\u2019s a privilege to do anything by playwright Tom Stoppard, and we were thrilled to work with the symphony. Assistant Professor Gabara, lighting designer and UT Visiting Assistant Professor Donald Robert Fox and I had been in weekly production meetings by conference call with Tim Lake, UT alumnus and TSO stage manager, and the other members of the symphony\u2019s production team. The actors rehearsed daily for two weeks, but now we had just six and a half precious hours of rehearsal to integrate the actors and the musicians into one coherent piece. <\/p>\n
The Peristyle performances went very well. Audience members, who as symphony patrons were somewhat startled to see actors talking to the musicians, interrupting the music, and running around the stage at a concert, adjusted to the oddity of the piece and responded positively.<\/p>\n