‘Ask for the Moon’ spotlights bright women at Terris Theatre in Goodspeed

From left to right: Jamison Stern, Luba Mason and Ali Ewoldt rehearse for Goodspeed’s “Ask for the Moon.”

From left to right: Director Darko Tresnjak and actors Jamison Stern and Ali Ewoldt during rehearsal for Goodspeed’s “Ask for the Moon.”

From left to right: Ali Ewoldt, Jamison Stern and Luba Mason rehearse for Goodspeed’s “Ask for the Moon.”

Darko Tresnjak (Contribution)

When Darko Tresnjak talked about creating his new musical “Ask for the Moon,” he said the following:

“I just wanted to make a show about two tough women getting away with it.”

Let’s go back a moment.

Tresnjak, the Tony-winning director who helmed Hartford Stage from 2011 to 2019, began thinking about writing the musical, now performing at Goodspeed’s Terris Theatre in Chester, in the early days of the pandemic.

“I realized I needed to be cheered up, and probably a lot of other people needed to be cheered up, and maybe I could work on something clever and funny,” he said.

He contacted his writing partner, composer Oran Eldor.

“We have quite a similar humor, sensibility, and that’s something that either happens or it doesn’t. It’s a pleasure to work with him,” Tresnjak said.

When creating the story, Tresnjak knew he wanted the story to be led by a group of women.

“I realized that there’s a whole genre of musical comedy that traditionally rewards male ambition. Men can be very naughty, but if they have a plan, they can get away with it. I thought, how can that be? I grew up with very, very funny and I would say scandalous women, and so I wanted to put women not in the passenger seat, but in the driver’s seat,” Tresnjak said.

Plus, he had talked to some friends who said that funny female performers in musical theater have been lucky to get roles at all lately. All of that led him to a story that was driven by strong, humorous female characters.

The plot of “Ask for the Moon” is completely original, which is quite rare in musical theater, Tresnjak noted.

The Basics: A wealthy widow named Helene (played by Luba Mason) discovers that she was not the first wife, but actually the second wife of her late husband. She worries about losing her fortune. There may be murderous intent involved.

Her husband left a small legacy to his nurse, Charlotte (played by Ali Ewoldt). This makes the widow wonder if there was something improper going on between them, but there wasn’t. The nurse happens to want to be an opera singer.

“I wanted to play with the expectations of, say, a cat fight and then completely subvert them, and there’s actually a blossoming friendship between the two,” Tresnjak said.

“Ask for the Moon” has deliberate moments where the audience thinks a romantic or sexual relationship is developing between one of the women and the men they meet, but then it turns out that’s not the case at all. In fact, one of the women isn’t interested in men. Tresnjak didn’t want the romance to be the focus of the story.

‘Great British’ influence

Tresnjak also drew a little inspiration from another source: “The Great British Bake Off.” He was charmed by a contestant on the show named Jurgen, who had an accent that reminded Tresnjak of his German relatives when he was a child. (Tresnjak is one-quarter German and three-quarters Slavic.)

“Something about him triggered all those childhood memories. So I went to the races, I guess,” Tresnjak said.

Consequently, among the male characters in “Ask for the Moon” are a German and two others – they are bickering twins – from the fictional country of the Carpathians.

Small but powerful

The cast of “Ask for the Moon” consists of only three actors and a puppeteer.

In addition to the actresses who play Helene and Charlotte, Jamison Stern plays four other roles in the Goodspeed production.

Puppeteer Alex Dreschke has created a number of characters in puppet form, including a hungry baby piranha.

One of the driving forces behind the decision for the small cast was this: Ten years ago, Tresnjak directed “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” for which he won the Tony Award for best director. It was a $7 million show. He’s currently working on another musical that he hopes to bring to Broadway that’s exactly as big as “Gentleman’s Guide.” But now it would cost $17 million.

“What that does to creativity and the collaborative process and who you listen to — I can handle it to a certain extent, but I can’t make my whole life about that,” Tresnjak said. “So the desire to write something very intimate in the form of a musical, which is very, very rare — I don’t know, I hope the show has a future, you never know, but it’s just a desire to do something where I feel free rather than in the stranglehold of millions and millions of dollars.”

He added: “I think part of it has to do with the fact that I’m turning 60 next year. One day you’re a budding artist, the next day you’re a survivor, and at this point in my life it’s nice to be working on something smaller.”

‘Moon’ music

As for the music in “Ask for the Moon,” Tresnjak said it’s very melodic. Ewoldt, who played Christine for many years on “Phantom of the Opera,” “has one of the most beautiful sopranos I’ve ever heard. It’s beautiful,” Tresnjak said. Because her character in “Ask for the Moon” aspires to be an opera singer, her songs take cues from Verdi, Rossini and Mozart.

The character Helene is a socialite, but it turns out she originally comes from the working class and behind the glamour she is down to earth. Her songs are also a bit ‘belty’, with Tresnjak and Eldor thinking of recordings by people like Peggy Lee. Mason, who plays Helene, is a very gifted jazz singer, so one song is a tribute to her voice.

Stern’s characters, on the other hand, tend toward pattern numbers.

Each verse moves the action forward. Except for one song performed by the pianist on the cruise ship where the characters are passengers, “all the other songs, each verse takes you to the next place in the story,” Tresnjak said.

Composer Eldor, by the way, has a long list of credits and was nominated for Best Composer for his work on “Mythic” at both The Stage Debut Awards in London and the META Awards in Montreal.

A return to Goodspeed

Tresnjak has done a fair amount of work over the past few years at Goodspeed, which is led by Donna Lynn Cooper Hilton. (She became Goodspeed’s artistic director in 2020, after 32 years in various roles at the East Haddam theater.)

At the Goodspeed Opera House, Tresnjak directed “A Little Night Music” in 2001, “Carnival!” in 2010, and “City of Angels” in 2011. In 2005, he also directed “Amour” at the Terris Theatre.

Tresnjak, who lives in Connecticut, was set to direct the musical “Candide” at the Goodspeed Opera House in 2020, but the pandemic halted all productions that year.

The performance at the developmental theater Terris Theatre gives the creators of “Ask for the Moon” the opportunity to rewrite and edit the play.

“I love Goodspeed and their expertise in musicals, and I’m just so excited about Donna Lynn Cooper Hilton’s vision for Goodspeed,” said Tresnjak.

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