Four Corners Musical Theatre Company kicks off busy summer season with 'Spamalot!'

FARMINGTON — While it may have few adherents today, nobody remains a bigger fan of the slow-burn comedy style than Farmington Civic Center director and Four Corners Musical Theatre Company director Randy West.

And nobody was ever better at producing slow-burn comedy than Monty Python, the legendary troupe of British comics and actors whose weekly antics were transmitted across the pond to the Colonies via PBS in the 1970s and 1980s.

West, like many other socially challenged teenage boys of his era, was a faithful viewer of that program, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” every Saturday night while many of his classmates were out wasting gasoline, directing awkward pickup lines at girls and desperately trying to find someone to buy them a six pack.

Years later, he feels like that weekly, late-night appointment with his television left him with an invaluable perspective on contemporary humor.

“Right now, everything you watch in regard to comedy, even good comedy, is, the joke is there – BOOM! – and then it’s on to something else,” West said. “But Monty Python was this comedy slow burn that was like going around the barn … and going around the barn again … and going around the barn again. When you’d think something couldn’t get any funnier, it got funnier and built on itself.”

That slow-burn style will be dished out in abundance over the next two weekends as the Four Corners Musical Theatre Company presents “Monty Python’s Spamalot!” – a musical based largely on the legend of King Arthur as related in the 1975 film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” though it does include other celebrated Python bits.

Years removed from his adolescence, West remains a dedicated and unapologetic Python fan, though he acknowledges the humor isn’t for everyone. If it is for you, he said, you’re in for a treat.

“It was something that suited our core set of talent, and everybody wanted to do it,” he said, explaining why he chose “Spamalot!” to kick off the company’s busy summer season, when it will stage three productions in a little more than 60 days.

“It’s got all the classic funny bits,” West said for those unfamiliar with the play, which was written by troupe member Eric Idle, one of the stars of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

That includes plenty of obnoxious and taunting French soldiers, a Trojan rabbit, a killer rabbit, a catapult, a once-imposing Black Knight slowly reduced to multiple-amputee status, a Las Vegas-style Camelot, coconuts in lieu of horses, the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch and, of course, plenty of tap dancing.

“All the bits are there,” West said, noting that the over-the-top style of the production was Idle’s way of spoofing America’s Broadway, an institution he apparently believed never had the slightest clue about subtlety.

In licensing the show, the Four Corners Musical Theatre Company also has gained the right to use Idle’s recorded narration and the Python multimedia elements that match those used in the film.

While the sets for the production are rather simple, the costumes are anything but, West said, explaining that there are approximately 320 costumes for the 30 cast members, with most of the actors playing multiple parts and changing their attire for every appearance onstage. The production stars Sean McCall as King Arthur; Tanner Berry as Sir Robin, Brother Maynard and a guard; and company regular Matt Aaron playing Sir Lancelot, the Knight of Ni and Tim the Enchanter.

As always, those veteran, professional actors are accompanied by a long list of other professionals from around the country and 10 local actors, part of a group that West has been training over the four years since he founded the company.

“I’m interested in building something that serves the City of Farmington, that defines what Farmington is,” he said, describing his approach to developing a company that helps establish the city as a regional cultural center.

When he selects the professional actors he’ll be working with across the hectic summer season, West said, he makes sure they understand they aren’t being selected for the work strictly on the basis of talent. He also expects them to help mentor those young, local actors who will be working alongside them in secondary roles. Most of all, he expects them to be nice.

“If you’re not any one of those things, don’t take this contract,” West said he advises his professionals. “ … I don’t allow mean talk in this company. It’s like a whole summer where we do that acting exercise where you fall back and someone catches you. We are catching each other all summer. … I run this company like a family.”

His long-term aim in providing such a nurturing atmosphere, West said, is to create a large and well-trained group of local actors, technicians and other crew members who can parlay those experiences into an eventual, full-time career in live theater if they so choose. That not only adds depth and talent to his own company, he said, it offers a new career path to local creative types that may not have been readily accessible before the company’s founding.

West said 40 local kids will be featured in the production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” that the company will present in August, while the crew of professional actors visiting Farmington in July to perform “Into the Woods” will be teaching acting, dance and vocal classes during the day throughout the month.

Those outreach efforts don’t stop there. West said a production company is considering licensing his original play “Celebrate Sondheim” that was premiered by the company this spring for a national tour. And a nationally touring version of “A Christmas Carol” coming to the Farmington Civic Center during the holiday season will be rehearsed extensively here before it is performed, then taken on the road.

“It’s a new adaptation featuring the Four Corners Musical Theatre Company creative staff,” he said. “They’ll build their show here over 12 days and do their first two shows here. Then, we’ll pack them up in a truck, and, basically, they’ll out to out and do six weeks of shows.”

Additionally, West continues to book nationally touring acts and other shows for the Civic Center, including a steady group of Broadway veterans and Nashville stars such as Colin Raye, who will deliver a free July 4 concert at the Civic Center Plaza. Early next year, the Civic Center will be one of the first venues in the country to feature “Johnny Cash – The Official Concert Experience,” a production mounted in collaboration with the singer’s estate and featuring narration by his son John Carter Cash.

“We’re getting known to have a national reputation,” West said. “ … That’s kind of what the city hoped would happen – that people are going out and letting people know Farmington is a pretty cool place culturally.”

The Four Corners Musical Theatre Company will present its production of “Monty Python’s Spamalot!” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 8 through Saturday, June 10 and at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 11 at the Farmington Civic Center, 200 W. Arrington St. Performances continue June 15 through June 18. Tickets are $14 and $18 at fmtn.org/shows.

Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com.

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This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: 'Monty Python's Spamalot!' opens two-week run at Civic Center