Popular actress will perform on-stage aerial trapeze act in MTW’s latest

Two years ago, Karen Robu found social media fame swinging from a chandelier in Music Theatre Wichita’s “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”

Little did the local actress know that stunt would lead to more aerial acrobatics with the theater company.

As a young actress, Robu — who said she is afraid of heights — had flown on-stage as Wendy in a production of “Peter Pan.”

Now, in Music Theatre Wichita’s upcoming production of “Pippin,” Robu is being trained to perform a rotating trapeze act suspended above the stage.

“I don’t know — airborne is just my destiny,” she said with a laugh.

MTW is staging a production of “Pippin” next weekend that draws heavily on the 2013 Broadway revival, which featured professional circus acrobats on stage.

It’s not bringing in professional acrobats like the Broadway musical, but MTW is using all of its resident company’s talents to create a circus-like atmosphere, said Al Blackstone, director and choreographer for “Pippin.”

“These people are so talented that they’re going to be able to create a circus without any of those elements,” Blackstone said. “I think that’s a testament to the quality of the performers who work here. They can very quickly create a world just by the choices they’re making.”

MTW has brought in The Last Carnival, a circus troupe based in Lawrence, to help train its actors, including Robu on the trapeze. MTW met The Last Carnival at Riverfest, where the troupe was a regularly scheduled act this year.

The Last Carnival’s leader, Sihka Ann Destroy, trained Robu for about 15 hours over two days.

Robu won’t be wearing a harness or wires or anything like that. Neither will there be a net below.

MTW has set up a trapeze in the Century II basement, which Robu said she tries to train on almost every day.

“It’s really dependent on myself,” she said. “It’s amazing the strength that it takes.”

When Music Theatre Wichita was auditioning its college-aged resident company this past year, it specifically looked for performers with circus talents, anticipating this production of “Pippin.”

“Pippin,” one of the first musicals written by popular composer Stephen Schwartz, premiered in 1972. That production, known for its Bob Fosse choreography, was led by Ben Vereen as the Leading Player (who won the Tony Award for his performance).

Perhaps more successful was the 2013 Broadway revival, which won multiple Tony Awards for its vibrant re-imagining of the ‘70s musical using circus performers and an updated score.

Notably, the Leading Player became a female role in the 2013 version — for which Patina Miller won the Tony Award.

The story is roughly based on real-life characters from the Middle Ages.

It centers on Pippin, the son of Charlemagne. Throughout the play, which breaks the Fourth Wall regularly, Pippin goes through a sort of existential crisis in trying to discover who he is and what he wants to do in life.

He tries multiple different things looking for happiness, including going to war and having meaningless sex — all in vain, until he finds his true happiness in Act II.

MTW has rated the show PG-13, for those sexually suggestive scenes.

‘Pippin’ notes

Al Blackstone and the Emmys

The show is being choreographed by longtime duo Al Blackstone and Katie Drablos.

The two, based in New York, have choreographed MTW shows including “Hairspray” last season and “Oklahoma!”

“We both really care a lot about the musicality ... and the storytelling,” Drablos said. “Al will have a picture and we’ll try to make the vision happen.”

Blackstone also choreographs for the TV show, “So You Think You Can Dance?”

Last week, during a preliminary rehearsal for “Pippin,” he found out he had been nominated for an Emmy Award for his work with the show.

Blackstone said he “celebrated for 15 minutes” and then continued choreographing the opening scene for “Pippin,” until Drablos suggested he tell his parents the good news.

“I went out in the parking lot and called my mom,” he said with a laugh. “Then I came back and kept working.”

National Tour lineage

Pippin and his love interest, Catherine, are both played by actors with experience playing those roles in the “Pippin” National Tour.

Pippin is played by Skyler Adams (last seen in Wichita as Quasimodo in last summer’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame”) and Catherine is played by Kristine Reese, an MTW first-timer (though she has performed in Wichita as Nessarose in the 2009 touring production of “Wicked”).

Reese played Catherine in the U.S. and International tour of “Pippin,” while Adams understudied both Pippin and his brother, Louis, on the tour.

Catherine is primarily an Act II character in the show, which meant there were nights on tour where Reese didn’t enter until 10:15 p.m. She did “a lot of pushups and rolling out on stage with the acrobats” to stay energized until her entrance.

“I just love the piece,” Reese said. “I’m very excited to get to revisit it and be able to bring some of what I did before but also explore new things.”

Adams said he went on-stage as Pippin a few times on tour, but he mostly filled in for injured acrobats.

The first time he played Pippin, he was already filling in as Louis when he said he saw the actor playing Pippin “running off stage and throwing up.”

“During ‘Glory,’ the dance captain comes up to me and said, ‘How comfortable would you be moving into Pippin?’ and I said let’s go,” Adams said.

He said he entered on stage for the next scene, and then the curtains were pulled as the audience was informed of the Pippin switch-up.

“To me it’s absolutely a dream to revisit this, because it meant so much to me the first time, then to come back here — this is, like, my favorite place on Earth,” he said. “This is Disneyland for me.”

A 10-year reunion

Kim Faure, who plays Fastrada in this production, first met Adams when they both were in Music Theatre Wichita’s summer resident company about 10 years ago.

“As soon as I walked in here, I went right back to the first day I got here,” Faure said. “The friends I have now are the friends I made here. ... The things we joked about here are still the jokes we tell today.”

Before performing in “Cats” at Music Theatre Wichita in 2007, she said she had “never just stood and sang.” She was primarily a dancer, she said.

“These people believed in me in a way I’ve never believed in myself,” Faure said.

“PIPPIN”

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, July 25-26; 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, July 27-28; 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, July 28-29; and 7 p.m. Sunday, July 29

Where: Concert Hall, Century II, 225 W. Douglas

Tickets: $34-$69 for evening performances, $32-$66 for matinees, from the Century II box office, by phone at 316-265-3107 or online at www.mtwichita.org. Student-rush tickets available for half-price on a first-come first-serve basis at the box office two hours prior to every showtime.

More information: Show is rated PG-13. Running time is 2 hours and 40 minutes.