Interviews

Feature Interview: Full Frontal with The Gallery Players

By snicole

Monday, May 2, 2005

The Gallery Players in Brooklyn are taking it down a notch—in the belt that is—as they present The Full Monty. When you think about this musical, the first thing that probably comes to mind is the full frontal nudity, but this production is about so much more than that.

Matt Schicker has a dual role as the play’s director and Vice President of the Gallery Players. But as a director he is excited about reviving The Full Monty for the first time in New York since it ran on Broadway in 2000.

“The Full Monty had a very successful run the first time around,” says Schicker. “But right after it opened another big show opened—The Producers—which stole all of Monty’s thunder. It wasn’t that The Producers was a better show, but it had a bigger push.”

He is also quick to point out a nice coincidence in the musical-theater world. You see Monty’s music is written by David Yazbek. And it so happens that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is playing on B’way right now, which the music is also by Yazbek. People can now see both musicals in the same town, the only two by this talented writer, which is not something that often happens.

Schicker did see Monty when it was on Broadway and while it was an excellent, larger than life show, he feels that the more intimate theater in Brooklyn is going to make Monty even more exciting for the audience.

Schicker explains that the climax of this story is supposed to take place at a small club. “Most Broadway productions are huge extravaganzas, but does the story really play best that way? That’s really what I came back to.” Schicker believes that people love to see shows at the Gallery that once played on Broadway because many of those shows are really built for a smaller theater.

So what of this Full Monty? Do they really take it all off? Indeed they do! But what makes this time different from Broadway is that you will get to see it all.

“On Broadway,” says Schicker, “they took it all off, but they used a backlighting trick as to not offend anyone in the audience. So even though you know they took it off, you didn’t see anything.”

This is not the case in the Brooklyn production and the six guys who make up the main ensemble of Monty are very comfortable with the whole idea.

Michael Roth (Harold) explains that it was made very clear at the audition what was required. “We all had to do a two minute strip at our call backs.” The group laughs remembering their own tease.

When asked about getting naked many of the guys used words like liberating and empowering to explain the feeling. For Dann B. Black (Horse) and Scott Windham (Dave) their feelings about bearing it all are very different from the rest of the group. “I recently lost 85 lbs,” explains Dann. “This is total freedom for me.”

Windham emphasizes, “Growing up I was the kid who wore the white t-shirt in the pool. So even choosing to come audition for this show was a huge step for me. It’s brought me to another level of who I am mentally and physically.”

For some of the actors, the nudity wasn’t even a factor when thinking about auditioning for Monty. “I honestly didn’t think about the nudity,” explains Mitch Jarvis (Jerry). “It’s not very often you get to do such a great show that, if you think about it, it really isn’t about the nudity at all.”

Jarvis is completely correct. The Full Monty is about a group of guys who come together and overcome their situation as well as their insecurities, and come out stronger on the other side.

One of the last lines in the play is, “Gentlemen, you only live once!” and that is the attitude taken by this wonderful cast and crew as they bring you—The Full Monty.

The Full Monty currently running through May 22 at the Gallery Players, 199 14th Street between 4th & 5th Avenues in Park Slope Brooklyn. For more information please check out www.galleryplayers.com or call 718-595-0547.