Audiences can experience the last few months of iconic actress and musician Judy Garland’s life in “End of the Rainbow” at Sanford’s Theater West End. The socially distanced performances of the Broadway play start Feb. 26.
In the age of COVID-19, Derek Critzer, managing artistic director and co-owner of Theater West End, initially wasn’t sure what kind of show they could put on safely. But after watching the 2019 Academy Award-winning movie “Judy” and falling in love with it, he discovered that it was based on the play.
“It’s three actors and full of Judy Garland music and I was like, ‘this is about as marketable as marketable gets,’” Critzer says. “And here we are.”
“End of the Rainbow” is set in London, where Garland is with her fifth husband (then fiancé) Mickey Deans and her accompanist Anthony, preparing for her series of concerts at The Talk of the Town nightclub.
The show explores her struggles with drug addiction and her tense relationships with the two men. Though it is a play, the show also incorporates music taken directly from the setlist of Garland’s concert series at The Talk of the Town.
“This play really does emphasize the last portion of her life where she had lived a hard life of a lot of years and had lots of husbands already,” says Melissa Minyard, the actress playing Garland in this production. “It’s not the feel-good Judy Garland in this play.”
This is not Minyard’s first time playing the iconic role. The former Broadway actress first took on the role three years ago in a St. Petersburg production of the play.
Critzer, knowing that Minyard had played Garland before, then asked her to reprise that role for Theater West End. Minyard says that having played the role before and having already deeply studied Garland’s mannerisms helped her this time around.
“I think I actually ran through a highlighter the first time I did it, making sure I caught all the lines I have, so it’s a bit of a bear of a project,” she says. “There’s a multitude of video from her, so I have opportunities to watch her and to pick up her iconic mannerisms. But as far as my approach, I’m not an impersonator. I love the notion of really throwing myself into as much as I can extrapolate from who she was, which was kind of a mess.”
Garland lost her battle with addiction in June 1969 when she died of a barbiturate overdose. The last few months of Garland’s life were characterized by her deteriorating health, her substance abuse and her efforts to make it appear as if everything was fine, which the show does not shy away from.
“[In the play], she has a breakdown moment where all of her tricks that she uses to try to make her feel like she’s living a fulfilled life kind of go away and you see her core fear of abandonment,” Minyard says. “She was very dependent on drugs to keep her going. It’s that whole cycle of life – she took pills to sleep, she took pills to stay awake, she drank too much. My responsibility, particularly in those darker, sad moments, is to be just as authentic and sincere and honest about them as possible.”
Rob Ward, the show’s director, is best known as a comedic director. He says he loves how there are moments of dark comedy sprinkled in with the tragedy of the show.
“I hope that [audiences] take away that people who are struggling with addiction and with mental health issues are still humans and are not just the concept of their struggles,” Ward says. “They’re human beings who have full lives and full worlds.”
Ward, a former show director at Walt Disney World, has been directing for 20 years. As one of the many casualties of the most recent round of Disney layoffs, Ward says this show was “the right project at the right time.”
However, putting on a show during a pandemic posed a unique problem in that most physicality and intimacy is not compliant with COVID-19 social distancing measures.
“Just a quick kiss on the cheek or holding hands – those kinds of moments of intimacy really require us to rethink the concept of intimacy and what is intimacy between two people, because we can’t rely on the instant moment of a kiss on the lips,” Ward says. “Instead, we have to get that moment across with some different form of intimacy. Sometimes it’s in a longing look, sometimes it’s a quick touch on the shoulder. But it’s a very different way of displaying that.”
The actors wear clear masks on stage and when Minyard is singing, she’s alone on the stage, distanced at least 15 feet away from the band and the audience.
“The arts in general have been decimated by [the pandemic] because the nature of what we do involves people being in a room together,” Minyard says. “So there’s challenges in finding ways to connect with your fellow actors.[Wearing clear masks] is tremendous. Just being able to see someone’s face is huge.”
Theater West End is committed to making their productions as safe as possible. The cast and crew are required to get COVID-19 tested weekly. Audiences will also be required to wear masks and get their temperatures checked before entering the theater.
“Me and my partner, we opened the theater back in 2018,” Critzer says. “We’re barely two years old. So, trying to figure out how to navigate and survive in a pandemic has been a daily struggle. But we’re here and we are pivoting as much as possible and thinking outside the box to try to create a safe environment for our audiences to return to.”
“End of the Rainbow” plays Feb. 26-March 14 at Theater West End in Sanford. Tickets start at $55 for a table of two and are available at TheaterWestEnd.com.
