March 14, 1996
Warren Gerds
Unsinkable Wanda launches ‘Noah’ show
When Wanda Sieber “toodles through the Scriptures,” as she says, a musical is not far behind.
So it is with Noah, her fifth original show in seven years.
Made up of 21 songs and a large cast of church and community performers, the Biblical tale opens a six-performance run Friday at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Sieber approached this show in her usual way, which is not usual at all.
She composes at a computer, creating songs as well as a soundtrack. Teaching tapes, with top area singers assisting, were made last summer to help the cast learn songs.
“She’s very smart, and probably the most creative person I’ve ever known,” says Lynna Burton, who directed or choreographed Sieber’s other shows and appears as Noah’s wife, Dearest, in this one.
Along with composing Noah, Sieber is producer and director. She took on the imposing tasks with hesitation. She and her husband, Bill, have six children ages 6 months to 12 years old.
A walk with a daughter was the clincher.
“She said, ‘Oh, Mom, it’s hard when you’re working on it, but when it’s done it’s so cool,” Sieber recalls.
“Wow, to have a child say that you’re cool. I thought, ‘I’ve got to do it for that reason, if no other.’”
In the Bible, Noah’s story is that of a man of long ago whom God told to build a huge boat to save himself, his family and a pair of all kinds of animals from the flood.
In Sieber’s mind, it’s that – and more.
“I didn’t think of doing Noah in olden times,” she says, speaking with her trademark sudden shifts of voice and a profusion of exclamation points. “When I thought of it, it was all one word – Noahinthemodernday. No spaces.
“I just never,
ever saw it as an old story. I saw it immediately as building the ark
with power tools and I knew we had to be in
“That’s the way it had to be. It was almost in footnotes in the Scriptures.”
Sieber’s
footnotes find God ruminating in I Regret That I Ever Made Man, angels
and citizens sadly singing The Heavens Weep and Noah and his sons laboring
to
The last one, a takeoff on TV’s Home Imporvement, “is a manly man’s song,” Sieber says, impersonating a deep, male growl.
Along with being Biblical and computer-rooted, Sieber shows have other essentials that surface by happenstance.
“Hordes of people…the music has to swing…strong women’s parts,” Sieber says.
Despite all the hats Sieber wears, she is not flying solo, For Noah, she put together a five-person team she calls “the Left Brain Trust – for creative ideas,” she says.
The group met regularly to delve into set, costume, lighting, staging, blocking and other possibilities.
“It was so free because everybody felt anything is possible,” Sieber says. “It wasn’t just my left brain working, it was everybody’s left brain working on it. That was really fun. I would do it again (she snaps fingers) in a New York minute.”
Paul DeSpirito took a New York minute to decide about singing in another Sieber show. His first local venture was with Sieber, before starring in the title role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat the last two summers with Music Theatre.
“She is an excellent talent, an amazing person with all the energy in the world,” DeSpirito says.
He likes the comfortable atmosphere in the company, and says “and I had no doubt that the music was going to be excellent.”
Sieber’s track record served her well with recruiting cast, crew and creative folks and with getting church backing to mount another musical.
“Do I know I’m lucky? Yes,” she says. “I know people would just die to be in this situation. It’s a wonderful, wonderful situation to be in.”
All Aboard
What: Noah, original musical by Wanda Sieber
Who: Church and community cast
When: 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and March 20-23
Where:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
Tickets: Free, but these shows tend to draw full houses
Information: 468-9210