Asolo Rep Reaches for the Stars with Man of La Mancha

By Scott Ferguson | Photos by Nancy Guth | May 2023

Peter Rothstein, director of Asolo Rep’s critically acclaimed productions of the musicals Ragtime and Sweeney Todd, has returned to Sarasota to direct Man of La Mancha. The musical, which premiered on Broadway in 1965, is a reimagining of Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th century story of a Spanish country gentleman who transforms himself into a knight errant and sets out on an improbable quest.

The original book, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, is considered by many to be the first modern novel and is one of literature’s most translated works. The musical, which features Cervantes as a character, has become a staple of the American musical theater canon. Rothstein directed a 2017 production of La Mancha at Theater Latté Da in Minneapolis, where he is founding artistic director.

Running at Asolo Rep May 10 through June 11, 2023, La Mancha will be the last musical Rothstein will helm as a guest director, although he will continue to direct some Asolo Rep productions after he succeeds Michael Donald Edwards on July 1 as producing artistic director of the venerable regional theater. 

Man of La Mancha, with book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion, is perhaps best known for its soaring signature song, “The Impossible Dream.” Its lofty lyrics (“To dream the impossible dream…to reach the unreachable star!”) speak of Don Quixote’s noble but seemingly unachievable quest. Does his earnest striving for a better world reflect his madness or reveal his idealism?

Rothstein notes that Wasserman felt that the message of the song — recorded by Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis Presley (in his Vegas period) and countless other crooners — is often misinterpreted. 

“Wasserman believed the phrase, ‘the impossible dream,’ was too often co-opted,” says Rothstein, “and used to describe an attainable dream — just something that’s difficult to achieve, like getting a great return on your stocks, or acquiring an even faster computer. But what he (and lyricist Joe Darion) really meant was that Don Quixote’s dream truly is impossible, and that reaching for the impossible is what makes human beings heroic.” 

Rothstein says the song and the show inspire us to reach high, to strive for what cannot possibly be achieved.

“The impossible is world peace, the end of global warming, a world where everyone truly has equal access to an education. And while those goals won’t be achieved in my lifetime, or yours, the striving for them — the quest — is what should propel us through the day. That is a hero’s journey.”

While the production honors the original script and musical score, Rothstein has set the play in a modern detention center instead of a gloomy 17^th century dungeon. While the prisoners being held will soon face the tyranny of the Spanish Inquisition for their alleged crimes, the nondescript concrete block room of this production has the look of a 21^st century purgatory — “this is the common room, for those who wait,” says the official who logs in new prisoners like Cervantes. But the setting is just a starting point, a frame, says Rothstein. 

“We use a few simple props to trigger the imagination and propel us into the fantastical world of Don Quixote. The production design includes extensive use of video projections – a technical innovation that the creators of the original Broadway production wouldn’t have had access to when the musical premiered in 1965. While we employ the visual tools available to us today, the imagery reflects the era of the novel — the early 17^th century.”

There are many layers to the musical. When his fellow detainees attempt to steal a trunk with his belongings and destroy his most coveted possession — the unfinished manuscript of his novel Don Quixote. One of the prisoners suggests putting Cervantes on trial, with his fellow prisoners serving as the jury. He is charged with being “an idealist, a bad poet, and an honest man.” If the jury acquits him, he will get to keep his treasures, so he conjures up an idea to dramatize his defense. He proposes to put on a play, casting the captives as characters to tell the story. 

In the play within the play, Cervantes portrays the gentleman Alonzo Quijano, who assumes the identity of Don Quixote. The gentleman/knight’s exploits are celebrated in song — and in some cases satirized — by the other prisoners/characters in the musical. The characters in the inner play include Quixote’s loyal squire/sidekick, Sancho Panza, who provides much of the comic relief; Aldonza, a prostitute he idealizes as the pure Dulcinea (the subject of a tender ballad that is turned into a cruel chant to mock Quixote’s naiveté); and a kind of Greek chorus of cynical ruffians called the Muleteers, who do most of the mocking. 

“Quixote is reaching back to a time of chivalry,” says Rothstein. “He’s looking back to a time when, as he sees it, we treated each other with more grace, with more kindness, where we saw value in every human being.” 

But alongside its message of radical idealism, he adds, “the play is also very funny,” noting the way the story and the songs showcase human foibles as well as quixotic quests. “It’s filled with wit, delightful characters and physical comedy.”

Rothstein loves that theater is an art form that allows actors, directors, designers, and other creative collaborators who stage a show like La Mancha to “bring their own sensibilities to it and interpret it for their own time and their own community.”

The 14-person cast includes Mauricio Martínez as Miguel de Cervantes/Don Quixote, Aaron De Jesus as Sancho, and Janely Rodriguez as Aldonza, all making their Asolo Rep debut. Martínez is an Emmy-winning Mexican actor and recording artist who was most recently seen on Broadway playing the role of Emilio Estefan in On Your Feet!. His television work includes Señora Acero (Telemundo), over 10 telenovelas with Televisa (Univision), The Kennedy Center Honors and The Gershwin Prize (PBS). 

De Jesus has a wide range of theater credits, most recently completing a 10-year run of Jersey Boys, playing Four Seasons lead singer Frankie Valli. Rodriguez has worked with several theater companies in the Twin Cities area, including Theater Latté Da, Children’s Theatre Company, Ten Thousand Things and Artistry Theater.

When La Mancha premiered on Broadway, the sounds of a Flamenco guitar helped set the mood of Cervantes’ Spanish story, as they do in this production — along with piano, trumpet, reeds, French horn, upright bass, and drums, under the musical direction of Jenny Kim-Godfrey. 

“In this musical, Cervantes, our hero, enters a room devoid of hope, where people are in a place of total despair,” says Rothstein. “And through the course of telling his story, he wins them over. They enter in, they participate…and in the end, they are changed. Or perhaps not changed but reawakened to a more innocent time in their life, a more optimistic time. The world is heavy right now, and this show is about replacing despair with hope.”

If they come with open hearts and minds, Rothstein believes the audience, too, will be inspired by the story. 

“The piece itself is a celebration of the art of theate

r and the transformative power of communal storytelling. By telling this story and inviting the audience to enter in, we open the door to change, to expand one’s worldview.” 

Rothstein’s fervent wish is that, whether people have seen other productions or are discovering the show for the first time, they will be moved by the experience.  

“I hope people who love Man of La Mancha will come and fall in love with it all over again, and perhaps find a new sense of urgency to this telling of it. And to those people who’ve never seen the show before, I would say this is one of the greatest musicals of all time, and that the story of Don Quixote remains, four hundred years later, one of the most important works in Western literature….and for good reason.”

For tickets and more information, visit AsoloRep.org.

Asolo Rep’s 2023-24 season:
Who could ask for anything more?

 Next season will be Peter Rothstein’s first as Asolo Rep’s producing artistic director. He notes that while the season will explore serious topics and present hard-hitting drama, “it is also filled with joy. There’s a lot of great comedy and wit because people are looking for light and hope. So that’s the balance.”

Here is a look at Asolo Rep’s balancing act, with Rothstein’s take on each of the shows.

Crazy for You
November 15, 2023 ‑ January 4, 2024 

Music and Lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin; Book by Ken Ludwig; Co-Conception by Ken Ludwig and Mike Ockrent; Inspired by Material by Guy Bolton and John McGowan; Directed and Choreographed by Josh Rhodes; Music Direction and Additional Arrangements by Angela Steiner

The season’s tagline, “Who Could Ask for Anything More?” comes from Ira Gershwin’s lyrics to his brother George’s melody for “I Got Rhythm,” one of the many Gershwin songs featured in Crazy for You, which kicks off Asolo Rep’s next season. The toe-tapping romantic musical comedy is based in part on a 1930 production, Girl Crazy — which starred Ginger Rodgers and introduced Ethel Merman to Broadway — and was the inspiration for this 1992 show. The songs in both shows include “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Embraceable You,” and “But Not for Me.” Crazy for You adds Gershwin songs from other musicals, including “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” and “Nice Work if You Can Get it.” 

Peter Rothstein: “While the songs are from another time, the book of the musical is relatively new. A lot of our early ‘golden age’ musicals are hard to produce now as written, because of dated gender representation. What’s great about Crazy for You is that it has all the charm and humor and nostalgia of a good old-fashioned musical, but it’s written with more modern sensibilities.” 

Inherit The Wind
January 17 ‑ February 24, 2024 

By Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee; Directed by Peter Rothstein 

Based on the infamous “Scopes Monkey Trial,” an actual 1925 Tennessee case that charged a Tennessee teacher with violating a state law against teaching evolution, Inherit the Wind is an explosive courtroom drama that pits the fictional lawyers Henry Drummond and Matthew Brady (based on the actual attorneys who faced off in the case, Clarence Darrow for the defense and William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution).

Rothstein: “The play is a nuanced conversation about censorship in America – what we are and more importantly what we are not allowed to teach in our education systems,” he says. “It is also about the media’s role in our political discourse and judicial process.”

Born With Teeth
The Alley Theatre World Premiere Production
February 7 – March 29, 2024 

By Liz Duffy Adams; Directed by Rob Melrose

Did Shakespeare and Marlowe ever collaborate? Some theories postulate that they worked together to pen three plays about King Henry VI. Part 3 of the trilogy includes these lines, spoken by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, after he stabs Henry: 

The midwife wonder’d and the women cried

“O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!”

And so I was; which plainly signified

That I should snarl and bite and play the dog.

The play is an imagined meeting of the two creative minds, and as the title implies, there is snarling wordplay and biting wit. On its website, Asolo Rep invites audiences to “grab a drink with William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe as you get an inside peek at the tumultuous relationship of two of history’s greatest playwrights, each harboring momentous secrets.” 

Rothstein: “I found the language, the characters, and the psychological dance of these two theatrical giants totally riveting. I am thrilled to share this fantastic new play with Sarasota audiences.”

Intimate Apparel
February 28 – April 18, 2024 

By Lynn Nottage; Directed by Austene Van

Lynn Nottage, one of America’s most-produced playwrights and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama (2009 and 2017), wrote this “searing, sensual, and powerful story of forbidden romance,” as Asolo Rep describes it:

“Esther, a Black seamstress in 1905 New York seeking love and companionship, spends her days sewing corsets for other women but hasn’t found love for herself. When she receives a letter from a Barbadian man working on the Panama Canal, Esther kindles an exchange that leads to marriage with a stranger, even while her heart is drawn to a Jewish shop owner who’s promised to another woman. Nottage’s lyrical and heart wrenching play is a modern classic about the power of human connection.”

Rothstein: “This is a beautiful play – a poignant and poetic exploration of self-identity and forbidden love.”

Dial ‘M’ For Murder
March 20 – April 25, 2024 

Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the original play by Frederick Knott; Directed by Céline Rosenthal

What happens when “the perfect crime” is not so perfect? The answer comes in Jeffrey Hatcher’s new version of the classic suspense story. As Asolo Rep summarizes it, this “classic thriller of blackmail and revenge, the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic movie, is given a stylish, intoxicating update in Jeffrey Hatcher’s brand-new adaptation. In 1950s London, a husband plots to murder his wife, but when his plan goes awry, he must scramble to keep from getting caught. Will he get away with it, or will justice be served? Only one way to find out.”

Rothstein: “Dial M for Murder is one of the great murder mysteries of all time, and this new adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher delivers even more intrigue, more suspense and more surprise.”

Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical
The Theater Latté Da World Premiere Production 
May 8 – June 9, 2024 

Adapted from the play by Reginald Rose; Music and Lyrics by Michael Holland; Book by David Simpatico; Directed by Peter Rothstein; Choreography by Kelli Foster-Warder; Music Direction by Jenny Kim-Godfrey

When an inner-city teenager is accused of murder, will a jury find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? 

As described by Asolo Rep, “Propelled by a jazz-infused score, one of America’s greatest dramas reaches new heights in this searing story of a lone juror who demands that our legal system lives up to our ideals… You will feel the power and hope of America in this groundbreaking musical about our potential to work together to create a better world.”

Rothstein: “Much of my career has been about expanding the boundaries of musical storytelling. I have been working with the creators of Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical for the past five years; I am thrilled to share it with Sarasota audiences in my first season.” 

As always, Asolo Rep’s upcoming season promises to entertain, enlighten, and inspire us. Who could ask for anything more? 

For tickets and more information about Asolo Rep’s next season, visit asolorep.org/season-tickets/2023-24-season.