“Have you ever played Jenga? It’s a tower of bricks and each player removes one piece until it tumbles. That’s what putting on One Night Only is like,” says Scott Coulter, the show’s director. “It’s a puzzle and each piece has to be perfectly placed for the tower to stand.”
Like everyone associated with ONO (One Night Only), Coulter is a veteran Broadway performer, having gotten his start a couple decades ago touring with composer Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Godspell). Coulter eventually took over the review, put together a group of performers and created his own company called Spot-On Entertainment. One of Coulter’s company’s specialties was a tribute to Jerry Herman, so several years ago when his friend, Jason Graae, was directing ONO’s Jerry Herman showed, he asked Coulter to join the cast.
“I was thrilled,” he recalls. “I met Michael (Childers) and we hit it off.”
Last year was Coulter’s first as director. This year’s theme is New York New York and Coulter says it will defy all expectations. “We started getting song lists from like, “New York State of Mind,” and I thought, “No, we’re not going to have 26 songs with New York in the title…a whole night gets repetitious,” he says. “So, the show is going to be a tour of New York City. We’re going to visit each neighborhood and we’ll hear songs identified with that neighborhood. We’ll hear songs that honor the spirit and grit and tenacity of New York City.”
As with every ONO production, the cast list is a Who’s Who of Broadway, often filled out with surprising and unexpected appearances. Coulter says he’s especially excited to be working with two of his idols, Jason Alexander and Sam Harris. Another unexpected appearance will be made by Keith Carradine, whose name (Like Alexander, most often associated with his Seinfeld role) is not often synonymous with the Great White Way. However, as Coulter points out, Carradine’s roots are deep there. He was in the original cast of Hair and starred in The Will Rogers Follies. “His performance was one for the ages,” says Coulter. “I listen to the cast album all the time.”
One of the deeper mysteries of ONO is that given the large cast, the limited rehearsals melding the singers and orchestra after a single meeting…not to mention the technical challenges…is how the evening isn’t three hours of absolute chaos and anarchy instead of the polished, professional, mind-blowing performance that is pulled off year after year.
“I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but it’s sort of like being a therapist,” says Coulter. “We go to the cast and we say, ‘Here’s your song. Here’s what we need you to do’. Sometimes you have to talk them through it a bit, but they always come around.”
Coulter says that every year, the cast members come 100% prepared, so once they work with the band and the light and sound people understand their cues, the production clicks.
“And the really extraordinary thing is that it all comes together for that one night,” he says. “After one night, it will never happen again. It’s a truly a once in a lifetime experience.”
