This production will probably have a different look and feel than what audiences might expect from a title like The Civil War. How did you come up with the concept?

I was captivated by a 9/11 memorial ceremony that played on TV in the lobby of a rehearsal studio where I was in the midst of mounting a new production. I found the memorial ceremony to be poignant and deeply moving. Viewers watching the ceremony may or may have not personally know any of the 9/11 victims, but the speakers who came to the podium and recounted stories about the victim’s lives gave them a face. As viewers, we had the opportunity to get to know the 9/11 victims through the remembrances of friends, family and civil servants. To me, The Civil War has given humanity and faces to the people who didn’t make the history books. The show is about a woman named Sarah who lost her husband, a soldier named Bill who never came home and a dying soldier’s last words to his father. Frank Wildhorn writes popular music, so to do a Civil War enactment with popular music felt a bit at odds. Having this production take place in the present tense, using Frank’s sound, allows us to create a tribute to those who died hundreds of years ago.

How have these ideas informed the rehearsal process?

This concept allows us to sit together and talk about how we feel as 16 present-day individual ensemble members sing about and/or recall a particular historical moment. It allows us to make relevant and pertinent the emotions of the Civil War, of yesteryear, in our lives today. The concept also facilitates our ability to engage in open dialogue about our prejudices and our fears. I’m not separating the experiences of the slaves from the soldiers. I’m not just having the white men sing about the soldiers. I’m not just having the African-Americans sing about the slave experience. One group or another may take the lead on a given song, but the other race is omnipresent, having to witness these things. It would be easy to leave one group or the other offstage and not share in the complete experience. I want the entire cast to be onstage sharing each other’s experiences, the way the audience will experience the show from their seats.

What would you like for the audience to come away with from this production?

First and foremost, I want them to be entertained, and I’d also like them to be moved and reminded that they’re part of our nation’s tapestry. I hope this production awakens them.  It’s easy to sleepwalk through life. I think my hopes would surprise people given the title.  I know when I first heard the title, I thought, “I have to sit in the theatre and watch the Civil War on stage as a musical?” And now I can say the way we’re doing it, as more of a contemporary musical event, I say it’s absolutely intelligible and germane. The Civil War is a metaphor for everything we feel today. People may feel like this show is of another time, that it may not resonate with them, but I believe that The Civil War addresses the same challenges we face in our daily lives. It’s about our familial relationships, being in love, friendship, persecution and bigotry. This show is a mirror for all of that, in the context of the huge tragedy of the Civil War.