In her book Patti LuPone: A Memoir, the Tony Award-winning Broadway star had some unpleasant things to say about the supporting ensemble that backed her up in the 1987 Lincoln Center Theater revival of Anything Goes. Yet LuPone specifically went out of her way to say nice things about Anything Goes chorus member Rob Ashford.
"Whew!" said Ashford when asked about LuPone's name-check of him, grateful not to have been on the strong-willed diva's shit list. But in the grand scheme of show biz, LuPone most likely didn't want to get on the bad side of Ashford, who has gone from being a tap-dancing chorus boy to one of the most respected and sought-after director-choreographers in the United States and the United Kingdom.
A look at Ashford's recent credits is astonishing due to the high-profile projects he's collaborated on, many with high-voltage celebrities attached.
On stage, Ashford has directed celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, Daniel Radcliffe and Sir Kenneth Branagh, respectively, in New York productions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and a forthcoming Macbeth that originated last year in Manchester, England. And for TV, Ashford recently staged NBC's The Sound of Music Live! starring Carrie Underwood and he's set to return to stage numbers for the Academy Awards again this year.
The director-choreographer, recently named to OUT magazine's 2013 OUT 100 list, was in the Windy City for his first crack at directing opera with a new production of Rossini's comedy The Barber of Seville for the Lyric Opera of Chicago. After the Academy Awards, Ashford will head to Houston to stage his second opera, a new production of Bizet's tragedy Carmen.
"The thing is that I just want to keep growing and I want to keep pushing myself," said Ashford when asked about adding his opera direction to his expansive resume of musicals and serious drama. "And I find sometimes when it's scary you dig deeper and you find something else inside your kind of 'creative wells.'"
Ashford was exposed to opera first as a dancer for companies like the Pittsburgh Opera while he was attending college, and later for a season dancing with the Metropolitan Opera when he moved to New York.
"I thought it was a lot of fun and so large and so expansive and so hectic," Ashford said. "I've always loved the scale of opera."
Although Ashford has choreographed for opera companies before, notably director Robert Carsen's 2007 production of Leonard Bernstein's operetta Candide that played Paris, Milan and London, he didn't think of directing opera until he saw former Donmar Warehouse colleague Michael Grandage direct his first opera, Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, in 2010 for the Gyndebourne Festival in the U.K.
"It was stunning. It was so beautiful, and what he had done was he had taken exactly what we had done in making theater, and kind of applied it to opera, but on this grand and absolutely riveting scale," Ashford said. "It made me think that I'd love to try that."
The invitation for Ashford to direct at the Lyric Opera of Chicago came from general director Anthony Freud, who had seen Ashford's London productions of A Streetcar Named Desire starring Rachel Weisz and Anna Christie starring Jude Law. What has resulted is a very traditional production filled with a very photogenic cast that includes baritone Nathan Gunn, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and tenor Alex Shrader.
"I know how lucky I've been on my first time out," said Ashford, noting that opera directors often don't have any say in how productions are cast. "They are so good and so flexible. Though they've played these parts before, they're so open to doing it my way and for us to create a new way… They're all great actors."
Ashford's connection to the Lyric Opera of Chicago will continue to next year, since he was recently named to direct a 70th anniversary production of Carousel in 2015. Ashford named Rodgers and Hammerstein's most-operatic work as his favorite, so he jumped at the chance to direct it.
And, of course, Ashford's performing work can regularly be seen at Chicago's Sidetrack video bar whenever they show the Tony Awards TV clip of LuPone singing the title song from Anything Goes ( which is also available on volume two of the DVD set Broadway's Lost Treasures ). When asked if he was in any way embarrassed about this, Ashford said no.
"Are you kidding? When I first moved to New York City, all I wanted to do was dance in a Broadway show," Ashford said about the luck of landing Anything Goes. "That was my first job in New York and it was so thrilling. When I was a performer, I've been in hits and I've been in flops and I think one should have both, but to start out that way with a piece like that and cast like that and being able to do so much great dancing and learn so, so much. Patti was a great supporter of me being in my first Broadway show and she was very complimentary and encouraging of me."
The Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production of The Barber of Seville continues through Friday, Feb. 28, at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15, 18, 21, 25, with 2 p.m. matinees on Feb. 6, 9, 12 and 28. Tickets are $20-$284; call 312-332-2244 or visit www.lyricopera.org .
