I directed and 
choreographed the Lithuanian premiere of this time-honored musical at the Josef Miltinas National Theatre in Lithuania. The translation of the text was easy…the lyrics were hard! But the actors were amazing. We learned the songs in English and then worked on the translation into Lithuanian together. And translating humor is the most challenging of all! But people worldwide love this musical, and now the Lithuanians can enjoy it as well!
If you are interested, I have kept a journal of the process.
A Testimonial
Working with John was a whole different experience for all of us, because it was a different kind of theatre – a musical theatre which we got to know with John. It’s relatively new in Lithuania, I mean this genre. Lithuanian theatre is orientated towards classical literature, deep metaphorical directing and heavy, many-layered acting which a lot of times causes anxiety, depression, and a sense of unfulfillment for most of us. Because you’re never happy with yourself and the director is never happy with you too, despite all the hours spent to reach a certain result. You live with it. But with John it was like a breeze of refreshment, it was all about having fun, getting joy from working as an actor and of course making the audience happy too, happy experiencing this joy together with us. It was like a SPA for us – actors. He was a constructive as opposed to destructive director despite never-ending disruptions (really, really poorly translated text, laziness of the light department…). He was always positive, always ready to work, never late. His notes were professional and uplifting. It was “It’s fun, I like it, but maybe try this too…” As opposed to “It sucks. Bring something else. With talent this time”. And his suggestions were ALL spot on. Not exaggerating. So, thank you, John, for all of that. For “The Fantasticks” experience, for bringing a little change for us and thank you for being a true gentleman and sorry for everything that was wrong.
Sarunas Januskevicius,
A young Lithuanian actor.
