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03/01/2017 07:30 AMNeed a lawyer? Or maybe a roller derby referee? Or a theatrical producer? Michael Gennaro, the executive director of Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, fits the bill for all three. Michael took over the leadership of the organization in 2015 from longtime executive director, Michael Price, whose 45-year tenure had turned The Goodspeed from a little known regional theater to the nationally recognized home of the American musical. Now Goodspeed Musicals includes not only productions at The Goodspeed in East Haddam, but also a theatrical season at The Terris in Chester.
Michael was born into a theatrical household. His father, the late Peter Gennaro, was a Tony-award winning dancer and choreographer with a long television and Broadway résumé that included Kiss Me, Kate, Guys and Dolls, and The Pajama Game. His mother, Jean Kinsella, was also a dancer; his sister Liza Gennaro is a choreographer and is head of the Musical Theater B.F.A Program at Indiana University.
The dancing lineage is even more extensive. Michael’s wife Donna Lee is a dancer—”And my mother-in-law was a dancer too,” he adds.
He brushes aside questions about following in the family tradition.
“Can I dance? I can waltz,” he says.
Still in a long ago production of Godspell on Broadway, he did appear in a dance number.
“I can’t believe I did that. I must have pretended to dance,” he says.
Michael started out as an actor, performing in college and in shows both on and off Broadway. Still, he found acting was not the place for him.
“I like to say I was not tall enough, I was not blonde enough,” he explains, but when he was asked to arrange a large benefit for the great New York City Ballet dancer Jacques d’Amboise, he discovered another aspect of theater with much more appeal. “I found out how much I enjoyed the business side,” he recalls.
Michael was working as a producer at night while clerking at a law firm in New York City by day when a theatrical veteran gave him a surprising piece of advice: If he wanted to be a top-of-the line producer, he would need a law degree or an MBA. He opted for law and 10 years after he had graduated from Notre Dame, he entered Fordham Law School.
He didn’t give up theater entirely, however. During his first year, he managed to find the time to produce an off-, off-Broadway show called Time Pieces. Upon graduation, he practiced law, specializing in entertainment, for six years before returning to theater full time.
“I took a 50 percent pay cut,” he recalls, “but I went to law school to be a producer.”
Before coming to Goodspeed, Michael spent seven years as executive director of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, preceded by positions at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia, the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey and Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.
So, where does roller derby referee work its way into the Michael Gennaro story? It started with Donna Lee, who was a roller derby skater in Providence and suggested that, since Michael skated, too, he might like to referee. He did, for four years, but his roller derby days are only a pleasant memory now.
“I do miss the actual skating and the friendships and camaraderie amongst a very unique and talented group of individuals,” he says.
Now he stays fit working out at a local gym
After city life in Providence, Michael and Donna Lee are now settled in Ivoryton.
“It’s nice to have a little bit of land,” he says.
They have also acquired a golden retriever rescue dog that has a theater connection itself. They got the pet with the help of Bill Berloni, who trained Annie’s dog Sandy when the musical debuted at the Goodspeed.
Since his arrival, Michael has taken The Goodspeed into some new projects, among them putting on a sensory-friendly performance of Bye Bye Birdie last year in conjunction with Franklin Academy in East Haddam. To accommodate some of the issues that often bedevil people on the autism spectrum, the sensory-friendly production toned down loud noises and bright lights and audience members who needed a respite could get up and go into the lobby during the performance.
Michael hoped 50 people would attend. Instead there were 200 and the theater intends to repeat the sensory-friendly performance this year with Oklahoma!
The story one couple told him sticks in his memory. They had met at the Goodspeed on a date years ago, but never had the chance to come back. Now they were able to see a performance with their own child, diagnosed on the autism spectrum.
As he thinks about future scheduling, Michael wants to focus on musicals that have never been done at The Goodspeed, pointing to Gypsy and South Pacific as examples. There are, he concedes, some shows, among them West Side Story and Ragtime, that he thinks demand too large a stage area to put on in East Haddam.
Productions at The Goodspeed this year will include Thoroughly Modern Millie, Oklahoma!, and a new version of Rags, a musical about the garment trade and immigrants gaining a foothold in America. An earlier version of Rags played briefly on Broadway in l986.
At The Terris in Chester, a stage devoted to the production of new musicals, the three offerings include Deathless, a parable about the problems of living forever; Darling Grenadine, a modern tribute to romantic comedy and old movie musicals; and A Connecticut Christmas Carol, an original take on the Dickens classic featuring figures from Connecticut’s past, among them Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and P.T. Barnum. Goodspeed Musical subscribers can mix and match packages that include tickets for shows at both stages, The Terris and The Goodspeed.
At 65, Michael is now at an age when many people choose retirement, but he has different ideas.
“There are lots of reasons I don’t retire; I still have a lot of unfinished business. I enjoy the producing part,” he says, noting that he is following the example of his father, who worked until he was 80.
And, he adds, the reputation of the Goodspeed as the winner of two Tony Awards and the place where such Broadway hits as Annie and Shenandoah originated, inspired him to continue.
“When you have been doing this for as long as I have, the only place I would want to work is the Goodspeed,” he says. “I am doing exactly the work that I love.”
For more information on Goodspeed Musicals, visit www.goodspeed.org.