A stage version of The Who’s classic rock opera “Tommy” opened in downtown Northampton on Thursday, Nov. 11, and will be performed at the Academy of Music throughout the weekend.
Originally an album The Who released in 1969, it is best known as a movie released in 1975, directed by Ken Russell and featuring musical cameos from Elton John, Tina Turner and Eric Clapton. Pete Townshend, The Who’s lead guitarist, composed most of the music and adapted the material for the stage in 1992. It premiered on Broadway the next year and closed in 1993.
“Tommy” is produced by Greene Room Productions, a theater educational outreach company. The Academy of Music is their main stage.
“We do two main stage productions a year,” said resident choreographer David Wallace of Monson, Mass. “For the rest of year we’re doing improv classes, improv workshops with performances; we have a very large of group of kids who work with us, start to finish, do everything on their own show and we take them on tour around to different schools so they can perform it to their peers,” he said.
Greene Room uses its main stage productions to pay for the rest of the work they do during the year. “The last two years, not necessarily,” Wallace said. “But that’s the goal.”
“There are six pieces in the pit,” said music director Devon Bakum, of Wilbraham. “I’m on lead keyboard and I have a fabulous second keyboard player, I have a drummer, I have a bass player, I have a guitarist and I have a French horn player. The French horn figures significantly into this, who is ‘swinging’ to guitar for one number – it means she’s playing French horn for almost the entire thing; she’s playing guitar for ‘Pinball Wizard.’”
She added that the cast has been “fabulous” and that “Tommy” is the most difficult and complex musical score she had ever directed.
“There are parts where it is so dense there are seventeen separate vocal lines,” she said. “Some of the chords aren’t chords. I’ve gone to theory experts – theory is the math of music – and said ‘I’m looking at this, tell me what the chord is’ and have them come back and say ‘That’s not a chord.’”
The title role of “Tommy” is played by Josiah Durham of Monson, a student at Holyoke Community College. He worked with Greene Room prior to coming to “Tommy.” He found out he had won the part an hour after leaving the call-back.
“So many people think of Tommy as just being deaf, dumb and blind – someone who’s not really there for the entire show,” Durham said. “But I really think that he is there for the entire show. He sees everything and he hears everything and he gets everything that’s going on.”
“If you want to boil it down,” said the director, Erin Greene, “It’s a show about life and what life can throw at you, like the sucky things. It’s about a boy growing up and coming to terms with his life and the traumatic events in it and forgiving the people around him who have caused all the events to happen.”
The Who are hailed by critics as one of greatest rock bands of all time, and the music for “Tommy” shows the band at their best. Wallace said that many people would come just to hear “Pinball Wizard.”
The Who’s “Tommy” opened last night at the Academy of Music in Northampton. There’s an 8:00 p.m. show on Friday night, and tomorrow there’s a Saturday matinee at 3:00 p.m. and another 8:00 p.m. show. Tickets are $18 in advance and $21 at the door.
Matthew M. Robare can be reached at [email protected].
