Tony Award winning play comes home

The Alpine Theatre Project brings Terrence McNally’s Tony Award winning “Master Class” back to its Flathead Valley birthplace with Tony Award nominee and Broadway actress Barbara Walsh taking on the part of opera diva Maria Callas.

McNally completed “Master Class” in 1994 during the last season of The Gathering in Bigfork. The Gathering was a writing workshop for established playwrights started by the Bigfork Summer Playhouse in 1990.

“New plays or well-established plays always start somewhere,” Walsh said. “And you never know when something is going to take off.”

One of the founders and organizers of the workshop, Muffie Thomson, said the idea was to create a low pressure atmosphere for playwrights to work on plays and bounce ideas off their colleagues without critics looking over their shoulders.

“‘Master Class’ is a perfect example of what can be created in a safe place,” Thomson said.

McNally created the play with Zoe Caldwell in mind for the part of Callas. Thomson said Caldwell was in Bigfork working through the play with McNally during the 1994 Gathering.

The play debuted on Broadway in 1995. Caldwell won a Tony for her performance and McNally was awarded a Tony for his play.

Last year “Master Class” made a revival on the Broadway stage with Tyne Daly taking the part of Callas.

“Master Class” portrays the life of Callas as she runs the next generation of opera singers through her Juilliard School master classes in the 1970s.

Director of the Alpine Theatre Project production of the play, David Akroyd, said the play uses the master classes to work its way through Callas’s life — as she became a huge star (nicknamed “La Divina,” the God-given), lost 80 pounds and her voice, and left her husband for the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who later left her for Jacqueline Kennedy.

“She (Callas) changed the face of Opera,” Akroyd said. “Because she sang beautifully, but not all the time, because she felt that always singing beautifully couldn’t express the range of emotions.”

This is Walsh’s second time playing the opera diva, and said the role of Callas is something she feels she can relate to as an actress.

Walsh performed in a Papermill Playhouse production of “Master Class” in 2009. She also starred in Broadway productions of “Blood Brothers,” “Nine,” “Hairspray” and “Company.” Her Tony Award nomination came from a starring role in the William Finn musical “Falsettos.”

As a singer and an actress, Walsh has often had to act and sing at the same time. It’s not easy to do and it’s something Walsh said Callas wholeheartedly threw herself into.

During “Master Class’s” first season on Broadway, Walsh went to see the play with her husband and said it absolutely blew her away.

“I think it’s an omage to artists,” Walsh said. “I think Terrence McNally has written something that represents what we’re all trying to do. Maria Callas had an incredible way of investing herself in her arias, in the roles that she played.”