The Making of A Tribute to Sir. Elton John
- Jan 17, 2025
- 5 min read
By: Alanna Taveras
A big round of applause is due for the amazing cast and crew of Don't Go Breaking My Heart: A Tribute to Elton John. The show was endlessly entertaining, super colorful, and full of emotions. The singers put their all into the storyline and it really came through! I spoke to all three creative directors: Ada Fernandez, who came up with the plot and directed her peers in the acting, Ebony Spicer who was in charge of musical directing, and Mateo Aponte, director of choreography. I also spoke to Ms. Wong for some insight on Advanced Music.
As some of you may know, Advanced Music always chooses artists that have made an important impact on the music industry and culture. This year, Advanced Music commemorated Sir Elton John. Sir Elton John has received numerous accolades from The Kennedy Center, The Oscars, The Emmys, The Grammys, The Brit Awards, The Golden Globes, the list goes on. In particular, he has been recognized profoundly as one of the most influential artists to bring recognition to the LGBTQIA+ community around the world.
Director Ada, of course, had John’s “gay-icon-ness” in mind when working and said, “If you’re doing Elton John, it has to be really gay and really colorful and you can only be gay if you fall in love.” Ada voiced her fears throughout the process. As the director, she worried that her peers would be confused with the storyline or why their character was doing what they were doing. In order to combat this, Ada strived to be over prepared. After listening to all the songs she took the time to write the script and always had it on her to give text based directions. Musical Director, Ebony, praised the character work created through Ada’s process by comparing it to last year's Advanced Music’s tribute: Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered: A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, which they were also a part of. They said that, in terms of rehearsal structure, “With Ella the process of learning the music was very different. We spent the first couple of weeks just really, like, drilling harmonies. We were learning from sheet music and that’s how we created our sound. With Elton John, we tapped into, like, our characters more and then we found, like, our group sound by just being happy.” This of course makes sense, since both artists have such different tones and essences. Ebony, as music Director, was given the task of assigning the songs to their peers. Ebony said that they were a bit nervous about this part of the job; they were afraid no one would listen to them as they tried to instruct their peers. They said, “I didn’t know why Ms. Wong chose me to be the music director. I didn’t think I knew how to music direct or like what that meant.” Ebony did however, find solace in the fact that their peers respected them and were willing to learn hard warm-ups. “They were troopers,” they said.
Mateo had a similar fear as the director of choreography. He had never choreographed a show before, it was a new experience for him and he was quite nervous. The hardest part was getting his visions out of his head. He found pride in seeing his ideas put into action on stage by his peers who were so willing and excited to learn from him. He had a lot of fun and is super thankful to all of them for allowing him to graduate from Rep with such an experience of having creative liberty for an entire piece of work.
Lastly, when I spoke with Ms. Wong, I asked her what she loved most about giving leadership to the students, as well as the worst part? She chose to start with the worst part, “The worst part is that I have to allow room for the students to fail… I don’t want them to, like, feel…dejected or anything, but allowing them the space to figure out the things that they did wrong and the mistakes. That's the hardest part. The best part is getting to see students in their creativity and, like, to see their vision come to life. And also, like, they come up with more fresh ideas than I would, cause I’m an old fart!”
When asked what their favorite memories were of the show and rehearsal, their eyes lit up like the disco ball featured on the stage.
For Ada, it was the confetti going rightfully wrong in their closing show on Friday, “Mateo didn’t get to pop the confetti on the perfect time, but he ended up popping the confetti on the beat drop for “Are You Ready For Love”… and we all just started dancing and screamed. Like, yes we did it! It’s a show! and I think that,… this is our best show but it’s also ending, it’s melancholy.”
For Mateo, it was just being there, being in the room where it happened (—> Hamilton reference, he would appreciate it. Anyways😅). “My favorite memory of working on this show is honestly working with the juniors and seniors. As not only is this my first show, it’s my first time actually working with a lot of people. So to watch how hard the juniors really work, and finally work with my grade…people I’ve spent the last four years with, it meant a lot to me.”
Finally, Ms. Wong’s favorite memory from the show was, “... definitely the confetti champagne bottle popping, especially in the second show where, like, it kind of went off unexpectedly and scared everyone!... It was kind of exciting to me because it kept the show, kind of, like, on your toes, you know? And shows really, like theater’s about this kind of, like, spontaneous moment thing.”
The performance was truly remarkable, from Erica Williams, the bouncer, checking audience members in, to the heart warming vocals of Tia-Marie Edwards and Tamia Mack, to a literal bar fight mid show! The audience loved it all three times, there were tears, laughs, and a lot of applause. The Advanced Music class should be extremely proud of themselves and I would like to shout out all those who had a leadership role. Wonder what they’ll do next year!
The video to the show is on Repertory's YouTube if you weren’t able to attend in person.
Thank you to all those interviewed:
Ada Fernandez
Ebony Spicer
Mateo Aponte
Ms. Wong
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