DR derBrucer - I MD'ed a production of
Shenandoah a couple of years ago, and it always surprised me at how moving the show was. And how tricky it was to make the show "moving" without being treacly and overly-sentimental - which is a trap it can easily fall into. The whole second act is a sob-fest. And during the second Meditation, the director brought the house lights up very slowly so that the audience ended up being directly addressed in a way. Quite a powerful statement about war and death.
-And that score - at least the piano/vocal part - has some tricky parts in it. I actually had to practice!

However, my favorite memory of that production was casting our Gabriel. We cast out of Chicago, and we were having problems finding an African-American boy who could act
and sing. Well, the morning session went by with no real candidates - the agents just didn't know who or what to submit. Well, during the afternoon session, one young gentleman came in and knocked our socks off with his reading. Unfortunately, he said he didn't really sing. Well... We just sat at the piano for a good half hour, and, lo and behold, the boy could sing! And pretty loudly too! I kind of walked him through some exercises, and just told him to keep trying, and he did. His mother walked back in later, and she though someone else had gotten the part - she had heard the singing down the hall, but didn't realize it was her son who was doing the singing! I was exhausted after that! The only way I could get him to sing "high" was if I sang high(!). So, after belting out high C's and D's for about 30 minutes (that "Freedom" song is high(!!!)), we gave him the job... And then we (not the young gentleman and his mother) all headed over to Cafe Baba-Reeba for some
tapas and a couple of pitchers of sangria! -And all on the producers tab too!!
*I actually used to keep in touch with him and his mother for a few years after that via e-mail. He ended up getting a bunch of day-players parts on "Chicago Hope", "ER", "Morning Edition", etc. Unfortunately, I can't even think of his name right now... Mmm... I may have to look up that program when I get back to Richmond tomorrow.