Bringing the ‘Rain’

Many people consider 1952’s “Singin’ in the Rain” the best movie musical of all time. The famous Gene Kelly splashing-through-the-puddles scene is one of the classic images of American cinema.

Yet that serves only to make the stage version – which opens at the Spokane Civic Theatre on Friday – even more of a challenge.

“Movies are tough, because they move so fast from scene to scene,” said director Kathie Doyle-Lipe. “For instance, the characters might be at a party one minute and the next minute at a rehearsal, with all of those costume changes. Almost any show that started as a movie and they turn into a stage show has problems galore.”

Oh, and there’s that one other challenge. A big, wet challenge.

“We announced we were going to have genuine rain, so then we had to figure out how to do it,” said Doyle-Lipe, with a laugh.

That task went to Peter Hardie, the Civic’s wizard of a technical director, and his assistant David Baker. They created a “rain curtain,” in which rain falls from a pipe overhead onto a special section of the stage. The water then runs down into a gutter and is pumped outside.

“Peter, we call him the rainmaker,” said Doyle-Lipe.

So not only has Doyle-Lipe figured out how to do all of those scene changes, she has also conjured up a way to allow Andrew Ware Lewis, who plays the Gene Kelly role of Don Lockwood, to splash his way through his big title number.

One other thing: To make this stage adaptation, the Civic actually had to go out and shoot some movies.

“Singin’ in the Rain” is set in 1927, when Hollywood was going through the painful transition from silent films to talkies. The leading lady has a voice that is, ahem, perfect for silent films.

“So they show some of the movies they have been in, and we had to go out and film them,” said Doyle-Lipe. “It took two long days of work to get them.”

That was nothing compared to the work involved in staging the show’s many big tap-dancing scenes. After all, this show is known mainly for the virtuoso dancing of Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds and Rita Moreno, to name just a few.

“A lot of people in the show had never tapped before – I gave tap lessons once a week for about a month,” said Doyle-Lipe, known as one of Spokane’s top tappers. “You will be amazed at how well they do.”

The show has a 32-person cast, including a large chorus. Besides Ware Lewis, the cast includes Cameron Lewis as Cosmo Brown, Alyssa Calder-Day as Kathy Selden, Corinne Logario as Lina Lamont and Thomas Heppler as Roscoe Dexter.