'The Pursuit of Happiness: The Global Experience'

Alpine Theatre Project co-founder Luke Walrath is writing three columns explaining the group’s new original shows, titled “Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness.” Up this week, “The Pursuit of Happiness,” which continues at the Whitefish Performing Arts Center July 20.

In our efforts to celebrate the human experience, training our lenses on the personal (“Life: The Broadway Experience”) and national (“Liberty: The American Experience”), we would be remiss not to broaden our scope and look at humanity around the world. Therefore, Alpine Theatre Project is concluding its trilogy of original concerts with “The Pursuit of Happiness: The Global Experience.”

In all, these three concerts contain more than 90 songs in more than 20 different musical styles and in more than 15 different languages, all performed by the same company of Broadway actors and musicians. I’ll be honest: we’ve never done anything this ambitious, and that’s saying something.

With “The Pursuit of Happiness: The Global Experience,” ATP Artistic Director Betsi Morrison wanted to celebrate how music and dance are used to express universal emotions around the world. After all, do we not use song and dance to the same end, no matter where we are in the world? Whether it’s Japan, India, France, Israel, South Africa or Argentina, these two universal languages are used to express love, loss, joy, anguish and wonder. These were the common threads Betsi wanted to highlight, and, in doing so, remind us of how connected we all are.

Great. So we had a clear end goal. How to get there, however, was a different matter. It’s a great big world out there; what examples do you choose? Not only that, but how do you choose examples that can be competently performed by the same 14 Broadway actors who were performing a completely different show the previous night?

For Betsi, the answer lay in the casting of this season’s company. She knew that if she assembled the right mix of people, the challenges of this ambitious season (and the complexities of this particular concert) could be overcome. And it was true. Despite having brains full of the previous two concerts’ material, the actors and band came to rehearsals for “The Pursuit of Happiness” ready to collaborate. After several months of researching different world music and dance, Betsi had specific songs or dances in mind, but the actors and musicians also came with suggestions and requests. If a specific song fit the overall vision for the evening, it made the cut and work began on rehearsing it.

The rehearsal process for “Happiness” was perhaps the most furious of the three concerts. It came last in the rehearsal order, and therefore, we were running out of time since we needed to begin the technical rehearsals for both “Life” and “Liberty.” Luckily, the entire company was able to rehearse in one room (the lobby of the Whitefish Performing Arts Center), and work out the musical formats and arrangements as a cohesive group.

The seven-day process wasn’t always smooth, however. There were times when last-minute changes had to be made, with new songs being cut or added. The multiple languages were also a challenge, naturally. The singers studied everything they could for pronunciation reference. We also utilized local resources, such as our friend Valeriya, who generously agreed to come to rehearsal and assist with translating and pronouncing the Russian lyrics in the acapella piece, “Beyond the River.”

Over the course of this process, the summer company only grew stronger together, and, when it was time to debut the concert on July 15, the joy and harmony on stage and in the audience was palpable.

As a concert, “The Pursuit of Happiness” is just that — an affirmation that no matter where you are in the world, we all want the same thing: happiness. The concert is a celebration of the joy of making music and dance together.

As I conclude this three-part series, I would like to go on the record as saying that I believe this summer’s season to be one of the best representations of what Alpine Theatre Project is. It is epic, scrappy and passionate. It was born of an ambitious vision, developed in the crucible of collaboration and camaraderie, and executed by an assembly of professionals whose breadth and depth of talent cannot be found on a single stage anywhere but here.

This summer is a celebration of two of the greatest tools we have as humans: music and dance. These tools may not save the world, but they certainly help make a world worth saving.

Luke Walrath is the co-founder of Alpine Theatre Project. Visit www.atpwhitefish.org or call 406-862-7469 for more information.