'We eat, sleep and breathe the theater'

Spending entire nights at the Whitefish Performing Arts Center in hectic preparation for a recent youth production of "Rent" was not a huge sacrifice for Alpine Theatre Project Executive Director Luke Walrath.

"I don't care what it takes, it has to provide that ‘wow' that we want people to have," Walrath said. "Even if we have to put in those kinds of hours, we visualize what we want and we fight like hell for it."

As one of three founders of the Whitefish-based professional Equity theater organization, Walrath, 36, has worked since day one to provide theater productions on par with the best of the big city.

Walrath brings experience as a professional stage actor, dancer and singer to the production company. He also directs and produces, and is willing to do everything from writing press releases to sweeping floors.

"We wear so many different hats, I never get bored," he said, admitting to few outside hobbies besides the occasional trip to Glacier National Park, skiing and a fondness for comic books. "This is what we love - we eat, sleep and breathe the theater."

The "we" Walrath refers to includes his wife, Betsi Morrison, a Whitefish native who moved back to Whitefish with Walrath in 2002. They met long before that as part of the cast of a touring "Sound of Music" company, Walrath as an understudy in the role of Rolf and Morrison an understudy for Maria.

That production of the "Sound of Music," which took the cast through 25 cities in 10 months, had a huge impact on Walrath's life. Besides giving him an introduction to his future wife, the show was Walrath's "big break" in the world of theater.

Before "The Sound of Music," he had been living the classic life of a Broadway hopeful, waiting tables at night, auditioning during the day, doing what it took to get that first real role in the New York City theater scene.

He was armed with his theater degree from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and a lifetime of dance. He began ballet at age 6, though he said whether he wanted the lessons or his mother forced him into them is a longtime source of family debate. ("I don't know what 6-year-old boy says, ‘I want to go into ballet.'" he joked.)

Childhood for the Milwaukee native had been full of experiences that pointed him toward a musical theater career - family outings to see movie musicals of the 1930s and '40s, tap lessons beginning at age 13, participation in community theater and an inspirational and influential high school choir teacher.

"I got more and more interested in high school, I started listening to records and watching PBS, when they would tape a show on Broadway and air it," he said. "When I was a boy, I didn't tell anyone I was into that, I was afraid of being ridiculed, but when I got into high school, my dancing ability made me more popular with the girls. It turned into a great asset."

After he finished high school, the vibrant theater scene of Minneapolis drew him to further his education there - as a born-and-raised Midwestern boy, he wasn't quite ready for New York City.

There were times in college he questioned his ability to make a living in the theater, trying different paths in the music school to study voice and the classics department to study subjects such as Latin, Greek and archaeology.

But falling asleep during one particularly dull classics lecture sent him running back to the theater department.

"I kept thinking, even if I fail, I won't be happy until I try," he said.

Though he left school a few times, once to tour with an avant-garde tap company, he ended up getting his theater degree and putting all his energy into plans for a musical theater career. He worked three jobs to save up money and headed to New York City at age 23.

His days were spent scouring the trade paper Backstage for audition possibilities, then lining up at 6 a.m. for an hour or so to get his callback number for later in the day.

"Then you'd audition for three minutes, and you're done," he said. "I did as many of those as possible. It was a numbers game."

It was a giant open audition for a national tour of "The Sound of Music" where he finally found real success, getting called back four times before he was sure he "blew it" with a nervous final audition performance. Instead he was invited on the road with the company, which starred Richard Chamberlain.

He and Morrison started dating about eight months into the show and maintained their relationship after the tour wrapped up. After the tour, Walrath went through a rough time, not sure where to head with his life, whereas Morrison continued to work steadily.

"She became known as being really easy to work with and really talented," he said. "She never even auditioned, people just called her."

After six low months, Walrath rededicated himself to his career when he was chosen for the Broadway cast of "42nd Street," a $14 million production on which he was a "swing," learning the roles of about a dozen other performers and playing understudy to the principal. He never knew who he'd be filling in for on any given show.

"I was a different person every night. It was a blast."

He was in the Broadway cast of "42nd Street" for a year and a half, six days and eight shows a week. He said the typical Broadway actor's schedule is a grueling one, with one week off a year and performances on all the major holidays.

"Broadway is a machine," he said. "You never get a break."

The big-city grind left Walrath and Morrison looking for a different life. They had been taking vacations to the Flathead Valley and couldn't get the thought of living in Montana out of their minds.

What was intended as a six-month experiment ended up as a permanent move, as Morrison started school at Flathead Valley Community College and Walrath worked in whatever way he could to make ends meet.

They edged their way back into the theater when Carolyn Pitman of Whitefish Theatre Company asked them to put together a summer program after seeing them perform at a Whitefish Community Foundation fundraiser.

The comedy-musical "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change," was that pivotal summer production at the O'Shaughnessy Center in 2003. The show brought in enough people to get Walrath and Morrison thinking, along with local acting veteran David Ackroyd, that a different kind of local theater company was a viable option for the Flathead Valley.

"What if instead of community theater, we used the connections we had to the Broadway community?" he said. "We missed that level of talent and working with people at the top of their game. We didn't want to leave, so we thought, ‘We'll just bring it here.'"

In 2004, they produced the musical revue "Songs for a New World" and the comedy "Art," which Walrath said were "lightly but fervently attended."

Those shows had all been under the auspices of the Whitefish Theatre Company, but for financial and other reasons, Walrath, Morrison and Ackroyd decided to start their own entity, Alpine Theatre Project, later that year, with their first summer season in 2005.

Their aim was to bring the production values, the acting, the singing and the choreography of the Broadway stage to Whitefish for each and every show, from full-scale productions of "Hair" and "Godspell" to the intimate experience of last summer's one-man production of "Barrymore" starring Ackroyd.

"We're going into our seventh season, and we hope that we have proven to people that even if you haven't heard of the show, we can guarantee it will be good," Walrath said. "We want the quality to always surprise people. We get a lot of happiness out of surprising people."

Walrath said they also want to keep people guessing. From their most successful musicals of recent summer seasons such as "Hair" and "The Full Monty," in which they didn't shy away from on-stage nudity, the Alpine Theatre Project is emphasizing family-friendly fare this summer with "I Do! I Do!", "She Loves Me" and "No Way to Treat a Lady."

The shift is not because they received any backlash over their possibly controversial shows, but because they never want to be predictable.

"One of the worst things you can do is lull the audience into complacency," he said. "It's dangerous territory."

Though ticket sales are vital to the Alpine Theatre community, Walrath said the troupe also emphasizes giving to the community. Alpine Kids!, directed by Walrath and Morrison, is an example of that - not a Broadway training program, but a way to help youths realize the benefits of theater in life.

"They learn self-discipline, how to create and improvise," he said.

He and Morrison worked themselves to exhaustion for two days in preparation for the three-show run of "Rent" in April. They only had access to the Whitefish Performing Arts Center for two days to install an elaborate set and rehearse on the stage. They knew how hard the students had worked on the program; they wanted to give them the most professional theater experience possible in return.

Walrath also sees Alpine Theatre Project as an ambassadorship of sorts for the valley, not only providing high-quality entertainment for visitors, but bringing people from the world of theater to the valley who he said are almost inevitably surprised and impressed by their Montana experience.

Shows such as "Hair," ATP's biggest box-office success to date, are huge productions requiring the work of dozens of onstage and backstage volunteers and paid personnel. Walrath said they are never daunted by a challenge, partly because he and Morrison are adrenaline junkies and workaholics, not afraid of the hard work and the risk of staging elaborate musicals.

Adding to his work behind the scenes, Walrath often is onstage as well. He said he and Morrison did not want Alpine Theatre Project to be the "Luke and Betsi show," but, he added "we're cheap - but only if the roles are right for us."

In the upcoming "I Do! I Do!" they are playing a married couple singing their way through 50 years of marriage, with Ackroyd directing.

"It's perfect - a married couple playing a married couple," he said.

The musical also gives Walrath a chance to follow in the footsteps of the men he grew up idolizing - song and dance men full of grace, athleticism and charisma such as Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Donald O'Connor and Gregory Hines.

"I thought I might try Fred Astaire's chair trick, though it may be a disaster," he said.

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.