A senior engineer at Insitu, Garry Estep was long retired from the music industry when he was asked to read for a small part in The Dalles Theater Company’s presentation of “Sordid Lives” last year.
Next thing he knew, Estep was on stage in his underwear, which led to him joining the theater company’s board of directors, performing in another play—“Dracula the Musical”— and now he’s him directing “The Quintessential Rogers and Hammerstein.”
The musical revue is a first for The Dalles Theater Company and features 25 songs from the best works of Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II, including “South Pacific,” “Carousel,” “Oklahoma,” “The Sound of Music,” “Allegro,” “The King and I,” “Pipe Dream,” “Me and Juliet,” “Flower Drum Song” and “Cinderella.”
The two-hour revue, including intermission, opens Friday at 7 p.m. in the Columbia Gorge Community College lecture hall.
Additional shows are May 7, 13, 14, 20 and 21 at 7 p.m. and May 15 at 2 p.m.
Tickets, on sale at Klindt’s Booksellers, are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and students and $5 for children 8-and-under.
“Each song becomes a separate story so now we’ve got 25 separate stories to tell,” Estep said. “The reason it is called ‘quintessential’ is the Rogers and Hammerstein scholars have gone through their collection and they picked out at least one song from each of their musicals. They consider that these songs are some of their best works and some of their more typical works. [There’s] a lot of wonderful people singing. It’s not a spectacle. The songs are the stars of the show.”
Estep also wants to use the revue to develop the vocal talents of the people in the theater company for future musicals. The Dalles plans to do “Grease” next year.
For Rogers and Hammerstein, Estep started meeting with singers for one-on-one coaching in December. The cast includes JD Smith, Vernon Pound, Genny Snow, Mary Lewis, Stephanie Stone, Noah Harrington, John Hickox, Rachel Schwab, Linda Beiter, Laura Smith, Hillary Hoover, Vicentia Harrington, Susan Woods, Caitlin Snow and Kate Mast.
Estep began studying piano at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at age 13. Throughout high school he accompanied the Cincinnati Boychoir in concerts and recordings including the Cincinnati Symphony, Cincinnati Ballet and May Festival Chorus.
His first composition, “Praise Ye the Lord,” was recorded by the choir in 1974.
After high school, Estep studied and performed at The Ohio State University School of Music, University of Cincinnati Theater School and Juilliard School.
Classically, he worked under conductors Erich Kunzel, Robert Shaw and James Levine as an accompanist with the Nashville Ballet and Opera.
Estep was also head accompanist and vocal coach at Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music for five years.
“My career as a pianist, I didn’t want to be the person up front,” Estep said.
“I didn’t want to be the soloist so that’s why I went into accompanying, which is a very specialized field. I can sit behind the piano and there’s someone standing over there taking all the heat.
“My job as an accompanist is to make sure that they get through the song alive.”
Estep has echoed that sentiment to the cast of Rogers and Hammerstein.
“You sing the song and I will follow you,” Estep said. “If you miss an entrance, don’t start in the middle. I’ll come back around and get you back in there. If you skip something, don’t go back and do it again. I will follow you. Those are the skills that you learn.”
In the jazz and pop world, Estep worked with singers Eddie Money and Grace Slick, touring the U.S. and Canada as a pianist, arranger and music director of a musical revue.
Estep then spent three years as music director and arranger at the Heritage House Dinner Theater in Fort Knox, Ky. before retiring from the music profession after his late partner was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“Not being home and traveling a lot, I just wanted to be there,” Estep said.
Music became a hobby as he went back to school in 1992 to get an advanced degree in physics.
Estep moved to The Dalles three years ago. Rogers and Hammerstein will be his directorial debut with The Dalles Theater Company.
He has a budget of close to $9,000 but 72 percent of that has been donated.
John Dunlap, who has worked backstage for The Dalles Theater Company, purchased a $2,600 lighting control system after finding out the group had been renting one at $800 per play.
When Estep and another board member went to Michelle’s Piano in Portland to rent a baby grand, they were told that the normal fee was around $4,000.
But the store’s owner, Lotof Shahtout, agreed to rent the Essex, designed by Steinway, to the theater company for whatever its budget was.
Estep and his partner had planned to donate $2,000 for the piano so that became the budget.
Marty Hiser, of Westwind Frame and Gallery, let the theater company use her space for rehearsals free of charge, saving it another $1,075.
“There’s a lot of excitement happening with this particular show because we’ve revamped a lot of stuff,” Estep said. “When was the last time we had a grand piano to accompany the show?”
Next year, Estep plans to direct a serious play, “J.B.” by Archibald MacLeish, which will also be different for the theater company, which has typically done mostly comedies and musicals.
“It’s another experiment and we have the talent here to do these things, just need to tap into it and put the opportunities out there,” Estep said.
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