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'Rainbows' hits the (yellow brick) road

Ruby Rakos starred as Judy Garland in the Flat Rock Playhouse production of ‘Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz.’ PHOTO BY JON GRAHAM

By Bill Moss, Published: January 11, 2016

The maker of "Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz," Tina Marie Casamento Libby watched each performance like a nervous mom.

“The biggest surprise to me is I’d sit in my seat and squirm and see all the things that I want to tweak and fix but the audience isn’t having the same experience that I’m having,” Libby said last month as the developmental production entered its final days on stage at the Flat Rock Playhouse. “They’re seeing the show with fresh eyes. At the end of the show when people are standing and ‘Over the Rainbow’ is going and I see people sniffling and wiping their eyes it’s beyond anything I hoped or expected. It’s been pretty tremendous.”
When the Playhouse pulled “Oliver” last spring to add a show no one had heard of, some loyal patrons grumbled, said marketing director Dane Whitlock. Once it opened, he added, many patrons gushed that it was their favorite show of the season.
“I think it’s one of those shows that surprises people, how powerful and optimistic it is,” he said.

Playhouse partnership

While the technical crew is left behind to prepare for the 2016 season, the cast, musicians and creators of “Chasing Rainbows” have gone off now on their own yellow brick road — not sure if they’ll face the wicked ways of Broadway theater finance or end up in the gauzy realization that they’ve woken up on the Great White Way.
Tina Marie Libby hopes that ‘Chasing Rainbows’ makes it to Broadway in 2017.Some afternoons Libby sank a little lower in her seat as seemingly somnolent matinee audiences gazed silently at the stage.
“What was interesting to me is everybody seemed to have a similar experience but some audiences were more vocal about it,” she said. “The nature of the Flat Rock Playhouse is it’s a long theater. So when it’s more full and you can hear people laughing or twittering behind you it sort of has a ripple effect and makes people more comfortable to be vocal.”
Even though less vocal, those mid-day audiences still rose and cheered and sniffled.
When Libby brought the idea to Flat Rock, Playhouse director Lisa K. Bryant said yes.
“They had their budget for ‘Oliver’ and it was what it was,” Libby said. “In order for us to come here it was very much a partnership. They paid for everything they would have paid for ‘Oliver’ and we paid everything over the top of that.”
The downside risk was that “Chasing Rainbows” might bomb at the box office. Because it did well, the Playhouse emerged as strong financially as it would have based on the “Oliver” projection. Libby and her team got a boost, too, from Charlotte and Robert Otto’s New Works Initiative, which chipped in $25,000 and helped bring in singers and actors from Broadway.
“I knew it was going to be good for us, that we were going to learn a lot from it,” Libby said of the three-week development run. “But it really was important to me that it was a good thing for Flat Rock Playhouse because I have so much respect for Lisa and Dane and what they’re doing here and wanting to contribute back.

Selling the show

Once the show opened on the Main Stage of the Playhouse, Libby turned to almost nightly selling. She invited producers, investors and theater owners to Flat Rock. “I’ve spent a lot of money at Postero,” she said.
“The one really encouraging thing is that everybody who’s come to see the show is quite surprised at how polished it is for a developmental first-time-on-its-feet production,” she said. “I’m very proud of that and I feel like Flat Rock should be proud of that.”
While the next step on the road to Broadway is more tweaking and polishing, the show “will definitely be recognizable” if it opens on Broadway. “The music is the music. The story is the story.”
What about the cast?
Libby loves them all, she said, and she vows to fight for Ruby Rakos, the talented young singer who stars as Judy Garland.
“She carries the show,” Libby said. “I’m committed to really pushing for her always. I think she’s special. She’s 19 going on 40.”
After workshops in New York, the show goes into four weeks of rehearsal and then opens for an 11-week run at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn., through Nov. 27.
“During that time we’ll be inviting theater owners from Broadway and different producers and hopefully raise the $10 million that we’ll need to put the show forward,” Libby said. “They say that if the show is good and you have the money in place then you have a better chance of getting a theater. I think the show is good. I think we’ll get the money in place. So fingers crossed we’ll see what happens.”
The best-case scenario is that the show opens on Broadway to rave reviews, sustains a strong run for at least a year and then, somewhere, over the rainbow, as the girl in pigtails sang, who knows?
“Several people I met with in the past week have said this show is a perfect vehicle for world tours,” Libby said. “Australia is very interested in this type of show, London — of course that’s the dream. If I were lucky enough to strike that gold my first time out there’s definitely angels in my corner.”