DPO recruited a village to stage Leonard Bernstein’s epic production

By Terry Morris

DAYTON — The official title is Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass: A
Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers,” or Bernstein’s
“Mass” for short.

The Dayton premiere of the large-scale orchestral/musical
theater work might be called “Neal Gittleman’s Mass,” because the
Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra’s music director has been the force
behind bringing it to the concert hall stage here.

“It’s been my dream,” he said of a project that’s been two years
in the making.

But he’s quick to describe this weekend’s presentation as “a
collaborative version with a unified vision.”

A cast of more than 200 musicians, singers, directors, dancers,
actors, stagehands and technicians will bring it to the DPO’s
audiences Friday and Saturday at the Schuster Center.

Stage director Greg Hellems said the spark actually goes back
“four or five years. That’s when Neal and Stuart (WSU Theatre,
Dance and Motion Pictures chair W. Stuart McDowell) started talking
about doing it. I was brought on board two years ago. Things
finally aligned this year.”

Rarely performed in its entirety due to the production
challenges and occasional spiky irreverence of the material, “Mass”
represents a major collaboration between the Philharmonic, the
music, theater and dance departments at Wright State University,
and the Kettering Children’s Choir.