‘Tempest’ rehearsals reshape Shakespeare play for world premiere at Smith Center

Shakespeare’s words. Shakespeare’s play.

But a new production of “The Tempest” seeks to find that star — and follow it in an imaginative new direction.

Local audiences will get their first look at this reimagined “Tempest” on Tuesday at the first of four previews, presented at The Smith Center’s Symphony Park. (Following the official opening night on April 5, the production settles in for a three-week run, through April 27.)

It’s The Smith Center’s first world premiere, presented in conjunction with Harvard University’s Tony-winning American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., where “The Tempest” will set sail following its Las Vegas debut inside a 500-seat, climate-controlled tent.

Inside that tent, with a little more than a week to go before the first preview, they’re painstakingly assembling the play — bit by bit, piece by piece. (“Only way to make a work of art,” to quote another great man of the theater, composer Stephen Sondheim. “Every moment makes a contribution, every little detail plays a part.”)

Or, as Teller explains it, “every little moment.”

You know Teller — the smaller, quieter half of Rio headliners Penn &Teller.

That’s his night job.

On this particular morning, he’s pacing and racing inside the Symphony Park tent, facing the stage (and its three-deck, music-hall-meets-pirate-ship-meets-carousel set), intent on shaping one particular moment.

Prospero (played by Tom Nelis), a deposed duke turned magician, has just told his daughter Miranda (Charlotte Graham) how they wound up, in exile, on an island populated by some mighty strange creatures, from sprightly spirit Ariel (Nate Dendy) to the monstrous, shape-shifting Caliban (played by Pilobolus dance troupe members Zach Eisenstat and Manelich Minniefee).

And now that Prospero’s explained why they are where they are, the wizard works his magic, putting Miranda to sleep.

Initially, Nelis — dressed in a black tailcoat and white bib-front shirt, its formal effect somewhat marred by his casual work pants and sandals — guides Graham to her repose in brisk, straightforward fashion.

That is, until Teller approaches a corner of the stage and discusses the scene with them while several other separate bursts of activity continue all around him.

Dendy’s working a doctored set of cards with magic technician Christopher Rose, who’s also Dendy’s understudy. Stage manager Katie Ailinger issues instructions to musical director Shaina Taub, working with band members on the set’s upper level. And lighting designer Christopher Akerlind’s watching it all from the audience’s perspective, in a seat toward the top of the tent’s stadium-style risers.

But back to Teller, who’s demonstrating — first to Nelis and then to Graham — a more stylized, spellbound series of moves that recall delicate waltz turns.

“It’s got to be like a little dance,” Teller explains. “Every little moment — it’s all magic.” Otherwise, when “things look too real,” the magic dissipates — and so does the magic of the scene.

Building that magic, moment by moment, remains the constant focus of Teller and collaborator Aaron Posner, an award-winning playwright and director who’s co-adapter, co-director and co-conspirator of “The Tempest.”

“I’m ready — I don’t know about that Teller fellow,” Posner quips into a cordless microphone before he and Teller oversee another scene run-through, analyzing everything from the timing of a curtain opening to the impact of a center-stage spotlight.

This “Tempest” represents the directing team’s second Shakespeare; they previously collaborated on a 2008 version of “Macbeth,” another play filled with witches, visions and assorted spooky stuff.

Spooky remains a priority for this “Tempest,” as Teller makes clear during a previous rehearsal inside The Smith Center’s black-box Troesh Studio Theater.

As he instructs Dendy at one point: “When you move, move spookily.”

Actors Louis Butelli (as Prospero’s duplicitous brother Antonio), Christopher Donohue (as Alonso, the scheming King of Naples, who helped depose Prospero) and Edmund Lewis (as Alonso’s brother Sebastian) — rehearse their terrified reactions to an island banquet of horrors, set out by eerie spirits, just as Dendy’s Ariel confronts them with their crimes.

“You are three men of sin,” Dendy intones, twirling and swirling a voluminous black cape while he swoops among the trio, explaining, “I have made you mad.”

Posner suggests a “screeching horror sound” to accompany the dialogue — or maybe a “banshee scream.” Teller helps Dendy refine Ariel’s cape moves to disguise his character’s face.

“That’s weird. That might be great,” Teller tells him. “We don’t know what the (expletive) you are.”

But Dendy’s otherwise occupied, tripping and falling to the floor as he starts to run through the scene again. A chorus of concern greets his slip, but he springs up and reassures everyone: “It’s OK. I have to learn this.”

Another run-through and more refinements emerge.

“Can we try one really stupid idea?” Posner says. “I promise it’s stupid.” (It may be stupid, but it works — and it stays in.)

And so it goes, as the actors involved in the scene maintain their concentration, while their fellow performers stand aside, waiting for their cues.

Minniefee drops to the floor to warm up with some ab crunches. (Later, he’ll coach Butelli, Donohue and Lewis on how to move more convincingly after their characters fall under Prospero’s spell.)

Other cast members drift by a worktable to sample one of Donohue’s baked treats, which are already renowned among the “Tempest” company. (This happens to be Irish soda bread, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.)

“He’s the best acting baker,” Posner says, “or the best baking actor.”

As Teller tests the soda bread, he detects a little caraway in it too, adding, “Chris Donohue is my friend — but perhaps not my waistline’s friend.”

Following that brief break, it’s back to the magical island of “The Tempest” — deep in the heart of downtown Las Vegas — and the pursuit of that most auspicious star.

Starting April 1, audiences will know whether they found it.

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.