Behind the scenes look at how an OKC theater saved 'Blithe Spirit' 48 hours after COVID struck

With heavy feet and a rushed attitude, Emily Wollenberg clomped onto the snug stage of Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park's indoor black box theater and immediately made the classy mid-20th century home a house of mirth.

Playing the small but pivotal part of Edith the maid, Wollenberg earned laughs and sympathies in the first scene of the classic comedy "Blithe Spirit," playing a frazzled domestic trying to please her persnickety upper-crust employer, Mrs. Ruth Condomine (Renee Krapff).

By the time D. Lance Marsh swooped in, book clutched in one hand, to portray Ruth's fussy socialite and writer husband, Charles Condomine, the sold-out Oct. 22 audience had already been through at least one bout of giggles.

"I heard the first laugh before I even walked on stage, and I thought, 'OK, they want to play, so let's play,'" Marsh said. "Opening night's audience was incredibly generous with me, with the rest of the cast, and I think after one night of that, we all sort of went, 'OK, this thing works. We can make this work.' ... And that sold-out house on Saturday night, that was just a tremendously warm feeling."

Despite his many years of acting experience, Marsh — a professor of acting and the head of performance for the Oklahoma City University School of Theatre — was facing uncommon circumstances when he first took the stage in Oklahoma Shakespeare's "Blithe Spirit."

"It's pretty unusual. It's really unusual for a director to step in ... to play the lead role," Marsh told The Oklahoman. "But at least I had 48 hours. So, it's not the most horrible story of an understudy situation."

Just two days before opening night for its production of Noel Coward's ghostly comedy, Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park again was haunted by the specter of COVID-19. After experiencing an outbreak among the cast of its September production of "Hamlet" — a show-scuttling development that cost the nonprofit arts organization $20,000 — the small professional theater got word that its lead actor for "Blithe Spirit" had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how Oklahoma Shakespeare worked quickly to revive its "Blithe Spirit," an enduring Broadway and London comedy that deserves to be a spooky season smash for the enduring theater company:

'We can't afford to cancel'

Tyler Woods was prepared to fall on his proverbial sword.

After weeks of preparation and rehearsals, Oklahoma Shakespeare's executive producer, along with Kathryn McGill, the company's executive and artistic director and co-founder, got the bad news on Oct. 19: Greg White, the lead actor for "Blithe Spirit," was sick with COVID-19 and would be unable to play the part when the show opened in two days for its three-week run.

Moments later, Woods, McGill and Marsh were on a conference call discussing their options.

"I volunteered. I said, 'I'll do it,' and then Lance said, 'No, you shouldn't do it. I know the play, I've been directing it, I should do it.' And I thought, 'Oh, thank God,'" Woods said with a smile.

After losing so much box-office opportunity just a month earlier with "Hamlet," McGill said the theater didn't have much choice but to adhere to the old show-biz creed "the show must go on."

"We just said, 'We can't afford to cancel; we gotta keep going,'" she said.

With Marsh shifting from director to actor, McGill immediately took over as director.

"There was still technical stuff to do: a bunch of stuff with the lights to set, with the set still being finished and a few prop issues. ... Kathryn immediately stepped in and was giving me really useful acting notes on the first night, while we were still still trying to figure out what clothes I was going to wear," said Marsh, Oklahoma Shakespeare's associate artistic director.

"Greg's taller than I am. But we're built pretty similar, and the last three months, I lost about 35 pounds. It was just good for my health, but I'm so thankful that I did, because I fit in his pants. And I was like, 'Yes!' ... So, very little alteration had to be done to almost all the pieces, which was incredibly lucky.

"Because, really, there was 48 hours between when we knew and when we were going to put it up from an audience."

'I had been in the room soaking it up'

With such a tight turnaround, Marsh said he felt that stepping away from the director's chair and donning Charles Condomine's smoking jacket was the best option for keeping the show on schedule.

"Tyler's a tremendous actor, and I have absolutely no doubt that he would be fabulous picking this up. But I was able to pick up as many of the lines as I did in as short a time as I did because I had been in the room soaking it up," Marsh said.

"To put an actor in cold off the street means I've got to re-block the whole show in 48 hours, and that's going to disrupt everybody else in the cast. But I blocked the show, so I knew where he was going most of the time ... and occasionally the other actors pushed me over to the couch. ... I mean, either Tyler or I were gonna fall on our sword on this one, but it just made sense because my sword was a lot smaller on this one."

'We just decided we would embrace the chaos'

Like most Coward comedies, "Blithe Spirit" is known for its witty banter and fast-paced dialogue, Marsh knew he wouldn't be off-book — or have all the lines memorized for the lead role — in time for opening weekend. He would have to initially perform with a script in hand for easy reference.

That's never an ideal situation for a professional theater, and that meant letting ticketholders in on the situation. McGill said the company opted to adopt "The Show Must Go On" as the theme for opening weekend and offer complimentary hors d'oeuvres to those audiences to create a kind of party atmosphere.

"Since we were trying something new, we just decided we would embrace the chaos and really tout the fact that Lance was stepping in and would be using the book part of the time. We contacted our friends over at the Paseo Grill, and they put together the food. So, it was just kind of an 'embrace of the chaos' kind of moment," McGill said.

Since the theater had just secured its liquor license, Woods said it seemed like the perfect time to roll out its full bar options, with his friend Henri Bailey, former co-owner of 51st Street Speakeasy, debuting as Oklahoma Shakespeare's bar manager and bartender.

"One of the things that you notice is that the characters in this show ... drink probably 15 cocktails in the first act alone. So, I just noticed that our bar sales were pretty high, especially for cocktails. It's like the power of suggestion," Woods said with a chuckle. "With a professional bartender behind the bar, you can get a really good martini here yourself after you watch Charles Condomine drink four of them."

'It may not have been optimal, but I think it's working out'

With one performance under his proverbial belt and the audience already laughing, Marsh stepped on to the stage and up to vintage liquor cart with confidence at the Oct. 22 show. Coward's famed 1941 farce chronicles the chaos as Marsh's Charles Condomine invites an oddball medium named Madame Arcati (the delightful Roberta Sloan) to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to use the experience to inform his new book.

Instead, the writer is haunted by the spirit of his deceased yet still temperamental first wife, Elvira (Lydia Gray, in an entertaining Oklahoma Shakespeare debut), who is displeased with his decision to remarry. Elvira sets out to disrupt Charles' marriage to his second wife, Ruth (Krapff, who equals her excellent turn in Oklahoma Shakespeare's last Coward production, 2017's "Private Lives"), who can neither see nor hear Elvira's ghost.

"The cast are so great, and they immediately ... jumped on my bandwagon," Marsh said.

Setting aside the script to mix the characters' many cocktails, Marsh only occasionally referenced the book Oct. 22, but he did use it during some of the more madcap scenes at the end of the first act and middle of the second.

"I wouldn't recommend this to anybody — except to the audience, because I don't think the show's in any way hurt by it. In fact, in some odd way, maybe it's even helped a little bit because I was able to sort of get in and drive from the inside. But I wouldn't recommend this to any actor because ... I don't feel like I own the role yet; I still feel like I'm sort of renting it from Greg," Marsh said.

"But the show needed this at this point — and the company needed this at this point. So, it may not have been optimal, but I think it's working out."

To the astonishment of his director, Marsh announced just a few days after successfully running the opening-weekend gauntlet that he was off book and ready to get more into the "Blithe Spirit" of the entertaining comedy's remaining performances, which continue through Nov. 5.

"Frankly, I'm just amazed. He's such a fast study, because he learned it and now he's got it down line by line," McGill said.

"Now, he'll start having more fun. I think he's having fun, but I think he can have more fun. ... And when you see an actor really enjoying what they're doing, it makes all the difference in the world."

OKLAHOMA SHAKESPEARE'S 'BLITHE SPIRIT'

When: Through Nov. 5.

Where: Oklahoma Shakespeare's indoor black box theater, 2920 Paseo.

Tickets: https://www.okshakes.org.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Theater went to unusual lengths to save 'Blithe Spirit' after COVID