alumni Class Notes
The Play’s the Thing EMU’s Tony Caselli talks show business
REVIVING ERNIE
Tony Caselli (BS92) has directed several plays more than once in his 20-year career in professional theater, but none were quite like Ernie. Mitch Albom’s tribute to the late, beloved Tigers announcer opened to critical acclaim and packed houses last summer at the City Teater, a stone’s throw from Comerica Park. Working in the same space with the same cast and crew for this summer’s reprise, Caselli’s main challenge is to resist fixing something that ain’t broke. “Te goal is to bring back this thing that the audience loved and do it again,” he says. “We solved a lot of the challenges, but there are also a couple of moments in the play that I looked at and said, you know what, I think we missed a litle bit here and I’d like to tweak that in rehearsals. I don’t expect us to have big changes, but a handful of those litle ones are very likely to be implemented.”
THE LIVING PLAYWRIGHT
Having the playwright on the scene, especially when he’s also the producer, could be dicey, but Caselli praises Albom’s willingness to be a team player. “He was great to work with, very gracious with everyone, generous, and there was nobody in the process who worked harder than him, which was an inspiration to the rest of us,” he says. “We did rewrites up to final dress rehearsal and even through previews, if I remember right. It was a litle nerve-wracking because you’re throwing a new thing out there in front of audiences that you haven’t had a chance to work with as much as the rest of the play, but it’s also exciting. If the purpose of it is to make the piece beter, then everybody rallies behind it.”
THE WILLIAMSTON THEATRE
Aſter 12 years with Chelsea’s Purple Rose Teater Company, Caselli teamed up with three other theater veterans—one of them a Eastern classmate and Purple Rose colleague, Christine Purchis (BS90)—to found the Williamston Teatre in Williamston, a small town about 20 miles east of Lansing. “Between the four of us, we had a prety good handle on how to make a theater run,” he says, “and from there we used
30 Eastern | WINTER 2012 by Jeff Mortimer
the arts management stuff we learned at Eastern and in the industry itself.” In the face of a daunting economy, especially for recreational spending, the theater has steadily prospered, artistically and financially, since opening its doors in the summer of 2006. “We’ve managed to grow our audience at least 10% every year,” says Caselli, who serves as the theater’s artistic director, “and continue to make enough money from ticket sales and donations to pay most of the bills most of the time, the way most theaters do.”
CLOSE TO HOME
“Part of the reason we started a theater is that we like it here,” says Caselli, a native of New Boston who now lives in Chelsea. “I had a great time directing when I directed in New York but I don’t know if it’s someplace I want to raise my kids. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but I like having a yard with trees and deer.” He still likes “hanging with the big boys” from time to time, but he likes steady work even more. “When I talk to students, one of the things I share with them is that there are a lot of people in New York who wait tables all the time and turn down work elsewhere because they might get work in New York. If what you want to do is act or direct, go do that. I’ve been able to do that, knock wood, here in Michigan for 20 years, and raise a family. Tat, to me, is success.”
BEING A DIRECTOR
Caselli was a stage manager for much of his time at Purple Rose, but the director bug had already biten him at Eastern. “I love stage managing, but in directing you get to collaborate with everyone and shape the story,” he says. “I like to think I have just enough ego to work with a bunch of people and lead them and tell a story other people will want to see, and not so much that I stop being a collaborator and ignore other people’s opinions.” When the balance seems to be tilting the wrong way, it helps to recall that “part of what I learned at Eastern was working with people. Te ones I worked with always treated you as though you had value, too.”3
Photograph by Michael Andaloro
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