Posts Tagged ‘Chicago: The Musical’

The Rise to the Top: A Day in the Life of a Royal Caribbean Stage & Production Manager

Hi, my name is Desmond Elvis Reggie Charles and I am one of the Stage and Production Managers onboard the world’s largest cruise ship, Allure of the Seas. I come to you all the way from the Spice Island of Grenada.

I have been working for Royal Caribbean International for the past 17 years. I started back in October 1994 where I had the privilege of joining Royal Caribbean International’s Sovereign of the Seas as a drummer/vocalist in a Caribbean band called “Heat Wave”. I eventually formed my own band called “Blue Orchid”. This was followed by a transfer to the entertainment technical department onboard Voyager of the Seas. After three months as a Lounge Technician I was promoted to Sound Technician for the first ice rink at sea. I continued to move up the ranks of the technical team going from Sound Technician to Head Sound and Light Technician and now to the company’s most senior entertainment position, Stage and Production Manager. Today, I work onboard Allure of the Seas managing the operations of a 1,400 seat theater.

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BY:Desmond Charles|18th October, 2011 17 Comments

Allure is Ready to Entertain You. Are You Ready for Allure?

And all that Jazz……

I’m lobbying to change the name of our newest ship to Entertainment of the Seas. The variety of entertainment options is amazing, and was further solidified last week when we conducted two previews of Chicago: The Musical at our Hollywood Studio.

As we watched the previews, I was thinking about everything it took to get to the final run through. I recalled the vocal director, Loren, during the auditions in New York when we were trying to find the perfect falsetto to play the Miss Sunshine role. I also laughed thinking about Christi Coachman’s comments that we were sending her to audition long-legged dancers for Chicago: The Musical and 4′10″ performers for the penguin characters of DreamWorks. She said it was the most complex casting ever!

Chicago: The Musical was definitely raising the bar for us. There was an element of risk taking a 6-time Tony Award winning musical that is normally 2:10 hours with an intermission and making it into a 90 minute version; not to mention it’s an Academy Award Winning movie that set high expectations. We worked hard to ensure all the key elements of the story were included, as well as every notable song such as, “All that Jazz,” and “Razzle Dazzle.” I’m confident that our guests onboard will not miss a single “beat” (pardon the bad pun).

The cast is incredible. Christi certainly did find us the long-legged dancers, and the choreography is especially impressive. The content of the show is definitely more adult than what we’ve done in the past. As a result, we have attached a “PG” content on the show reservations section of the website and there will be a message in the onboard cruise compass. However, when we did the run through, we had a number of kids there. My favorite comment came from a 9 year old who loved the dancing and when he left the studio, he said, “I need my exit music.” You will just have to see the show onboard to get that one!

BY:Adam|29th October, 2010 2 Comments

A Compliment or Not? Cast Your Vote!

With the U.S. elections rapidly approaching, everyone is taking polls. The candidates leading the polls tout the results and the candidates trailing the polls discredit the results. Meanwhile, I am going to take a poll as well. My poll consists of one question:

Are the following two sentences I recently received from one of our more spirited guests, via email, a compliment or not? The sentences are:

I can always count on you to say “no” without actually saying “no.” As one of my favorite clients used to say “you have the gift of being able to tell someone to go to hell and make them look forward to the trip.”

Personally, I’m not sure. I think this can be interpreted anywhere from high praise to condemnation. So feel free to cast your vote, and to mention any all-time email favorites you have come across since email changed our world in the 1990’s. It’s not yet 10 a.m. today, and I have already deleted 94 emails from my in-box.

We go to Finland next week to take delivery of Allure of the Seas. Suddenly everything is happening either for Allure or in relation to the timing of Allure’s events. We saw the run through of Chicago: The Musical yesterday at our production studio in Hollywood, Florida. I told Lisa Bauer I wouldn’t write about it. I lied. It was awesome. Yes, Allure of the Seas is the Ship of Entertainment. Sorry, Lisa.

BY:Adam|22nd October, 2010 50 Comments

Preparing for Allure’s Arrival

It’s hard to believe, but in less than two weeks we will be in Turku to accept delivery of Allure of the Seas. There are other subjects I would like to blog about, but it’s clear what the readers want to know - everything possible about Allure of the Seas.

To illustrate the point, I will talk about something else. We recently posted an aerial photo of Oasis of the Seas docked across a thin pier in Mexico from Freedom of the Seas. We posted it because we recognized it would make for an interesting juxtaposition of the current largest cruise ship with the previous largest cruise ship. We totally underestimated the intensity of interest in the photo and the excitement it would generate, especially from people who knew the Freedom-class well and were already booked for an upcoming Oasis-class cruise. The point is that the passion people have for our newest ships continues to take us aback even though we designed the ships to incite such passion. The reality is more compelling than the theory.

Unfortunately - there are no major disclosures regarding Allure today except to say we are not done yet. We have every intention of creating more news before, during and after Allure’s introduction; just not today in this blog.

In preparation for the arrival of the ship, I’ve been in New York visiting media and meeting with our marketing and PR agencies. The difference between doing Allure-related media interviews now and doing Oasis-related media visits last year is remarkable. Last year, despite great anticipation about the arrival of Oasis, there was a strong undercurrent of skepticism about our ability to fill the ship in such distressing economic times and our ability to operate the ship with so many guests. Today, the skepticism is gone and the focus is on what is different about Allure (what we’ve admitted to so far: DreamWorks elements, Chicago: The Musical, 3-D movies, Samba Grill, Boardwalk Dog House, Rita’s Cantina, Britto art store and the Guess store). It’s a testimony to the incredible work put in by so many people since 2004 that the Oasis-class concept is accepted as an obvious success.

One post-script about the PR effort: it doesn’t just happen. It is the result of a never-ending quest by our own personnel and our agency (Weber- Shandwick) to brainstorm media-worthy ideas, attract media interest, and execute even the most arduous concepts. After the abundance of publicity that Oasis of the Seas received last year, our PR team faced a daunting task to generate even a meaningful echo of such notoriety with Allure of the Seas. They have done a great job so far with highlights (I can talk about) so far including the Taylor Swift concert on Allure in Cozumel in mid-January and the filming of Adam Sandler’s next feature movie titled “Jack and Jill,” starring Katie Holmes and Al Pacino, during the inaugural cruises in November. Stay tuned. Do you think you have a PR idea our team should be pursuing? Let us know.

BY:Adam|19th October, 2010 12 Comments

Countdown to Allure: One More Month

Allure of the Seas’ delivery is a month away. For many on our team, the preparations are getting more intense. For me, they’re getting more enjoyable. Here are two recent examples:

September 17th was a proud day for our Entertainment team. They summoned us to Nova Southeastern University for the run through of Blue Planet, the phenomenal show that will share the main theater on Allure of the Seas with Chicago the Musical. Even without the costumes or sets it was dazzling to take in the singing, dancing, flying, trampoline jumping, and everything else that is in the show. I’ve said in my comments to the audience that we used to wonder if we could ever be as good as Broadway. Now I think the question may be, can Broadway do the things we do? A Broadway musical doesn’t have to share the same stage with another show so that all the sets have to disappear and not get in the way of each other. Not to mention that the talent doesn’t have to perform at an extremely high level in multiple productions simultaneously. And the extra cost to the guest: zero.

As an aside, the Entertainment team had some of the DreamWorks characters at the run through. I think the head of the lion’s costume from Madagascar must be at least one gross registered ton.

Moving to the culinary world at the risk of the readers thinking all we do is sample our cruise fare every day (that is, when we’re not watching shows), we recently had lunch in the test kitchen to try the menu from 150 Central Park on Allure of the Seas. You may remember that Molly Brandt recently won a contest that we co-sponsored with the Culinary Institute of America to be the inaugural chef in our top of the line specialty restaurant that has been such a hit on Oasis of the Seas. Well, now we know why Molly won - she’s an amazing chef. I won’t spill the beans on the menu items but I will say that the concept, the presentation, and the taste will be a real treat for our guests. Plus, Molly is a pleasure to be around and we hope many of our readers get a chance to meet her and have the 150 Central Park experience.

BY:Adam|8th October, 2010 22 Comments

Guest Post - Chicago: The Musical Auditions by Lisa Bauer

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Last week I joined the team in New York for the auditions for Chicago: The Musical. They have been on the road for several weeks, as they did the first round of auditions in Chicago, and then London. I joined them in New York for the final stop. Mary Ann, Christi, Paul, Robert, Sarah, and Loren were still going strong. (Lots of Starbucks)

This is a very unique opportunity and challenge for our brand, as our team that will be selecting the actors, singers, and dancers is being joined by the actual casting director from the Chicago Broadway team, so we both have to agree on the selections. This is really playing in the big leagues!

Our other challenge is the majority of the people we select also have to be right for Blue Planet, our new aerial acrobatic show and second show on Allure of the Seas, so it is a very complex process. The good news is even if someone wasn’t perfect for Chicago, but was an amazing singer or dancer, we are able to cast them in other shows across the fleet. So it was a great opportunity for us to gain additional talent for our other ships as well.

Overall, we found some amazingly talented Roxies and Velmas and the rest of the cast. A good balance of the cast will come from London and New York and even some who have performed Chicago on the West End and National Tour. It will be so interesting to see them perform on Allure after witnessing them audition and see them go through the entire process. Unfortunately Richard Gere did not make an appearance for me.

Of course we did have some giggles with some of the folks that showed up to sing. It was a little bit like being on American Idol, although our teams are much nicer than Simon. We simply thanked them for coming and said we had heard all we needed to hear for that day.

Now that we have identified the cast, we will bring them to our Hollywood Studios for rehearsals and costume fittings during the summer. We will then join Allure in October and install the show during the crossing. We will be ready to unveil Chicago: The Musical when Allure arrives in Ft. Lauderdale in November. I look forward to welcoming you all aboard what is undoubtedly the ship of 2010 and what we refer to as the “entertainment ship.”

BY:Adam|28th June, 2010 3 Comments
 

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