NCSA Publishes Book Celebrating West Side Story
By Haley Dreis
NCSA found a way to keep the excitement of West Side Story alive by sharing and celebrating the memories.
John Mauceri and Donald Dietz share the story with 150 full-color photographs accompanied by an introduction, a prologue and an epilogue in NCSA’s recently published book, “Celebrating West Side Story.”
It was a unique project - NCSA has never published a book before and has no documentation of prior all-school productions, like Brigadoon (1996).
Lee Thompson, interim Director of Marketing, has 32 years of experience in book publishing with Random House and is a lecturer at New York University. She said there were three reasons why NCSA published the book. “We wanted to capture the process of doing an all-school production for the first time because so much work goes into it. We also wanted to show how much goes into the students and staff putting on a major production. And it happened to be the 50th anniversary celebration of West Side Story,” said Thompson.
To premiere its first book, NCSA created the North Carolina School of the Arts Press, which is an imprint of the North Carolina School of the Arts Foundation, Inc.
The project began in fall 2007 after Donald Dietz was hired to photograph Melissa Hayden’s Tribute performance. The following week, John Mauceri asked him to take pictures of the beginnings of the West Side Story auditions.
“It was kind of just happening in front of me,” Dietz said. “When I first saw the campus, my first impression was about the students: the dancing, rehearsing, performing. But then, different doors started opening. I got to see D&P.”
Mauceri and Dietz looked through 3,000 photographs as they went along with the project. With so many photos to choose from in such little time, Mauceri and Dietz were thoughtful in their process of picking the right ones.“You let it unfold in front of you,” explained Dietz. “You’re not trying to stage it. You’re on a fishing expedition - you’ll catch a bunch before you get to the good ones. But you don’t want to ignore the small moments. The small moments flesh out the big moments.”
After the book was published it was first promoted at several book signings after NCSA’s production of the Nutcracker and at Chelsea’s Coffee. It was then promoted to students, parents and alumni.
The NCSA Press was not able to distribute the book through major booksellers, like Barnes and Noble and Borders. “It’s complicated,” said Thompson. “We could sell it in town but our press is not a national distributor. We [made it available to order] on the West Side Story website. But in future books, I hope to see a relationship with Borders and Barnes and Noble.”
According to Michelle Snow, Assistant to the Chief Advancement Officer, close to one-third of the 3,000 available copies have been sold and distributed. As of January 4th, 600 books have been sold.
Money to produce the book came from the NCSA Foundation. Revenue will pay for the book and 100% of the profits will go to scholarships. “The value of the book transcends the cost because we are a performing arts school. We rarely have a physical representation of what we do and we don’t have objects to show that,” said Mauceri.
“As you go through the pages, you relive the experience. It truly captures the essence of West Side Story and the school,” said Thompson. “It’s not just about ballet shoes,” said Dietz. “I learned about the capabilities of the school, the people, the generosity of spirit, and how kids barely out of high-school devote themselves.”
Mauceri and Dietz have already teamed up to work on their next project, titled “The Stuff of Dreams,” alluding to Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The idea behind the book is capturing pictures of tools and materials NCSA artists use in their art everyday; “stuff” they touch to learn what it is they do. Examples include paintbrushes, ballet shoes, musical instruments, etc.
“This is the next book,” says Mauceri. “It’s just a question of time, awareness and support for more books.”
info:
144 pages, 8 x 12.5, 150 color photographs
ISBN: 978-0-9617507-0-1 Hardcover: $50, plus $8.50 shipping and handling
ISBN: 978-0-9617507-1-8 Paperback $30,plus $7.50 shipping and handling
To order by phone, call 336-770-1437.
Visit www.ncarts.edu/wssbook for information and order forms.
1 Comments
