Secret stage show
Kaitlin Descutner, a 2010 California University of Pennsylvania theater graduate, is shown in a performance in Columbus.
Kaitlin Descutner
Kaitlin Descutner does not consider herself an improvisation artist, but she will flex her drama chops without ever meeting a single cast member Saturday as part of The Confidential Musical Theatre Project.
Descutner, 28, a 2010 theater graduate from California University of Pennsylvania, spent the past six years auditioning, singing and teaching in musical theater productions.
Less “Whose Line is It Anyway?” and more “Where should I stand while I sing this line?”, the second show in the production’s first-ever year in Pittsburgh has actors receiving their lines and musical arrangements a couple of months out, but the cast will meet only about an hour before showtime at the Neu Kirche Contemporary Art Center in Pittsburgh.
“I applied going in blind, not knowing what was wanted. I’m excited that I was cast as one of the leading ladies. The audience is going in largely with the same experience we are. It’s going to be great training and a challenge to react organically with others on stage,” Descutner said.
Otherwise mum on details, producer Laura Karner said the only similarity with the April production staged in Carnegie is that the shows are little-shown or heard-of productions throughout the past 100 years.
“The Carnegie show was ‘Little Women.’ Saturday will be our second and final show for this inaugural year. And the only similarity is that they’re rarely staged musicals. This one on Saturday hasn’t been shown in Pittsburgh at all in recent memory, at least in two decades if at all,” Karner said.
Karner said Saturday’s show will have really fun music and be unlike anything musical theater fans have experienced.
“When you see a confidential show, you’re getting an experience no one else can get. And you don’t know what to expect at all going in. It’s one of the most engaging performances for both actors and the audience because of all of this energy that is being let loose for the very first time,” Karner said.
For Descutner, the homecoming will help hone her teaching skills for improvisation.
“Working by yourself for a month is very different. I’m still able to audition for other shows. But this, like any musical and unlike plays, you can lean on the songs to carry your character’s emotions. I’m more excited than scared. I feel up to the challenge. It’s what I teach my kids in my classes at Columbus Children’s Theatre: You’re trying to figure out your own character’s psychology and their most natural reaction situations, and offering up organic situations that the other actors can feel natural playing into,” Descutner said.
Karner said the Confidential Musical Theatre Project will hopefully expand up to four shows in the Pittsburgh region in 2017.
Admission to Saturday’s show at 1000 Madison Ave., Pittsburgh, is $25 at the door. That’s the only thing that isn’t a secret.