A rarely produced Sondheim. Perhaps one of Signature Theatre’s signature marks as they frequently unearth some of the lesser recognized or at the very least, lesser attempted, Stephen Sondheim works. Pacific Overtures is no exception for this season. The irony of white men creating the musical narrative for Eastern culture is not lost on anyone, particularly not Musical Director Alexander Tom, who is a Chinese and Vietnamese American. In a phone interview with the show’s musical director, we talk all about the chance to give agency to the voices for whom the story is intended with Signature’s current production of Pacific Overtures.

Thank you so very much for giving us some of your time, I know you’re incredibly busy with the show heading into previews in just a few days!

Alexander Tom: Of course, happy to talk about the show. I’m Alexander Tom and I am the show’s Musical Director.

What is it about Pacific Overtures that drew you in to want to be a part of the project here at Signature Theatre?

Alexander: I think there’s a lot going on. We talk about this a lot, but I think the Pandemic put a lot of things for my career into perspective of things and creative projects that I was interested in and that I want to spend my time focusing on. When I saw that Pacific Overtures at Signature was still looking for a music director, I sent a cold-reach email out to Ethan (Director Ethan Heard) and then we had a couple of meetings, and it’s a process where it’s not really an interview though it is very similar. We had conversations about how Ethan works, about how I work, what I think about this project, and ultimately what it came down to was that Ethan shared his vision. And this vision was that we’re in such a spot of time and space, right now, of “East meets West” culture and sometimes it’s very, very in our face and other times it’s just kind of rumbling in the background. I was really interested in “what is the conversation when you put an entire Asian or Asian American cast on stage and ask folks seeing this to have the conversation themselves?”

Musical theatre is so interesting because we can bring people into our world and at the very end we kind of spit them out and ask them to talk amongst themselves and see what they took away, what is now interesting and relevant to them. For me, I have always found Asian musicals interesting. They tend to be written by dominant culture and white folk. But you can adjust the narrative or add to the narrative when you have a creative team like ours, comprised of an abundance of Asian Americans and the diaspora on those perspectives. It’s been amazing and interesting and I don’t think I would have ever regretted this choice.

What is it that makes Pacific Overtures so important that Signature Theatre wanted to include it in this particular season, coming out of the Pandemic?

Alexander: I think I’ll answer the question in two parts. Matt (Artistic Director Matthew Gardiner) has always said that this is actually one of the most requested shows that Signature receives request for from its audience. And I always found that interesting. This is the most requested show!? Are you sure it’s not Into The Woods? Or Sweeney Todd? (both Sondheim productions— Into The Woods was produced by Signature Theatre in November of 2022 and Sweeney Todd is to be produced at Signature Theatre in May 2023.) But if you look at the Sondheim canon, when Sondheim wrote, in retrospect, none of his shows were ever popular that first time around. I’ve always found that to be fascinating.

Now we look at it— where a lot of us have grown up with it or grown into it— and you feel like, “why wouldn’t you love this at first go?” And yes, history is different and times have changed, but I also think that Signature wants to do this because it is such an important story right now. There has been a lot of Antisemitic hate going on, there’s a lot of Asian hate going on, there’s a lot of attention that needs to be given to Black Lives Matter, and as we encompass the enriched culture that not only Arlington, VA and Washington DC are but is also the nation, musicals have such a way of opening eyes to perspectives, without being abrasive about it.

I am always someone who is interested in having a conversation about those perspectives. You just have to find a way in. I think Signature is so smart to want to have this conversation now and this is their way in with Pacific Overtures.

Is there a moment or a musical number in Pacific Overtures that speaks directly to you as a human being, as a person, as a musical director, that really defines what this show means to you?

Alexander Tom: I think for me it would be what Sondheim quotes as his favorite work which is “Someone In A Tree.” I think “Someone In A Tree” is so fascinating. We just finished some work on it the other day and I was having an internal monologue with myself about it. It’s a point in the story where there are three perspectives happening all about the past. In this semi-meta world of an old man is coming and discussing what he saw. Then he talks to his younger self and his younger self corrects the old man, and then there’s a warrior that no one knew was there and he’s talking to our reciter. And the reciter acts like a narrator and is taking it all in, and having this moment of, “wait. What happened? Can you clarify?” in an attempt to guide the audience along.

I was sitting there listening to this and I find it so interesting because that is such a family dynamic for Asian cultures. At least especially for how I was raised. I had the blessing and fortune to have two sets of grandparents. I have just my Popo, now, my grandma on my mom’s side. Having conversations about things that I may just not know but also cultural conversations, “things were done this way” and while they weren’t done this way for my mother she now wants to go back a little bit and start doing things that way. And I’m over here thinking “I don’t want to do any of this but I’ll keep some of it.”

It’s important that shows like this— that are about culture and finding identities and understanding identities either as a community or as a person or as yourself— give you a moment of reprieve. I think a lot of us didn’t actually take that moment of reprieve during the Pandemic, which was weird. I think we all kind of just stopped. But we were all so worried about things that no one every really took that pause moment. For me, “Somewhere In A Tree” is just such a beautiful place to hit pause for a second. And just realize, “Hey. Listen. This is what happened.” And it may be three different views of what happened but this is a thing that happened. And just breathe through it.

At the very end of the number I think it’s a very interesting moment because all of them sing together and it’s a very open, quintal chord, which is, of the Orient, if you would. It is a moment where Sondheim is very smart about how he’s harmonizing things, and the text is very smart about the focus it draws to the story, and the characters involved are very intuitive about how they are telling it to you. All of that combines to give you a second to just inhale, exhale, and you have that pause of understanding. As a music director, it is great to work with something that is so complex and yet simple at the same time. You can find that beauty of simplicity but then you’re stacking simple on top of simple on top of simple and it becomes complex. The fact that we can break it down tells you that the writing is fantastic.

How is Pacific Overtures similar or perhaps different to the types of projects that as a musical director you have worked on previously? Are you deeply steeped in the Sondheim canon or is this perhaps your first Sondheim?

Alexander: No, no, no. This is definitely not my first Sondheim. I would call myself a Sondheim fanatic. I am the Music Supervisor for a BFA Musical Theatre program at Montclair State University. Before that, I was the interim program head for the BFA Musical Theatre program at Pace University in the financial district of New York City. I’ve been a music director for a while. I will say my mentor, Rick Ettinger, is a person of Asian-American decent in the diaspora and because of that, that became a very important focal point for how I understood musical theatre and the shows I pick to work on.

For me and Sondheim, we have a unique relationship. I got my undergrad in classical music theory and composition. My original career prospective was to be an opera conductor. So I studied Italian for four years, I was very ready to break through the ceiling. There are very few Asian-Americans, there are very few Asian-Americans that are queer that are conductors and that was my identity resurfacing. And then I got into Shenandoah Musical Theatre, I got my masters there— which is in Winchester, not too far from here in good old Arlington— and things shifted. My mentors and educators there opened my eyes to different perspectives and understanding musical theatre. I’ve always loved the craft and the art but I think for me what it was— and he’s going to hate that I’m telling you this but I’m telling you anyway… my mentor Rick was in a revival of Pacific Overtures. So this is the weird, full-circle moment. He had done the revival and now I’m music-directing this version and we’re using parts of the revival, parts of Classic Stage and the original ’76.

I’ve been surrounded by Sondheim because in terms of classical music & theory, Sondheim is considered a crossover. He’s very complex in the way he writes. I believed at the time I was studying that I had a very similar writing style in terms of that kind of component. I don’t do much writing these days, though I do a lot of music directing and teaching. I’ve always just found it interesting. Some would call it a gateway into musical theatre. Sondheim writes so universally and also some of his musicals are just timeless. Into The Woods doesn’t need to be great for it to be good. And that is a component of good writing for Sondheim.

What have been some of the challenges in working on the Pacific Overtures project?

Alexander: It’s been interesting. This current version is orchestrated for nine pieces. We have the beautiful ability and collaboration space to work with the orchestra of Jonathan Tunick. It’s interesting because the ’76 version had an on-stage band that had Japanese instruments involved. And then there were more Japanese instruments in the orchestrations, and we were originally going to do a version that only had seven instruments. And then Jonathan Tunick asked Signature to do the nine-piece version, so we got two more instruments and now we’re doing the nine-piece version.

This show and the way it was written gives us a lot of space to adjust certain narratives and certain musical moments. Not to change anything that Sondheim has done, but there are a lot of transitions that have had to shift. There’s a lot of exits and entries. But there have also been a lot of things where Ethan and I have had to have a lot of discussion. My email to the cast was— and I used this wording very specifically— “I’m so excited to work with you and bring new valued perspectives to this work.” And what I mean by that is that I intend fully to dive into this space and talk about it musically. Ethan is so good about how he guides conversations. Yes, this is American musical theatre. Yes, it was written by two white guys. But yes, we can do these things and add to the conversation. And that’s important.

Things get heated right now when people want to have conversations about equity, inclusivity, and diversity accessibility. We’ve been able to have these conversations collectively and I think Ethan set such a beautiful space in the room for actors to just ask a question or confront the text. It gives them a chance to freely speak up and say, “this doesn’t feel appropriate; this doesn’t feel correct; this doesn’t feel what I know about Japanese Culture.” None of it has been terribly or extremely difficult but it is a different space. And it’s  beautiful space where we can have conversations like this because I don’t think in 2019 if they had done Pacific Overtures that the same conversations would be had. And if they were, I think they would be a lot more confrontational, a lot more aggravated.

This is about community and ensuring that we all have the same understanding about the work that we do but have different ways of approaching it. Not only does Signature and their administration help us but I think Ethan and I are able to guide through those spaces a little bit. We also had Leslie Ishii (Perseverance Theatre of Juneau, Alaska) come and give us a workshop on escalating diversity and inclusion; I think that really set the space for some good work.

What is it that you are hoping audiences are going to take away from seeing Pacific Overtures?

Alexander: It’s difficult to say this but I can see it in my head. The things that happened in the 1850’s, which is when this takes place, had such gigantic ripple effects that you don’t understand are still rippling through world culture in general. There are conversations that can happen about imperialism, but there’s also conversations about colonialization. And conversations about what happened when The East confronted itself. Why did that have to happen and what did The West do to contribute to that? It’s also an interesting conversation because there are some really great relationships within the text between characters about what is understanding yourself? What is understanding a relationship with someone you just met? Or understanding the relationship between a partner or a spouse? We’ve been exploring how our understanding of the text of how this was written— by white men, by Sondheim— that there are certain cultural things that have to happen. We’ve had a lot of consultants help us navigate that. Is this a formal situation or informal?

What I want, when an audience walks away, is this. The music is beautiful, yes. But what are the lyrics telling you about this story? Musical theatre has always been— and this is why it is so different than opera— musical theatre is text first. The text matters so much. I want audiences to walk away thinking about a lyric that they heard and realizing that they love that turn of phrase and maybe think that they have to go see the show again just to experience that line again. I think our actors are so smart stepping into that, understanding that this is the way the text needs to move for you to understand our story.

I was speaking with a friend the other day and I pointed out that this one of the musicals that is part of Sondheim’s “list phase.” A lot of the songs are just lists. They’re very important lists, great lists, and I’m a Virgo and I love a list, but this is a list-list and a lot of the takeaway is “what happened? I don’t know what I just got from that.” I want people to walk away and really hear the text.

Our Reciter, Jason Ma, said this a few days ago. This is the first time that we’ve been able to understand the text. There are so many bad productions that add unfounded accents or ways to talk to make it sound more Eastern, and we were very specific to not do that. We said just use whatever dialect is in your body and of your intersectionality. We’ll need dialect for the Admirals when we get to “Please, Hello” and we have a dialect coach for that but we want people to understand the story fully. Not just understand the story as “not just this Eastern show where no Westerners came.”

I love that you’ve pointed out the fact that musical theatre is text first. Is there a specific line or lyric in this show that really resonates and hits home for you?

Alexander Tom: I think one of my favorite songs— and this is the underdog for the show— is “There Is No Other Way.” It happens fairly early and it establishes the relationship between Kayama and his wife, Tamate. The text that I love very much is the title and the hook— ‘there is no other way.’ That to me is so interesting because I take that to mean, “I have to do it this way. And if I don’t do it this way everything has failed.” I always think about this text because it reminds me to humble myself for a second. Think about the fact that there is actually a different way of looking at something. “My way” might not be the same way that someone else saw it and their way is not the same way that someone else saw it. It’s this inverse relationship where I have to hear that lyric to remind myself to not go into that mindset. It feels very perturbing at times but this is the way Sondheim writes. Sometimes what he wants you to understand is the inverse of what the text is. And you just have to sit there with it.

Why do you want people to come and see Pacific Overtures?

Alexander: I think our production is intuitive and genuine. It’s a little bit winding. We’re doing a production that only requires ten actors. It’s making those ten actors play a lot of roles but because of that it’s really requiring a lot of the creative team to be smart about how we choreograph or do musical staging, how we plan and lay out this exit or that exit. How we set up costume shifts. It’s asking actors to shift their physicality. The way they walk needs to shift. The costume has now changed to different footwear so how do you walk in that?

Our version is bringing so many different elements that are new to what a production of Pacific Overtures needs to be but also traditional. In the vein of East meets West we’re also adding this layer of traditional meets contemporary. We’re asking audiences to take it in and enjoy it. I think Signature is known for visually stunning work and I think that’s definitely what you’re going to see. I hope they don’t mind me giving this away, but we have one of the largest (on the East Coast) Odaiko drums. It was in Virginia, we rented it, and it is now in our set and we have someone of the Asian-American diaspora playing it. We’re very smart and aware of the things that are being done. I think our version is going to be not only visually appealing but you’re going to hear and see things that you just don’t expect to encounter in a production of Pacific Overtures. We hope it makes you want to see it again. I’m going to see it for essentially 38 performances and I have no intention of getting bored.

If you’re comfortable talking about it, could you enlighten us to your specific Asian-American heritage in the diaspora?

Alexander: So I am a little mixed up in the best way possible. My ethnicity is Vietnamese. But I am adopted and my parents are Chinese. It’s very interesting in the best way. I grew up understanding Chinese heritage and culture, that’s how I was raised, that’s how my family is. But my parents were also very open and willing so that when I got old enough and we had the conversation that I was adopted and that I was Vietnamese and not Chinese, we started celebrating Vietnamese New Year, which is a slightly different tradition to Chinese New Year. We started to explore other aspects of Southeast Asia. My mother and I have had a lot of conversations, especially as I did the Ancestory.com thing and I wanted to learn a little bit more. I have a closed adoption which means I can’t see my mother’s file, which means I have to figure out my own medical history and whatnot. But it’s so interesting because when I have conversations about these things, there are tenants of being an Asian-American that are cross-culture. And then there are parts that are, “No, this is solely mine.” I think it’s so great being in a room full of Asian-Americans because we appreciate that and we look to share these things. That’s the same way for me at home. My mother is emphatic about my love for Bahn Mi and Pho, and she’s all— “I’ll go get Vietnamese food. Just tell me where to go!” And I’m, “Great. Love you, mom.”

That’s amazing. As an individual who is an Asian-American, and in your words “mixed up in the best way possible”, what does it mean to you to get to be a part of this narrative with Pacific Overtures?

Alexander: I will say that this is my first Asian musical. There are very few being written that are— not even of popularity— but of known-ness. We did see more come down the pipeline, there was Soft Power, Waterfall at 5^th Avenue in Seattle, there was K-Pop the musical, Allegiance, Hear Lies Love is coming back. There has definitely been more. But this just became the perfect moment of ‘I want to do a Sondheim musical’ and I wanted also to be able to do a show that I identified with. This was a perfect match— a Sondheim Asian show.

So I said okay and when I found out how specific Ethan was being with who was being put in what creative positions, about the consultant work, about doing the additional things needed to ensure the musical we do allows the actors to do their job, I was ready. I was here for it. I am here for it!

Sometimes it is hard to walk into a space and recognize that I’m Asian and I’m doing an Asian show and therefore I must just be Asian, like that is the only thing I can bring to this. But when you’re in a room full of Asian-Americans and we all relate on different levels, we see each other in ways that I don’t think we would see in each other if we were doing Miss Saigon.

If you had to sum up your experience with Pacific Overtures at Signature Theatre in just one word, which one word would you use?

Alexander: My partner is going to hate me because I’m a terrible wordsmith. He’s going to tell me I should have picked a better word. I think I would say beautiful.

Pacific Overtures plays March 7^th 2023 through April 9^th 2023 2023 in the Max Theatre at Signature Theatre— 4200 Campbell Avenue in Shirlington, VA. For tickets call the box office at (703) 820-9771 or purchase them online.