Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 is on now through June 19th at The WaterFire Arts Center in Providence. The play has been extended to June 26th.

JAMES BAUMGARTNER: Hi, Chuck. I’ve been away for a week, but I understand you’ve been busy at the theater.

CHUCK HINMAN: Yes. And I’m sorry you missed it. I went to see “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812” at Wilbury theater

BAUMGARTNER: Is that the Natasha and Pierre from Tolstoy’s War and Peace?

HINMAN: It is, yeah. The play is a sung-through musical based on a very small 70-page part of the novel. And let me just say upfront, I recommend it. It’s great fun.

BAUMGARTNER: It sounds good, nut should I read War and Peace before I go? I don’t think I’ll have time.

HINMAN: No, that’s not necessary. You really don’t need to know the book. It’s a familiar tale, a beautiful, innocent young girl meets a handsome scoundrel who attempts to ruin her life. And meanwhile, an older family friend tries to help out, while despairing of finding any meaning in his own life. And the music is great. I talked with the director Josh shorts about the production.

CHUCK HINMAN: What drew you to this play for the Wilbury Theatre?

JOSH SHORT: We’ve always had an enthusiasm for more immersive styles of theater that sort of embrace the audience’s presence in the theater. Theater is more fun, more interesting when the audience is acknowledged, and there’s some participation between the actors and the audience. And this musical made quite a quite a name for itself as as really embracing that style of work. And I think what, as a director, what was really exciting was the message of humanity behind it. You know, the acknowledgement of other people, as they say, in the play, and everybody’s, you know, experience working their way through this world is as unique themselves. And that should be celebrated.

HINMAN: Did you face any challenges in mounting the production for the Wilbury?

SHORT: Yeah, I mean, there were all sorts of technical challenges to the piece. You know, you need a cast that can play a lot of instruments. And then also, producing anything in this time of COVID is incredibly difficult. And dealing with schedules, and we have all of that stuff. I mean, that’s a huge piece of it. And then there’s also the piece itself has such an iconic look to it. Anybody familiar with the Off Broadway or the Broadway production, the design of it, the original design was inspired by a Russian tea room meets nightclub kind of look. So our design team and our scenic designers, they had a real challenge to kind of make this our own piece. So those are sort of the biggest things going into it. In addition to the music itself is you know, it’s very technically challenging for actors.

HINMAN: Well I think the casting is wonderful. I mean, everyone can sing. They fit their characters, and like you said, they’re also musical in the instruments they play. It just really comes together. And you just got to feeling that everybody really enjoyed it. And even that, despite that, I mean, it goes from at times farcical. I love the way you did the opera scene there. That was just flat out hilarious.

SHORT: Yeah, I can’t take a ton of credit for that. Our choreographer Ali Kenner Brodsky, she puts together this…. Her background is in experimental dance & movement. And she put that piece together and yeah, that cracks me up every night I see it.

HINMAN: And it goes from that to just incredibly moving. I mean, at the end of the scene between Pierre and Natasha, that was just I think everybody in the audience was … not crying but near tears, you know, at times.

SHORT: Yeah. I think it’s beautiful to I mean, I cry every time I see it, too. I think but the actors themselves, Kayla Shimizu as Natasha and Rodney Witherspoon as Pierre, are both incredible actors and their emotional availability to the piece is really astounding. They really put their whole selves into it. But also the payoff, I think, can all identify with some of like the youthful recklessness that Natasha maybe has and her journey through the piece, but then also Pierre just struggling with his own existential questions, which really, for me anyway, and I think for audience members resonates a lot coming out of the last couple of years where we probably at some point, everybody’s stopped and asked themselves, “What am I doing? Does it matter? There’s something else that I should be doing.” And these are the kinds of questions that Pierre is struggling with throughout the piece, which, for me, was a real way into it.

HINMAN: That was Josh short, the director of the play Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 at the Wilbury Theatre.

BAUMGARTNER: Okay, so you’ve talked about Natasha and Pierre, but what about the comet?

HINMAN: I’ll leave that for you to find out for yourself, see the play. It runs from now until June 19th. The Wilbury Theatre is at the WaterFire Arts Center in Providence.