Memorable Star Returns to Hometown Stage as Director of Anything Goes

When the call came, Matt Capodicasa dismissed it. After pounding the proverbial pavement for two years trying to make it as an actor, the last thing he wanted to consider was getting further entrenched in acting or theater.

"I was disillusioned with acting and a lot of business crap that goes on," Capodicasa said. "It’s a tough business and I realize that it wasn’t enough for me."

On the other end of the line was Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School's Choral Director Laurie Wellman who was tasked with finding a way to put on SPFHS Repertoire Theatre’s 2011 production of Hairspray.

"She thought it would be cool if we got some former students to come back and direct," Capodicasa said. “After she called me and I said no, so she called me again and she told me to think about it.”

The production, as Capodicasa recalls, was in danger of being killed unless a director was found. But Capodicasa had already moved on from acting, had found a full time job as an operations manager in a New York ad agency, lived in the city, and was working on "other projects” from which he would have even less time to devote if he said yes. And, he said, “I didn’t know if it was a good step or I was just being stupid (by turning it down)," Capodicasa said.

As it turns out, Capodicasa now admits that both of those thoughts were true.  Capodicasa, 25, is a graduate of Scotch Plains Fanwood High School, where he played various theater roles in productions such as West Side Story, for which he garnered a Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Award nomination, Les Misérables (another Rising Star nomination), Footloose and Mame.

Theater, however, not acting, is Capodicasa’s passion. His “other projects” are what he considers his true passion -  writing plays and fiction - all reflective of the art of creative expression.

Now the second year into his directing foray, the more one considers Capodicasa’s writing passion - essentially a theater support role - the more returning to SPFHS Repertoire to direct makes perfect sense.

Capodicasa graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a major in musical theater and experimental theater. After graduation, he spent two years auditioning for roles but never had much success.

“There are a lot of people involved in theater that are not actors - writers, directors, designers and stage managers who at some point went through their  performance phase,” Capodicasa said. “For me it just took a long time and a lot of education to realize that.”

Capodicasa said yes to the directing proposition mostly because he has become a student of the art of how to tell a story in the theater setting. After all, with a degree and no previous directing experience before last year, what really qualifies him to direct?

“I know musicals, I enjoy working with actors and I have a general enthusiasm for the material - other than that absolutely nothing at all,” Capodicasa quips. “I didn’t even know if I would be any good at it, however, last year’s production was not a complete disaster, let’s put it that way.”

Now on his second production, Anything Goes, Capodicasa is known for his rapport with his acting students. One of the primary reasons Hairspray went off so well, and that the production of Anything Goes promises to do the same, is because of Capodicasa’s approach with his acting talent.

“I can say he is greatest director,” senior actor Matt Kempner. “I have so much freedom to have my own ideas and he incorporates everything I say. There is a lot of freedom to be myself.”

Junior actress Rachel Naugel said: “he really lets us embody our character and asks, ‘what are you thinking not what is your character thinking?’ He helps us put things into perspective and become a character.”

“I started to figure out ways to talk to them that could be common ground,” Capodicasa said. “It was just a case of finding the right language talk to them  and I think I figured that out a little bit.”

Capodicasa likens his directing approach to being a baseball manager, the best of whom make their management influence transparent. They put people in positions to make a few changes, but for the most part they just get out of the way.

“If I can help the students get out of their own way, I think we’ll have a successful performance,” Capodicasa said. “I prefer giving the students a framework and having them discover what they need to do.”

What Capodicasa is describing is, of course, what all good instructors, or teachers, would do. He admits that he has thought about teaching as a profession but is hesitant to commit: “It is an interesting proposition and ‘I don’t know’ is the answer to that question,” he said.

For now the young thespian is concentrating on making Anything Goes a successful production in the eyes of audiences and his students. He is encouraged that will be the case based on his appraisal of the acting talent among his troupe.

“The big difference between when I was a student and now is that the talent is rather impressive,” Capodicasa said. ”I was here for four years and we had some talent but it didn’t run as deep.”

With that depth of talent, his own desire to serve the theater and the fun he appears to be having as the director for the SPFHS Repertory Theatre after returning two years ago, Capodicasa’s goal for the troupe is very simple:

“If I can continue it a little bit and help it along that’s enough for me,” Capodicasa said.