„That’s Life – The Sinatra-Musical“ is about Sinatra’s incomparable career. In impressive tableaus, it shows his rise to fame, but also addresses the dark side of his glamorous life. Culminating in Las Vegas-style show tableaus, the musical presents “Frankie Boy’s” greatest hits and takes viewers back to the legendary time of swing and big bands. „That’s Life“ celebrated its world premiere at the theater on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin on the occasion of Frank Sinatra’s 105th birthday and has since been on a major tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The major challenge in the artistic creation of this show was to rethink Frank’s life and performance aesthetics in the terms of modern-day show production and viewing habits while at the same time retaining musical theatre aesthetics. 

With a specific focus on the production of the costume and the shows setup on stage (cueing, leading rehearsals, managing backstage processes during the show), we were able to give ‘theatrical’ flesh to the ‘musical’ bones of this tremendous legacy.

Creative Services & Achievements

• Led creative production processes from start to end, with production milestone plan and interdependencies between the artistic departments.
• Facilitated, planned and led meetings and workshops to enhance the conversions between the creative trades.
• Encouraged constant flow of feedback between the creative departments in order to put all ways of artistic expression onto a production timeline and, subsequently, fuse them into a feasible (cueable) show.
• Organised and led castings, cast-changes, put-ins.
• Organised and established contacts to cast musicians in Germany, Poland, and Bulgaria.
• Special focus on the artistic creation processes in costume and video design.
• Coordinated costume workshops in Slovakia, Berlin, and Frankfurt.
• Planned, prepared and facilitated dance and scenic rehearsals.
• Led dry techs and scenic rehearsals.
• Wrote the show bible and tracked changes through various versions of the show. Wrote the cue book in constant exchange with the technical trades.
• Planned and draw up costume and make-up plans for the running of the show.

CREATIVE TEAM

PRODUCER Oliver Forster
SHOW DIRECTOR Stefan Warmuth
CREATIVE PRODUCER Andy Machals
CHOREOGRAPHER Amy Share-Kissiov
CO-CHOREOGRAPHER Stojan Kissiov
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR Thimo Kolonko
MUSICAL DIRECTOR Gerald Meier
SET DESIGNER Manfred Waba
LIGHTING DESIGNER Leo Herrmann
LIGHTING PROGRAMMER Ricardo Cabrinha
VIDEO DESIGNERS Haegar Deutsch
COSTUME DESIGNER Stephan Bolz
HEAD DRESSER Olivera Blagojevic
HAIR & MAKE UP DESIGNER Susan „Suz“ Weber

Photo Credits: Dita Vollmond, Andy Machals (Instagram:@andymachals).