Mounting a production of a musical an be a difficult project. Mounting a rock opera with the weight, power, and perceptions connected with Tommy can be utterly terrifying.

   Since its birth in 1968, in the form of a concept album by The Who, Tommy has undergone several facelifts and overhauls. In the late sixties, The Who showed us a dark, surreal world which mirrored our own. In the mid seventies, on film, Ken Russell fed the need for visual flamboyance and acid hallucination. In the late eighties, The Who took Tommy on tour and brought it back from a brief hiatus, which sparked the idea to bring the show into the theatre, which is where it belonged in the first place. In 1993, The Who's Tommy became a Broadway smash, and although it can be credited wih introducing a new generation to the music of Pete Townshend, the stage version was lacking in many ways. In a society where people are used to spectacle and special effects, Tommy was served up as the quintessential splashy musical, complete with giant sets, glitz, and pinball machines galore. The problem is that, although supreme entertainment, part of the show was sacrificed.

   This brings us back to the terror inherent in attempting to bring this show to you, the audience. We have tried, in our own small way, to get back to the roots of Tommy: rock n' roll, societal commentary, and theatrical experimentation. We took everything that made up the story of the deaf, dumb, and blind, pinball-playing messiah, and started from scratch, building our own version. It is not easy to willfully pull the rug of stage directions out from under the performers. It is not comforting for an actor to build a character from the ground up, while at the same time make that character work with the momentum and feel of the show. We have, however, done this things, and we hope they are successful.

   This has been an extremely enriching experience for me and, I hope, for the actors. It has truly been a collaborative effort, which is what I believe theatre should be. You may notice that I requested all of the actors to bear the title "Assistant Director" next to their names. they have earned this title, and I thank them for their patience and hard work. I thank you for being witness to our experiment.

   Welcome to Tommy's world, real and surreal; a world where no rules apply, where deaf, dumb, and blind kids sure play a mean pinball. And remember, the television is the mirror of us all. Shall we smash it together?