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Flynn Hanners:SSpringfield “Muni Man”
By: Lisa RigoniAny performer will tell you that Cole Porter’s “Another Op’nin, Another Show” really does describe opening night of a production. “… a chance for stage folks to say hello! Another op’nin of another show. Another job that you hope will last, will make your future forget your past, another pain where the ulcers grow, another op’nin of another show.
“Four weeks, you rehearse and rehearse. Three weeks, and it couldn’t be worse. One week, will it ever be right? Then out of the hat it’s that big first night. The overture is about to start. You cross your fingers and hold your heart. It’s curtain time and away we go – Another op’nin, just another op’nin of another show!”
For the Springfield Municipal Opera Association, there were four shows opened multiple times in the 2009 season, “Oliver,” “The Producers,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and Disney High School Musical.”
Flynn Hanners is the “Muni Man,” and it’s only appropriate that I first met him on The Muni stage. As the current president of this popular, long-time community theater program, Hanners spends many hours at the site. We sat near the concession stand on the 55-acre property where upwards of 40,000 people visit each summer from near and far to experience some of the best musical theater productions. In fact, in 2008 The Muni welcomed its one millionth visitor, 59 years after the “Merry Widow” cast took the stage with the Muni’s first production on June 17, 1950.
While Hanners is not a Springfield native and has moved around the country, he does call Springfield home. Hanners and wife, Bev, have been married 35 years. “We’ve been here for 25 of those years. My granddaughters (Madison, 3, and Rhynn, 5) are here. Both my sons are here. Casey is a senior at University of Illinois at Springfield and Devlin is a sophomore at Williamsville High School. This is home.” It is where Flynn Hanners continues his professional career (24th year) with the Illinois State Police. He is a Master Sergeant. “I always wanted to be a police officer.
“The first 15 years of my professional life I was in radio,” said Hanners. Anyone who has had the privilege of listening to the smooth deep tones of his voice as he talks could easily imagine him at the microphone of a radio station. He has served a number of markets, including Memphis, Denver, St. Louis and a brief stint in New York. However, it was his childhood dream to be a police officer that brought him to central Illinois. “I was 34 years old and had always wanted to be a police officer – from the time I was 5 years old. My brothers, Mother and Father said it’s all I ever talked about, wanting to be a police officer or sheriff. I tried radio and it was successful, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to help people,” he said. “I had gotten to know a number of Illinois State Police officers and it seemed like what they did … help people. So I decided I was going to take a shot at it and it has worked out.”
He arrived in Springfield in December 1985 and joined the Police Academy in June 1986. “I went through the process, through the training, and everything was fine. It all seemed to fall into place like it was meant to be,” he said.
His Muni Role His work with the Illinois State Police is not the only thing that has come together for him. He enjoys the other role he plays in helping people, his involvement with The Springfield Muni. “We do so much at The Muni that brings families together and gets people out to the community,” he said. “If we can bring somebody out here to a beautiful site on the lake and provide them with a great show to get their minds off their problems, even for just a little while, that helps them, and it also helps the community. It’s a way to give back. If you’ve got the ability to make somebody laugh or make somebody smile, then you should do that.”
The Muni is run by volunteers, and it takes a lot of them to produce the summer entertainment. For example, the 2009 season of “High School Musical” included more than 40 cast members, a six-member orchestra, director, assistant director, producer, vocal director, choreographer, casting choreographer, musical director, accompanist, master builder, scene designer, artistic designer, 11 people on the set crew, 10 people to run concessions, eight ushers, two costume mistresses, a props designer, two stage managers, a lighting designer, make-up designer, six make-up artists and a production coordinator. That doesn’t necessarily include the children, spouses, friends and neighbors of those directly involved, who come out on clean up days pre- and post-show season, provide transportation to and from rehearsals or businesses that provide materials and support other things necessary to pull a show together, and these numbers represent only one show.
Each summer The Muni entertains audiences with four shows, each performed eight times, weather permitting. Announcements of auditions typically are made in February, auditions held in March and rehearsals for the first show begins shortly there-after. Each show typically has eight weeks of rehearsal prior to opening night, and often rehearsals are from 6:30 – 9:30 p.m., and the number of rehearsals one is involved in depends on the role for which they are rehearsing. The more speaking lines, dances, scene appearances and special music numbers, the more rehearsals one has. And during tech week, the last week leading up to the show, when everything comes together, the rehearsals are typically longer and more frequent for the entire cast and crew. “It’s a big commitment, yet we have people return each year. Some on stage, some backstage or helping in other ways,” Hanners said. “It’s really a family … the Muni family. And all are welcomed! And all ages are involved … depending on the season’s shows, we could have young children, as we did in 2005 for ‘Sound of Music’ and we often have actors/actresses in their 70s. There is something for everyone.”
The Muni also has an active Board of Trustees with eight men and women serving and an active 21-member Board of Managers, and four non-board committee chairs. “We are fortunate to have so many who care about the arts in our area,” said Hanners. “And we have capacity for 2300 people to watch a show. We had 9,106 people came to out to see ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ We were pleased with that. All the shows have done well this year. We have a great deal of talent that performs on our stage.
“The Muni stage is 36 feet wide and that is about 10 feet wider than normal indoor theaters and does not include the wings when the pit is covered,” said Hanners. Hanners has not been in a show this year. He felt his main commitment as president was enough. But he has made more than one appearance through the years. Hanners’ initial involvement in theater, locally, came in 2002. While a speech and theater major in college, it wasn’t until the 2002 season that he took the stage in Springfield. He auditioned for “Mame” and got the role of Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, a role which Hanners says was played on Broadway by Robert Preston. “He (Preston) has been very good to me,” laughs Hanners of Preston who also played the “Music Man’s” Harold Hill on Broadway and in the reprised 1962 film version. Hanners’ most recent role was Harold Hill in the 2008 Muni production of “Music Man.” The audition for “Mame” was the first time I had opened my mouth in front of people here … I was getting back into theater,” said Hanners.
Through the years he has entertained often at The Muni, Petersburg’s Theater in the Park and the Springfield Theater. Shows Hanners has performed in, in addition to “Music Man” and “Mame,” include: “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Calamity Jane,” Brigadoon,” “Once Upon a Mattress” and “Guys and Dolls.”
The Muni continues to produce four shows a season and each summer The Muni audience continues to grow even in this time of a stressed economy. According to The Muni Web site: “Shows are supported by sponsors, enthusiastic audiences, and each year has a dedicated and talented corps of volunteers onstage and backstage. The Muni has become one of the largest community theaters in the Midwest (and is a 501(c)3 organization.) We believe that we are the largest organization of our type in the country that is completely self-supporting, dependent neither on grants nor tax dollars.”
Plans are already underway to screen potential shows for the 2009-2010 season. “It isn’t simply a matter of deciding which show you want to do and ordering it. It’s an entire process with feedback from a number of people. Then directors have to be assigned. And typically one has to have directing experience before taking on a Muni production. Hanners hopes to achieve that some day. Auditions have to take place. Casting has to be done. Rehearsals have to be set. Sets have to be built. Costumes have to be made. Tech, stage, light and sound crews have to be secured, as does licensing of the productions and that’s just a short list of what goes into the planning.
“It’s all worth it!” says Hanners. “It’s all worth it!”
