‘Ka’ conductor’s musical ‘ACE’ set to premiere

As legendary Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim once observed, musicals aren't written, they're rewritten.

Just ask Richard Oberacker.

His "day" job: conducting Cirque du Soleil's "Ka" at the MGM Grand.

But Oberacker's other creative identity — as a creator of musicals — comes to the fore this weekend with "ACE."

Presented in a concert staging by Nevada Conservatory Theatre at UNLV's Judy Bayley Theatre, "ACE" is both a premiere — and a rewrite.

On a recent afternoon at Oberacker's high-rise abode, however, it's a rehearsal, with several cast members gathered around his grand piano, scores on stands in front of them, as the composer conducts their interpretations of his music.

"Wow, you guys," Oberacker reacts after one impassioned number. "Holy mackerel. Really, really, really great."

It's the latest version of a musical that made its world premiere run, starting in 2006, at several regional theaters, from San Diego's Old Globe to Signature Theatre of Arlington, Va.

The theaters invested "millions of dollars into those productions," Oberacker says, and "there was a lot of hype to go on to New York."

He and Robert Taylor, with whom he co-wrote "ACE's" book and lyrics, "didn't want to be ungrateful," he says, but they "were pleading for some sort of time to fix our musical."

Both the past and present versions of "ACE" focus on the leading character's search for clues to his mother's hidden past — a search that leads him to a generation-spanning saga involving ace fighter pilots who fought in both World Wars.

In "ACE's" previous incarnation, the leading character was a troubled 10-year-old who puts together the pieces of his fractured family background in a dream world.

Making the main character so young, however, proved "a crucial mistake," Oberacker says. As a result, the first "ACE" tried to blend "an incredibly epic story" of wartime aviators — and the women who love them — with the boy's dream world.

So, following Chicago and New York workshops, private readings in Las Vegas and in consultation with London-based director John Caird (whose credits include the original "Les Miserables"), "ACE's" protagonist has grown up.

The character is now 21 years old and better able to chart his own course through his family's complicated past.

"Not only did we smash the book in a million pieces, we threw out 60 percent of the score," Oberacker says. "And the truth of the matter is, the new 60 percent is some of my best stuff."

Directing this weekend's concert staging: David H. Bell, who helmed the Chicago workshop at the American Musical Theater Project, which Oberacker describes as "the first stop on the reconstruction tour."

This weekend's performers include several veterans of previous "ACE" incarnations.

Tina Walsh (whose Las Vegas credits include "Mamma Mia!" and "Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular"), currently on a summer break from "Phantom of the Opera's" international tour, plays the protagonist's grandmother, Ruth. Niki Scalera (whose credits range from Broadway's "Hairspray" to Las Vegas' "We Will Rock You"), meanwhile, portrays a younger version of Ruth.

Compared with "the last time I did it, a couple of years ago," the show is "more streamlined now," Scalera says. "It's way more to the point."

In the workshop, Scalera played Elizabeth, the mother of "ACE's" young protagonist Danny.

In this weekend's production, Nicole Kaplan portrays Elizabeth; the role marks a definite change from her "comedy relief" function in "Steve Wynn's ShowStoppers."

Kaplan has "made a career of playing kids, princesses and animals," she says — unlike "ACE's" Elizabeth, who's "a mother with substance abuse issues, a widow. It's a lot in one character."

Devin Archer (who appeared in the Tropicana's "Mamma Mia!") played the World War I-generation flying ace in the Chicago workshop; this weekend, he'll be the World War II-era title character, while Joseph DeBenedetto plays the World War I pilot.

Anchoring "ACE," however, is third-year UNLV graduate student Sam Cordes, whose Nevada Conservatory Theatre productions include the musicals "Grease and "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" and Shakespeare's "As You Like It."

Playing Danny represents "a great opportunity for a young up-and-comer to be involved" with professional performers, Cordes says. (He's not the only young up-and-comer in the show; Gary Easton, an eighth-grader at Hyde Park Middle School, plays Danny as a boy.)

Similarly, staging "ACE" represents an opportunity for NCT, UNLV's professional theater training program, to showcase "people who came here with a show, but who have got this creative itch," according to Christopher Edwards, its artistic director.

He first heard Oberacker's songs at the monthly Composers Showcase at The Smith Center's Cabaret Jazz.

"I think we're in a great position at the university to try to develop this new work," Edwards says.

Musicals "can come from anywhere," says Oberacker, whose musical "Bandstand" — another collaboration with Taylor — began at the Composers Showcase and is scheduled to premiere in October at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse, with an eye toward a future Broadway run.

"My life is here because of Cirque," Oberacker says. "I'm not going anywhere. If you want my stuff, you've got to come here."

For more stories from Carol Cling go to bestoflasvegas.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.