'Falsettos' is high note for director

In the Huntington Theatre's rehearsal hall, director Daniel Goldstein is showing two actors how they're going to play a vigorous game of invisible racquetball while singing.

''Michael, can I have the music . . ." Goldstein starts to ask.

'' 'Everything will be all right'?" interrupts Michael Friedman, the music director, citing a lyric from the previous scene as a transition into this one. Seated at the piano, he launches into a bouncy tune.

Finishing each other's thoughts is part of how Goldstein and Friedman operate. If set director David Korins were in the room, he'd probably be weighing in, too.

All three are part of a young and talented production team that's been assembled for the Huntington Theatre Company's revival of ''Falsettos," the celebrated, Tony Award-winning musical by William Finn and James Lapine, which begins previews tonight. The three have worked together on a number of shows and have developed the kind of artistic shorthand that veterans of repertory companies acquire. But in this case, they're all under 30.

Goldstein, who majored in performance studies at Northwestern University, grew up in Larchmont, N.Y., and remembers going into Manhattan to see the original production of ''Falsettos" in 1992, when he was 16. Now 29, he's in the driver's seat.

He may seem a little young to be directing his first major regional theater production, but he's already racked up a good deal of experience: as resident director for the national tour of ''Mamma Mia!" and as associate director of the Elvis Presley-inspired Broadway musical ''All Shook Up." He's also directed shows at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut. Later this summer, he'll direct ''Living Room in Africa" at Gloucester Stage Company.

But if you ask him if he's maybe a little nervous at the prospect of directing ''Falsettos" here, Goldstein says, ''You know, no. I mean, yeah, a little. I've worked so hard, and I have the most ridiculously talented cast and crew. All these designers and people I've surrounded myself with are fantastic."

Goldstein, Friedman, and Korins were interns together at Williamstown in the summer of 1999. Their ''class" has gained a reputation as something special in the eyes of Nicholas Martin, the Huntington's artistic director, who's directed at Williamstown for years.

''I've had my eyes on all these guys," he says. ''The best class we've ever had is graduating."

Many of the actors have worked together before, too. The cast of Broadway and regional performers includes Geoffrey Nauffts as Marvin, Romain Frugé as Whizzer, Linda Mugleston as Trina, and 13-year-old Jacob Brandt as Jason.

All this familiarity translates into a kind of theater family, which mirrors the odd little family in the script.

Originally written as three separate one-acts, ''Falsettos" is the combination of the latter two, written a decade apart. In ''March of the Falsettos" (1981), the neurotic Marvin has left his wife, Trina, and 12-year-old son, Jason, for his lover, Whizzer, but still wants to maintain contact with them. So the new couple settles in upstairs. Trina marries her therapist. And Jason is trying to make his way through this family minefield while moving from boyhood to manhood.

In ''Falsettoland" (1990), set two years later, the group expands. Two lesbian neighbors become close friends. Marvin and Whizzer's relationship solidifies, but Whizzer contracts a life-threatening illness. Jason has his bar mitzvah. All of which brings this very modern family together.

The combined version of ''Falsettos" opened in April 1992. It ran for nearly 500 performances and won two Tonys, for best book of a musical and best original score.

For their part, Goldstein and Friedman and the crew are going to need all the camaraderie they can muster; ''Falsettos" is a tough show to do. Those racquetball players -- Marvin and Whizzer -- are going to be singing some pretty high notes while they're slamming the ball. For that matter, they're going to be singing while they do everything: ''Falsettos" is what's known as a ''sung-through" musical. There are no spoken lines. And Finn is known for writing challenging music.

''It's a lot like doing an opera," says Friedman, who composed the music for the Huntington's ''The Blue Demon." ''It plows along, things keep moving forward. It's scary for the performers. But the music gives them a constant support. It leaves them less naked than a play."

Martin is confident that Goldstein can handle the show's challenges. After Williamstown, where Goldstein directed '' 'Tis Pity She's a Whore," he assisted Martin on four shows, three at Lincoln Center. ''Of all the young directors whose work I've seen, he has the best sense of staging a play," Martin says.

While ''Falsettos" deals with a major illness that is most likely AIDS, Goldstein doesn't think of this as a musical about AIDS.

''I see it as a musical about families and people and the struggle we all go through to choose our own happiness, to choose what has been given us and be OK with it," Goldstein says.

''People are so brave in having this different kind of family," he continues. ''It's not the kind of family our government wants us to have today. It's 20 years later; you'd think it would be OK now, and it's not. In retrospect, it makes it even more brave."

Looking back, Goldstein still remembers the impact ''Falsettos" had on him the first time he saw it.

''The same actors had been doing it forever," he says. ''It was incredible to watch them; they were so comfortable with it, like old friends. I hope that by the time we're done here we'll have that feeling."