GILROY
– With how many times he’s taken the stage over the years, you
would think it would take a lot to make Rod Pintello nervous.
GILROY – With how many times he’s taken the stage over the years, you would think it would take a lot to make Rod Pintello nervous.
That’s until you put him in the director’s chair.
But after playing in role after role for more than 20 years, Pintello is doing just that with the Pintello Comedy Theatre’s second-ever show, “Let’s Murder Marsha,” which opens at 8 p.m. Friday night at the Calvary Chapel, 8531 Church St. in Gilroy.
“I’ve been in 30-plus shows, and I’ve always been comfortable knowing I couldn’t do this,” said Pintello as his seven actors prepared to run through a dress rehearsal of the play’s second act Tuesday night at the chapel. “I can only direct the shows I’ve been in before. … But that gives me lots of options.”
But Pintello is getting a lot of help for his directorial debut, and that’s just coming from his family. He’s gotten advice from both his daughter, Whitney Pintello-McClelland, who also has directing experience, and his wife, Marion, who has directed many shows, including the comedy theater’s first play, “Holiday Snap,” two months ago.
“She’s so diplomatic,” Rod Pintello said of Marion. “She catches a lot of things. I’m so blessed to have that back-up with my wife and Whitney.”
Marion said her husband is doing all right.
“We talk about every bit of it,” she said. “He’s nervous, but I think he’s doing good.”
In order to get a better feel for what was happening on stage, Pintello made a cardboard model of the set, using Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs figures as the characters to practice who came on and who came off the stage.
“I just had to figure out who was Dopey and who was Grumpy,” he joked. “I have to play with it.
“It’s a challenge to keep them moving around the space,” Pintello said of the challenge of directing a play that entirely takes place in a single room. “A lot of coming on and going off – timing is everything. If it’s not moving at a pretty good clip, it’s not funny. Slow is not funny.”
The play “Let’s Murder Marsha,” written by Monk Ferris and presented by arrangement with Samuel French, LTD, is set in a Manhatten, N.Y., apartment, where Marsha Gilmore, played by Rebecca Little, mistakes her husband talking about her surprise birthday gift and thinks instead that he is trying to have her killed. John Fletcher plays the role of Marsha’s husband, Tobias Gilmore; Cara Kaiser is a maid; Rosemary Benevento plays Persis Devore, an interior decorator; Steve Bauman plays the couple’s neighbor; Joline Grimes plays Marsha’s mother; and Peter Svensson plays a police officer – all of whom get mixed up in the plot.
By the time the actors had run through the dress rehearsal Tuesday, Pintello had two pages of notes scribbled down in black pen to go over with the actors. Sure, they missed some cues, said names wrong a few times and completely forgot pages 28 through 30, but Pintello knows it will all come together by Friday.
“Yeah, there was some stuff missing, but no one would have known,” he told his actors as he went through the notes with them, chiding them for missing cues, but congratulating them for quick recoveries.
“Looking good, looking good. That’s all I got for you tonight,” he said to his actors as the clock neared 10:30 p.m. “You’re doing great.”
But that wasn’t assuring for Fletcher, who may be just as nervous as Pintello is about the show. He’s still worried he won’t have his lines down in time for the show.
“I’ve never been the best at it,” Fletcher said. “I know it takes time.”
Fletcher has been practicing his lines for six weeks and sometimes works on his lines for five hours in a day, but really wanted to have a few more days to get ready.
“You always feel that if you had one more week …” said Fletcher, who despite being a theater veteran hasn’t been on the stage for more than 12 years before this show.
Fletcher has known the Pintello family for about 20 years, dating back to when they were working on Center Stage, a comedy club run by Russ Hendrickson and was the lead actor in the play “Chapter Two,” directed by Marion Pintello in the late 1980s.
“They’re stupendous people,” he said.
Fletcher also knows that he will be fine come Friday. He has learned that when the Pintellos call someone to ask them to be in a show, that it is because they are perfect for the part.
“If you get a call from them, you know it will work,” he said. “They’ve done a lot of homework before they make the call.”
Fletcher said Pintello is doing a fine job in his first attempt directing.
“As far as I’m concerned, he makes no mistakes,” he said. “He has a way about him of keeping people up.”
That easily can be seen when Pintello light-heartedly goes through his notes with the actors.
“You know you’re being chewed out, but it’s hard to feel that way,” Fletcher said. “He doesn’t make you feel bad.”
Being an actor himself, Pintello knows getting it just right isn’t easy.
“I’ve never been known to be the first one to have their lines down,” he said.
None of the actors that were in the first Pintello production are making appearances in “Let’s Murder Marsha,” but that is by design, Pintello said.
“I think it’s half the reason we wanted to do this here,” said Pintello, who remembers writing down a list of people they thought might want to work for them when they first decided that they would open the theater company.
“We wrote 70 names down like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “There’s a ton of people who fit different roles. We have a huge pool of veteran actors here that like to do these shows.”
And Pintello hopes that he and his wife can keep producing them. When they first moved into the chapel in Gilroy, they got a six month lease, which will run out after the Pintellos’ third show, “I Take This Man,” which will open May 30 and go through June. At that point, the Pintellos will decide whether to extend their lease and ensure that the comedy theater is here to stay.
“We’re trying to rubber stamp that last show,” Pintello said. “If things go like they did for ‘Holiday Snap,’ we’ll know we can make a go of it.
Details
Showtimes: 8 p.m.on Friday, Saturday, March 28, 29, April 4, 5, 11, 12, 18,19
Where: Pintello Comedy Theater
8531 Church St.
Info: For tickets, call 776-8004 or e-mail pi******@ga****.com
A special presentation of ‘Let’s Murder Marsha’ will be at 8 p.m. April 10 at the Pintello Comedy Theater. Tickets for the show will be $20 with the money raised for the show going to Project Hope, an Eastern Star program benefitting cancer research. For tickets to this show or to make a donation to Project Hope, call John Fletcher at 779-8042 before April 3.
