Broadway-sized production adapts to play in tiny South End theater

By Chris Tanaka, WBZ-TV

BOSTON -- A Broadway-sized production is now playing inside a tiny theater in Boston's South End. The Huntington's Calderwood Pavilion only seats 370 people, that's 75 percent smaller than most Broadway theaters.

The new musical "Sing Street," based on the 2016 coming-of-age dramedy, is the largest production ever to play on the Calderwood stage.

Calderwood Pavilion Operations Supervisor Taylor Ness told WBZ-TV the building is intended for smaller productions, and the challenge with Sing Street is just fitting everything in the building.

"There's a bunch of guitars and instruments and lights and sound that we that are all on a larger scale than we're used to producing here," he said. 

The story is a simple one: an Irish teen and his classmates escape their troubles by forming a band to impress a girl. 

Telling that story in a smaller space can be a challenge.

With backstage space at a premium, actor Jack DiFalco said, "The choreography that's on stage is just as heavy onstage as it is backstage".

Actor Alexa Xioufaridou Moster agreed. "You have to know exactly where you're going and every nook and cranny is kind of you know being filled by someone changing or picking up a prop or whatnot. So it is it's like a science back there," she said. 

The cast and crew love the intimacy of the theater and say it's more immersive than you'd experience on Broadway.

"Sing Street" has extended its run by one week and is now playing at the Calderwood through October 9th.