Iolanthe Director Knows Playfulness is a Serious Matter in Theater Author: Tim Jones Source: W&M News Date: Jan 28, 2004 At any other time of year, the booming voice of a director echoing through rafters in Phi Beta Kappa Hall’s auditorium would seem perfectly normal. But right now, it’s still more than a week before the holiday break comes to an end, and the voice descending from the balcony belongs to a student. Below, a roomful of students—not a professor among them—listens carefully. These students actually want to be there, perhaps even enjoy it. Maybe that’s because it is the first day the cast of Iolanthe is practicing on the Main Stage. Or maybe it’s because the director, Evan Hoffmann (’04), has enough enthusiasm spilling out of him to power the whole assemblage. Hoffmann’s voice is bigger than he is. The acoustics of PBK amplify his every word to surround-sound-like proportions, assuring that no one misses a single directorial comment. Hoffmann’s volume is tempered by a distinct softness that keeps him from sounding too much like a disciplinarian. He offers suggestions and criticisms infused with humor and delivered with exaggerated theatrics.                                                                               Director Evan Hoffman ('04) watches from the balcony of Phi Beta                                                                               Kappa Hall Auditorium as the cast of Iolanthe rehearses. Photo by                                                                               Tim Jones “She’s been gone for 25 years, so you’re excited to see her again,” Hoffmann tells the group of fairies greeting their long-lost friend upon her return. “Show some enthusiasm here, not ‘Welcome back, now keep your distance!’” Laughter assures the message is well-received. The actors respect their director, even though he is, essentially, one of them. In his four years at William and Mary, Hoffmann has been mostly an actor, landing leads in nearly every play he’s been in. His giant voice is particularly useful in musicals, which he tends to favor. But his resume isn’t devoid of directorial credits either. It includes Godspell, and last year’s performance of Music Man, which did exceptionally well at the box office. Add to that Hoffmann’s role as president of the theater student’s association, and it’s easy to see why he’s often referred to as the theater guy—a compliment he simply shrugs off. His rise to prominence within William and Mary’s theatre department isn’t surprising considering Hoffmann has been an actor since he was 8 years old. “I was in my church choir, and the local high school was doing Music Man, and they needed children. My choir director knew their music director and they asked me if I would do it, and I just loved it,” Hoffmann said. It came full circle last year when Hoffmann directed the same musical that inspired him to pursue acting as a child. This time, he did the inspiring. “One of the little boys I cast is currently on the national Broadway tour of Music Man. He had never done any theater before I cast him, and now he’s gotten bigger than me faster,” Hoffmann said. His talent for inspiration comes in no small part from the pure joy he feels for all things theater. Hoffmann directs with an unmatched intensity, and, judging from the way he mimics each scene from his balcony perch, he acts just as well. While actors rehearse, Hoffmann moves to a new vantage point. Quickly, before the thought passes, he flips through pages on his clipboard and scribbles notes. He paces, and the movement seems to generate new ideas which he jots down. Hoffmann takes notes furiously during rehearsals. “Hold!” he shouts in the middle of a scene. “You can sell that song! Work that song like you were born to sell it.” Leaning over the balcony’s edge, Hoffmann attempts a humorously loud whisper to the lead vocalist. “Don’t tell anyone, but this is your song.” The next time through, the song’s owner belts out a much cleaner rendition, and Hoffmann applauds with a banging of the clipboard. His pleasure is not hidden. It’s obvious that Hoffmann loves what he does on both sides of the stage. So obvious in fact, that it’s hard to imagine that the theatre guy was almost pre-med. But, fortunately for Busch Gardens Williamsburg, where Hoffmann will work after graduation as the theater supervisor, the power of theatre pulled him from a more conventional college experience. Initially, Hoffmann had planned on being pre-med and pursuing a career as a dentist. “It was a noble effort. I got here, lasted about a month, got in a show, and then I had to be in the classes, and I had to always be doing a show. Over the first year I struggled with it. Then I was going to be a business and theatre major, and then I was going to be a theatre major and business minor, and then I was just going to do theatre,” Hoffmann said. “It took time for me—as a practical person, the kind that comes to William and Mary—to admit to myself that this is what I wanted to do, and to learn that I can make money in theater—maybe I won’t be the richest person in the world, but I’ll be happier than if I was doing something I don’t enjoy. Even if I did make $200-mil a year doing something else, I wouldn’t be happy because I wouldn’t be doing what I want.” Now, as an accomplished collegiate actor/director with a bright future already starting to unfold, Hoffmann can look forward to a lifetime of doing what it was that attracted him to theater in the first place. “I was the 8-year old who was no good at sports. But then I got up on stage and I got to play someone else with their own problems, not my own, and people applauded me for it, for pretending to be someone else, do other things and just exist in this entire other world—it’s fun to pretend to be someone else, and it’s fun to be applauded for doing so.” Even now Hoffmann enjoys the playfulness of theater. His current production, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, is the perfect place for it, too. It is a comedy, one that is a welcome break from the often heavy topics of more well-known tragedies. “When people talk about great theater art, they think about tragedy. But in my mind, comedy and drama do the same thing—they take you out of this world and make your problems look like nothing. That’s just as cathartic as going to a comedy world that takes you to a happier place,” Hoffmann said. “But with Iolanthe, let’s appreciate love and magic and fun and dancing for a couple of hours and just relax a little bit.” Hopefully audiences will do just that with Sinfonicron’s presentation of Iolanthe. The company, which Hoffmann is directing for the second year, is student run from the ground up—costumes, set design, building, lighting—everything. So to make sure everyone can relax with a great performance just as classes start again, students are sacrificing a good portion of their holiday break. But then again, if the cast and crews love theater even half as much as Hoffmann, it can hardly be called sacrifice.