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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Teaching Cirque Du Soleil a new trick

A guest blog entry from Richard Oberacker, writer of The Sandman – a little nightmare musical to be presented at this year’s Festival of New Musicals.  

In 1999, I became the first American conductor ever hired by Cirque Du Soleil.  It was for their new Big Top tour, Dralion and it was at a time when it was still really chic to even know what Cirque was.  My theater friends were confounded by how a New York musical theater industry guy had managed to break into the mysterious inner circle of this seemingly impenetrable rising giant.  The truth was it had to do with one small connection followed by about three months of extensive interviews.  Many of these interviews focused on my work as a musical theater conductor, composer and lyricist.  It began to dawn on me then – and continued to be even more clear once I was on the inside – that Cirque was as confused and intrigued by (but ultimately ignorant of) musical theater as the American musical theater industry was by and about Cirque Du Soleil. 
That same year, I was selected to present my original musical In That Valley at the NAMT Festival of New Musicals – another organization that was a new frontier for me.  Of course I was thrilled to learn about NAMT and to have the opportunity to showcase a very challenging musical that I knew had very little chance of ever being produced commercially (or otherwise, for that matter given its subject).   I set about trying to figure out how I would be able to deliver a great presentation at the festival – with all that NAMT demanded – while doing 10 shows a week on the road with a brand new Cirque show that was still at
the time making substantial changes daily as it prepared for an American premier in Los Angeles.  As it happened, the answer was simple and at that time the only answer possible as far as Cirque was concerned: do NAMT only on my days off. 
Now, in 1999 the Festival was a slightly different animal.  The physical presence of the writers was not demanded to the extent it is now.  Rehearsals could be scheduled over a longer period of time and lots of rules that concerned Equity could be gently bent. And so with the help of my co-author, I learned how to present a NAMT Festival show by way of telephone coaching sessions, mailed rehearsal tapes and many Sunday night red-eye flights.
The fact was that those three months of interviews to get the job with Cirque turned out to be their way of determining how committed I would be to them and how serious I was about continuing to be a writer of musical theater.  Working for Cirque is a lifestyle change.  It is a completely different philosophy about the performing artist and his relationship to his chosen discipline, the show and the company as a whole.  There are very specific clauses in the contract about what an artist can and cannot do outside their work with Cirque. Some of these clauses would appear to an American performer as going way above and beyond a standard “non-compete” clause.  However, once I had accepted this contract and indeed this entire approach to the work, I saw its value as it related to creating and maintaining a Cirqueshow.  It isn’t anything like doing American theater – musical or otherwise – and it must function by these rules to be everything that the world has come to admire. 
After my first NAMT show, my challenge became how to gently guide my Cirquecolleagues to an understanding of my work back in New York.  I knew that I would not simply stop writing and if I was writing, I would naturally be looking for opportunities to develop and present my work.  And that would mean I would have to ensure there was some protocol in place at Cirque that would allow me to get away when it was necessary to fulfill future writing obligations.  And so began my education of Cirque.

The first step was to introduce them to the idea of an associate conductor.  I’ll pause here while you contemplate the full implications of that statement… Remember, they had never hired an American conductor and never dealt with the structures of a standard musical direction team as we know it on a musical.  Subs in the pit? Unheard of. I mean really, REALLY unheard of. As in, “What’s a sub? How does that work?”  My Cirque colleagues and I can laugh about it now, but at the time I had to develop a pretty good poker face so that I wouldn’t damage my jaw by all the many times it was sent dropping to the floor.  I then had to carefully explain to them the concept of how a musical is developed – the many different paths that it can take.  I had to explain what readings were, what workshops were, what a standard rehearsal and tech period was.  I had to explain where in those processes an author or composer might be required to be present and why. I had to explain to a large degree, and delicately of course, revenue streams.  At what point was a composer being paid?  Where is the line between time away to develop a piece without being paid and pursuing “other employment” based on future royalties?  How might these new works of mine be considered in competition with what I bring to Cirque in terms of my own (uncredited) composing for them?
These conversations took place gradually over the next several years and eventually they began to see the value to the company as a whole to having at least some measures in place that would allow other Cirque artists and employees to explore creative endeavors outside their commitments to Cirque.  But most importantly I gained the trust of my colleagues.  I let them know that my work with them would always come first and that my gratitude to them for taking a chance on me back in 1999 was absolute. When they invited me to be the original conductor for the creation of a new show in Las Vegas titled Kathat mutual trust was a given.  Within the first year of public performances of Ka,I was selected to present another original musical for the 2005 NAMT Festival.
However, I still requested of Cirque only the least amount of time away because Ka was so new.  As it happened, I needed only 2 days away because at that time
NAMT still didn’t require the writers to be “in residence” as it were. I also found to my surprise that my colleagues at Cirque asked many more questions about my show at the Festival – how were rehearsals going? Did I get the cast I wanted? Will important people be seeing it? And even (gasp!) – can I hear some of the music from it?
From that festival presentation forward, I noticed that other Cirque artists were taking advantage of this newfound idea of pursuing personal artistic endeavors outside of the regular show.  Some were doing independent films, some were showing in art galleries, some were founding improv troupes that performed late nights in small clubs. And I saw the upper management of Cirque begin to embrace the idea that their artists could find a healthy balance between their work within Cirque and outside it; that these independent projects could fuel their passion and pride in Cirque and give them a much longer run in a given show before burnout might set in.  That was certainly my case. Since that second NAMT presentation, I have been able to balance my weekly show schedule in Las Vegas with five full scale regional premiers of my various works, another
New York new works festival premier, a fringe festival premier and all the attendant readings and developmental stages along the way.  My days have become very structured over the years with writing and phone conferences, various rehearsals and such followed by the consistency of going to the Katheater Tuesday through Saturday evenings to disappear into the world of Cirque.  Conducting Ka has become a foundation, a grounding and not a distraction or a competitor for my energies.  And yes, come Saturday night, I am very often on the red-eye out to New York or wherever I need to be.

To get the demo recording of The Sandman that we knew we needed, I had to fly to New York on three consecutive weekends to accommodate a studio schedule that afforded me the ideal cast.  And the mixing and mastering of the demo was done long distance – daily rough mixes were emailed to me and I would send notes back to the engineer.  This went on for a few weeks to get just what we knew the show would require. It cost us more money but the truth is, doing what we do long distance will always cost more money.  That’s just part of the deal I’ve made with myself.
With this year’s invitation to present The Sandman at the NAMT Festival, I was a bit concerned about scheduling a full two weeks away from Ka since writers are now required to be in residence. And Cirque contractually reserves the right to grant or deny any requests for leaves of absence.  I was also concerned about my daily schedule before my evening show times because I happen to be preparing another new musical for a New York reading and yet another new musical for a series of work sessions with a new director.  I have found that the trick is to deliver any assignments for NAMT as soon as they are requested.  “5 Things you should know…” – hand it in that week.   Song clips? Do it that night.  Script edits? As soon as humanly possible.  It’s a bit like being back in school and knowing if you got your homework done early, you would have more time for the fun stuff.  We were all that disciplined in school, right? Well, at any rate, this has certainly been a second chance to do it the right way.
And as it happened, Ka experienced an unimaginable tragedy in July that forced us to temporarily close the show for over two weeks.  While much of that time was filled with meetings and rehearsals to bring the show back into performance as soon as it was appropriate, I did find that it afforded me extra time to focus on The Sandman.  I was able to deliver a more considered edit of the script still very much ahead of the deadline.  I was able to schedule phone conferences at more convenient times, especially with the East Coast without worrying too much about my rigid performance/gym/sleep schedule. And I was able to get an enormous amount of work done on the other two musicals so that when the NAMT crunch time rolls around, it will be my one and only concern. To quote Dot by way of Sondheim, “You choose things, and then you lose things.”  It’s very true.  I chose to accept the original offer from Cirque. I chose to be away from New York for most of the year, to be away from all the opportunities of the city with showcases, parties and chance meetings on the street that can lead to wonderful connections and even more wonderful new work.  I chose financial security over the bohemian thrill of piecing together a living as a freelance musician in the city.  I have lost out on opportunities for sure.  Out of sight is indeed out of mind, although a good showing of the right material at a NAMT Festival can make up for years of being off the radar. But I have thirteen years of creating magic with Cirque Du Soleil.  I have been in the inner circle for the creation of two magnificent and groundbreaking productions. 
My own musical contributions are on those stages nightly.  And most importantly to my future, I have taught a behemoth company that has always prided itself on being the first to do things, that sometimes it’s okay to adopt some of the long-established practices of the musical theater world.  I taught them a thing or two about how a new musical is made.  I taught some of them what a musical actually is… I know, breathe, take a moment… And thank heavens, because really, what on earth would they have done if they had to learn it from “SMASH”!?

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New Works in Progress: SMALL TOWN STORY

An interview with Joe Barros, Artistic Director of New York Theatre Barn in New York, NY about NYTB’s work with Sammy Buck and Brandon James Gwinn’s Small Town Story (formerly Speargrove Presents), a 2011-2012 Writers Residency Grant recipient.

At the urging of his father Larry, adorkable Scott Ames auditions for the Speargrove High School musical to get closer to drama club queen bee Caroline. But when Larry discovers the show is Rent he pulls Scott out. With the arrival of New York transplant Alex, her outspoken mom Lois and rising community fear about the show, the stage is set for a controversy unlike any small town has ever seen. As the escalation drives wedges between parents and children, Speargrove, Texas will discover that the show can’t open until their minds do. Inspired by actual events, Small Town Story explores the indelible power of theatre and the inherent dangers of silence.
Small Town Story has a unique genesis. How did NYTB originally go about commissioning this show?
In January 2010, New York Theatre Barn assembled 17 writers, led by sole book writer Sammy Buck, to conceive a new musical. Real-life events in Rowlett, Texas pertaining to a controversial production of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Rent provided an irresistible springboard for the writing as NYTB set out to create a show by a community of writers about community. NYTB’s involvement with Small Town Story actually led to a change in the artistic and institutional mission of the company. We became so attracted to telling untold stories about real people, and often based on real events, that we made it our primary focus.


Why did you narrow the team down to just two writers?
After launching NYTB in 2007, we were given the unique opportunity by Daryl Roth Theatricals to produce a monthly show in their D-Lounge, and our core developmental platform for emerging writers and new work was born. Through this monthly program (now in its 6th year), I was immediately exposed to over 50 writers in the first three years alone. With such incredible creative resources at our fingertips, I knew we had to devise a piece together. While Small Town Story (then Speargrove Presents) started out as a piece written by committee, I ultimately made the decision to choose Sammy Buck and Brandon James Gwinn as its sole writers in order to give the piece clarity and authenticity, primarily in the score.
After working on the piece for about a year, the team went from 17 to 2 to improve the show’s cohesion. Buck and young composer Gwinn were serendipitously paired on a song to
transcendent results—and they were chosen to write the show. Their collaboration is unique in that this is the first show that they have written together; Sammy writes the book, Brandon writes the music, and they write lyrics together or separately.
Buck was raised in North Texas, and the “Speargrove” townsfolk he has created are imbued with the personalities he remembers from his childhood–a sensibility of North Texan suburban life is rooted in his flesh, bones and spirit. Gwinn (composer/co-lyricist) was raised in rural Tennessee. Country and pop music is his lifeblood–fresh, authentic and accessible. Moreover, Brandon understands intimately the students’ perspective, in perfect counterpoint to Sammy’s maturity. I am a huge supporter of these two writers and am mesmerized by the world they have created in Speargrove, TX.

The show has had a reading and workshop in New York over the past couple years. What has changed in the show as it has been developed? 
The first version that Sammy and Brandon wrote together was completed in November of 2011, and we did a table reading in December 2011. Only three songs remained from the original version of the show—two were written solely by Brandon and one was written together. Following that reading, a demo was recorded and there were major rewrites that took place, including the creation of numerous new songs and an overhaul of the book (rearranging, cutting, adding new material). In May 2012, NYTB produced a workshop at The Cell (NAMT 2012 Writers’ Residency Grant). The workshop marked the first time that the piece was on its feet and the process elucidated for the writers precisely what themes upon to focus: (1) communication between parents and children, and (2) theatre as a catalyst for change. Since the workshop, the writers and the NYTB team have collaborated with NYTB’s community of actors on numerous private writers’ work sessions to explore new material aloud, as well as fine tune existing material that is constantly evolving. Significant revisions to hone the themes and storytelling have taken place over the past year, and the show also has a new title: Small Town Story. I am very proud of the new draft and am eager to see it on its feet.

What are the next steps for the show?
The show will have a reading in at The Village Theatre in Washington this summer. We are very excited about this opportunity and to hear the new draft! Additional opportunities have come our way but are not yet confirmed—including a developmental production in San Francisco where actual teenagers would assume the roles of the students of Speargrove High School. New York Theatre Barn looks forward to producing the show in New York sometime soon.


Why is Small Town Story an important story to tell today? 
We continue to see controversial productions populate headlines in the news that deal with the very issues that are explored in this powerful new musical—fear, communication and change. Following the recent headlines of Loveland, Ohio’s high school production of Legally Blonde and the firing of its director, I believe that the time is now to tell this untold story. New York Theatre Barn and the authors hope that Small Town Story engenders the types of open conversations that scare the characters in our show. We see that our show celebrates the mother lode of power in musical theatre. 

For more information about Small Town Story, please visit www.SmallTownStory.com.

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New Works In Progress: NEXT THING YOU KNOW

An interview with John Simpkins, Artistic Director, of TriArts Sharon Playhouse as they prepare to produce Next Thing You Know, by Fest Alumni Joshua Salzman and Ryan Cunningham (both, Fest ’05-I Love You Because). Next Thing You Know was developed at CAP21 thanks to a Project Development Grant from our National Fund for New Musicals.

Next Thing You Know is the story of fourNew Yorkers as they laugh, love and drink their way through the big questions that face all young dreamers who wake up in the city that never sleeps. Does marrying a really nice guy mean you’re settling down or just settling? Does taking a nine-to-five equal giving up or growing up? Does a decade in the city break you down or break you in?


Sharon Playhouse has recently embarked on presenting new musicals. Why do you think it is important for your theatre to present pre-existing shows alongside new musicals during your summer season? 
Part of our mission at the Sharon Playhouse is to celebrate and nurture emerging as well as established artists. We are excited to add writers and new musicals to this focus. It is our hope that we can begin commissioning new works in addition to presenting new musicals that have already been in development and might be looking for further development and/or productions.
You have a long history with Next Thing You Know starting with directing the first workshop of it back in 2007. How has the show changed since that first presentation at NYU Steinhardt? 
We did the first workshop presentation of the show in October 2007, with some of my students at NYU Steinhardt. At the time, it was a collection of songs without a specific book—all centered around the time in one’s life where the dreams and plans you make as a young 20-something aren’t necessarily turning out the way you thought. The show always felt like it was wanting a stronger and more specific structure to these songs that seemed to really speak to people. Ryan and Josh went back and began to add a book to surround the songs. All three of us were initially suspicious of this exercise—thinking it might feel ultimately
“tacked on”—but as we worked and had other developmental opportunities (AMTP at Northwestern, Ars Nova, Cap 21, Berkshire Theatre Festival), we realized that we were on to something that was really working for the piece. We found that these four cast members could function as a microcosm of any number of other people going through these same basic problems—and, like any show, the more specific we got with our four characters, the more universal the thematic applications would become.
You worked with the writers on putting together a cast album of the show. Why was it important to you and the writers to get this show on the record and out in to the world? 
Ryan Cunningham and Joshua Salzman’s terrific songs were always the origin of this piece—and they seemed to speak to everyone that heard them. We started hearing young singers use them for auditions, concert nights, cabarets, etc., and we were very excited about the chance to record the album as a way of preserving the work. As a quirky “off the beaten path” kind of show, we also felt it was important to get a well-produced album together in order to continue to seek out developmental opportunities and have other theatres get excited about producing the show. It’s a terrific calling card for the piece.
Are there any planned changes for your upcoming production?
Definitely—I think there is always a chance to make a show better and this is no exception. A theatre company in London just did a production this spring, and we learned quite a bit from that experience. None of us was directly involved in the production—so we were able to see it with fresh eyes and are working on some changes for the Sharon production.
Why is Next Thing You Know a great match for your theatre at this time? 
Next Thing You Know will be our first musical in a brand newperformance space we are dedicating this summer. It’s an intimate theatre (99 seats compared to our mainstage space that seats 365) and will be perfect for chamber-type musicals like this one. I also think our audiences will respond to the nostalgic aspect of the show–of a particular time in life where people are struggling with how to modify the dreams of youth. And, as with any Ryan Cunningham book, it is hilariously funny and dares to verbalize things that usually remain unsaid! The physical production will be perfect for our new space and I can’t think of a better way to dedicate our new theatre than with a show I’ve been proud to work on for many years.
Why should people head up to Sharon, CT this summer to catch Next Thing You Know?
There is something very special happening at the Sharon Playhouse. We are a growing company with a firm commitment to the artists that we choose to surround ourselves with. We would love very much to begin to share our new works with the larger theatre community. Next Thing You Know features a cast of four talented performers accompanied by a three-piece band. This is a perfect show for any theatre’s small performance slot or second space production opportunity. We’d love to have you see our production and think about a way it might be programmed at other NAMT theatres in coming seasons.
For more information about Next Thing You Know, please visit www.triarts.net or www.nextthingyouknowmusical.com.

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Festival Show Update: FUNKED UP FAIRY TALES

 
An interview with Shami McCormick, Artistic Director, of The Depot Theatre in Westport, NY as they prepare for the first full production of Kirsten Childs’ Funked Up Fairy Tales, from our 2012 Festival, this summer.

Funked Up Fairy Tales—a collection of delightfully twisted urban fairy tales for sophisticated children and grown-up kids—welcomes you to the world of Titania, Faireetheeya and Magikwanda, teenage fairies with attitude. They wag their heads and suck their teeth as they turn things upside down to pass their Fairyland Academy exam. Will they pull through with flying colors and earn their Happy Ending Crowns?

What drew The Depot Theatre to Funked Up Fairy Tales?
We sat down [at the Festival] not knowing what to expect and in seconds were completely entranced by the piece (as was everyone around us)!  You could feel Kirsten’s sense of delight, her heart  and commitment in every element of the script and score. The piece seemed poised for a collaborative, artistic experience that could bring Kirsten’s vision to first fruition; a production in a place that could embrace and celebrate both the writer and the work and give the piece a team to develop it for a continuing future. We felt The Depot Theatre could be that place and are so honored to have this wonderful work in our season!

Why is the show a great match for your audience?
When it comes to musicals we have a multi-generational demographic that appreciates the classics of the American musical canon and more contemporary fare.  They like the intimacy of our space, how much a part of a production it makes them feel and how
adventuresome it encourages them to be—they are indeed both generous and engaged.  We feel that Funked Up Fairy Tales will appeal to all generations and bridge any divide between those who gravitate towards familiar story-lines and those who are titillated by the unknown. It brings a wonderful twist and take on the familiar with a contemporary sound and a diverse cast.  We also expect Funked Up Fairy Tales to help pave the way for our current audience and upcoming theatre-goers to become more curious about and supportive of new work and the artists writing for the future.

How will the show differ from what people got a taste for at the Festival? 
Funked Up Fairy Tales is part of our 35th main stage season—it’s a featured element, a full production and full-blown celebration of a wonderful work in a unique place!

How does the show match up with your mission and goals for the theatre?
The Depot Theatre is committed to providing professional theatre to an under-served region and to creating a vibrant creative home for diverse artists to explore and celebrate their craft.  Our mission includes providing an eclectic season that includes new work in order to develop and sustain dynamic connections with professional artists, expand our audiences’ theatrical horizons and provide a service to writers and composers by fully producing their work in a nurturing environment.

Why should people head up north to Westport this summer to catch your show?
Summer, Trains, Adirondacks, Lake Champlain, Fairy Tales, Kirsten Childs, Professional Theatre, a Fabulous Cast and Production Team…it’s all at the Depot Theatre.  Plus, getting here from NYC is easy…go to Penn Station, get on Train # 69, get off at the Depot Theatre overlooking Lake Champlain in the foothills of the Adirondack High Peaks Region (AMTRAK also often runs a two-for-one special)! However you choose to get here, we are where you want to be for part of your summer!

For more information about Funked Up Fairy Tales, please visit www.depottheatre.org. 

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New Work in Progress: BETTY BLUE EYES

An article from Wayne Bryan, Producing Artistic Director, of Music Theatre of Wichita as they prepare to produce the American premiere of Betty Blue Eyes.

Betty Blue Eyes is a highly original and very funny new musical which opened on the West End in 2011, and is making its American debut this summer at Music Theatre of Wichita, July 24-28. 

Set in 1947 England, when Princess Elizabeth’s forthcoming royal wedding is to be the cause for nationwide celebratory banquets, a meat-deprived village wages internal subterfuge to abscond with a prize pig named Betty.

With a clever libretto by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, Betty Blue Eyes is based on the Maggie Smith and Michael Palin film, A Private Function, screenplay by Alan Bennett. The tuneful new score is by NAMT Festival alumni George Stiles (Honk! and The Three Musketeers, both Fest ’99) and Anthony Drewe (Honk!, Fest ‘99), whose other works include Just Soand the new material in the stage version of Mary Poppins.

After the 1999 Festival presentation of Honk!, several NAMT theatres expressed an interest in producing it, including Music Theatre of Wichita.  Our transatlantic communications with authors George and Anthony quickly blossomed into an international friendship. This was solidified when MTWichita, with the writers’ blessings, produced and distributed the American Cast Album of Honk! in 2001.

George and Anthony, along with licensing house Music Theatre International, subsequently credited the well-received album as one of the show’s best marketing tools. Hundreds of Honk! productions followed the Festival presentation and the release of the
cast album, and the writers have stayed in touch with our theatre ever since. We produced Honk! again in 2012 and audiences loved it even more the second time.

When Cameron Mackintosh presented Betty Blue Eyes on the West End in 2011, it was met with very positive reviews. The London cast album bore vivid testimony to the show’s wit and melodic richness. But after the show closed in London, the title seemed to disappear from the news.

Last fall, when it seemed that our upcoming Music Theatre of Wichita season was starting to lean toward a British theme, I emailed Matt Boethin and Carol Edelson at MTI to ask if they’d heard anything about the show and if it might be coming into their catalogue. They promised to look into it and get back to me, which they did quite promptly.

The feeling from London was that the show’s very British themes might not resonate with American audiences. 

“Did they want to find out?,” I asked. “Where could you ever find a more American audience than in Wichita, Kansas?!!” 

“So do you want to do it?,” they asked. Yes we did. All right, then. They’d inquire. And in blessedly short order, Cameron Mackintosh okayed it.

The authors wrote immediately, very excited that Wichita was going to meet Betty.

Music Theatre of Wichita runs each production for only one week in our 2100 seat theatre. We believe our audience’s affection for Honk!will ensure quite enough interest to fill our auditorium for our short run.

We also believe our audiences will respond enthusiastically to the comic invention of this fantasy-laced farce. All the hard-scrabble characters in the story foster lavish fantasies about how their lives might be different, and each fantasy is the basis of a terrific musical sequence. The songs in the show are just as tuneful and clever as the songs our patrons loved in Honk!.

Beyond that, the librettists and songwriters have deepened the somewhat cynical tone of the original film by focusing on how two people trapped in a disappointing marriage find their relationship re-energized and strengthened during the course of their unique “pig-napping” adventure.

To get a good feel for the humor and magic of this unique show, go to YouTube and type in “Betty Blue Eyes Theatrical Trailer HD,” and you’ll see a few terrific highlights from the original London production.

We invite anyone who is intrigued to please visit us in Wichita, Kansas this summer and experience the show for yourself.

The beautiful new sets are being designed by Robert A. Kovach (a familiar face at many NAMT theatres). All the sets, props (including two life-sized pig puppets) and costumes (by Dixon Reynolds) will be ready to welcome a possible future life at other NAMT theatres.

I’m directing the show, partnering with an inventive young choreographic team, Lyndy Franklin Smith and Jeromy Smith. Our leading players are Tracy Lore, Stanley Bahorek, Mary Stout and Justin Robertson. They will lead a large, hugely talented group of performers.

Just let us know you want to come and we’ll be delighted to show you all the Midwestern hospitality you can stand!

For more information on Betty Blue Eyes, please visit www.mtwichita.org. 

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From the New Works Director: Getting ready to celebrate 25 years of the NAMT Festival!

It is a big year for NAMT and our Festival of New Musicals (Fest #25!), and we plan on celebrating in style! If you have not heard already, we will present a special benefit concert two days after the Festival on October 20th. In the last 24 years, we have presented 211 shows by 410 writers-that’s a lot to be proud of and we want to SHOW OFF! (which also happens to be the title of the benefit!).
Unfortunately, we will not be able to do a song from every musical as that would be a 14-hour show. But we are assembling a 90-minute star- and song-packed concert that will show not just what we have done, but also what we have started. The benefit will be a celebration of NAMT, our founders, our leaders, our writers, our shows, our impact and, most importantly, our future.
I hope that all of you will mark your calendars now (I will wait while you get out a pen or double click on your calendar) for:
25th Festival of New Musicals: October 17 & 18
Fall Conference:October 19 & 20 (portions will be open to alumni)
SHOW OFF! Benefit concert:October 20 at 7pm at the NYU Skirball Center
We can’t wait for these 4 days of celebration, discovery, dialogue and catching up. I hope to see all of you there as we honor you and the great work of this small but mighty organization that, in 1989, had the simple idea of gathering together theatres and producers from around the country to share great new musicals in development.

My, how far we have come, but we are only just getting started. 

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Festival Show Update: NOBODY LOVES YOU

 
An interview with Itamar Moses, one of the writers (along with Gaby Alter) of 2012 Festival Show Nobody Loves You, about the show’s path so far and what to expect as it heads Off Broadway this summer to Second Stage. The show is a past recipient of a Project Development Grant from our National Fund for New Musicals for its development at The Old Globe.

The new musical comedy Nobody Loves You follows a philosophy grad student who auditions for—and surprisingly finds himself cast on—a reality TV dating show, all in an attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend. But when an unexpected on-set love connection threatens to ruin his plan, manufactured drama collides with real emotion in this original new musical.

What was the industry’s response to your show at the Festival?  
Whole-hearted praise. Worship really. It was mayhem. The ghost of Oscar Hammerstein rose from the grave and placed a mantle labeled ‘The Future of Musical Theatre’ on my and Gaby’s shoulders. Or, whatever, people seemed to like it okay.

What has changed with the show since being at The Old Globe last year and being at the Festival?
We came away from The Old Globe wanting to replace some songs, clarify and sharpen certain elements of the story, improve some jokes, and take some time off the show. That process had already begun by the time we did the Festival, so we got to hear some new versions of scenes and try out one of our new songs. We’re even farther along in that process now. A bunch of stuff has been rewritten, we’ve replaced two songs and cut two others entirely, on top of streamlining certain aspects of the book. Musicals are very, very tricky and I expect we’ll be working right up until they make us stop.
The show is about to premiere Off Broadway at Second Stage Theatre this summer. How has your approach to the show changed going from an in-the-round space in San Diego to a traditional proscenium in New York?

This is really a question for our director and designers. But generally speaking, the approach is always just about figuring out how to use the space you’re in to support and enhance the storytelling and themes. I’ve premiered three shows in that in-the-round space at The Old Globe, and every time I think, “How are we gonna do this in the round?” And every time it forces solutions that are very cool and that I almost miss when it’s time to do it in a proscenium even though that’s usually how I envision things in the first place. Certainly doing this show in a proscenium allows you to have more stuff, to render the backstage world of the TV show more vividly. In the round, you really can’t have much in the way of set. You can’t even have any walls!

What are you guys most excited about for this summer production? Any surprises in store?  
Getting to see the show with all the improvements on the page back up on its feet. And getting to see these characters come to life again, I’ve developed a genuine affection for them. As for the second part of your question, if we answered that, they wouldn’t be surprises anymore, would they? Or, I guess: “Yes.”

Why should people head to Second Stage this summer to see Nobody Loves You?
Because it’s going to be a cultural moment of earth-shattering importance. But if you like to miss out on that kind of thing, by all means, skip it.

For more information about Nobody Loves You, please visit www.2st.com.

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National Fund for New Musicals recipients announced!

We are honored to announce this year’s recipients of our National Fund for New Musicals grants. Now in its fifth year, the National Fund has distributed 56 grants totaling $234,000 to non-profit member theatres around America.
A special thanks to our funders including Stacey Mindich Productions, The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation and The ASCAP Foundation. This fund would not be possible without their contributions. If you are interested in supporting theatres developing new musicals around the country, please consider making a contribution to our National Fund for New Musicals.

National Fund grants of $10,000 to support full productions have been awarded to:
Barrington Stage Company (Pittsfield, MA) for Southern Comfort by Dan Collins and Julianne Wick Davis. This project previously received a Project Development Grant in support of its time at CAP21, a Writers Residency Grant for its time at Playwrights Horizons and was presented in NAMT’s 2012 Festival of New Musicals.
Transport Group (New York, NY) for The Memory Show by Sara Cooper and Zachary Redler, with support from Stacey Mindich Productions. The Memory Show was presented in NAMT’s 2009 Festival of New Musicals. 

National Fund grants between $2,500 and $5,000 to support a workshop or reading have been awarded to:
Chicago Shakespeare Theater (Chicago, IL) for Summerland by Laura Eason, Jenny Giering & Sean Barry. Giering is an alumna from NAMT’s 2005 Festival for Princess Caraboo.
Dallas Theater Center (Dallas, TX) for The Fortress of Solitude by Itamar Moses and Michael Friedman, with support from the ASCAP foundation. Itamar Moses is an alumnus from NAMT’s 2012 Festival for Nobody Loves You, which also received a Project Development Grant in 2011-2012 in support of its time at The Old Globe.
Human Race Theatre Company  (Dayton, OH) for The Noteworthy Life of Howard Barnes by Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond with support from The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation. Kooman and Dimond are alumni from NAMT’s 2011 Festival for Dani Girl.
Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK) for Triangle by Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore with support from Stacey Mindich Productions. Triangle was presented in NAMT’s 2012 Festival of New Musicals.

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New Works in Progress: NEXT series at Theater Latté Da

An interview with Peter Rothstein, Artistic Director of Theater Latté Da about the launch of their new NEXT series developing new musicals in Minneapolis, Minnesota, next month.

Theater Latté Da will cap its 15th Anniversary Season by launching the major new works initiative NEXT. The inaugural season will feature readings of three new ventures into musical storytelling in various stages of development at The Lab Theater in Minneapolis’ historic warehouse district. NEXT will provide Twin Cities audiences the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the creative process and witness new musicals in the making. The musicals are When the Moon Hits Your Eye by Jon Marans; C. by Bradley Greenwald, Robert Elhai & Peter Rothstein; and Bessie’s Birthday by Kate Baldwin Eng & Jeff Tang.


Why did Theater Latté Da decide to start a new work festival?
Theater Latté Da’s mission is to explore and expand the art of musical theater. Launching a program that gives playwrights, composers and lyricists the opportunity to experiment is central to fulfilling our mission; shepherding new works from incubation to full production is a priority for our organization. We also want to be part of the national dialogue around the future of the American Musical Theater and have an impact on the next generation.

Why do you think Minneapolis is a great place to test out new works?
Minneapolis is home to one of the largest and most vibrant theater communities in the country. We have an incredible pool of talent in the Twin Cities, thinking artists who can bring talent, skill and insight to the development process. We also have a loyal and adventurous audience who I believe can play a vital role in moving a show to the next level.

This is the Festival’s first year. What will the programming of NEXT look like?

We have always been energized by the marriage of content and form, looking for innovative ways for music and story to intersect. Our inaugural year of NEXT will feature a diversity of stories, a wide range of musical styles and adventurous forms.

What do you hope your writers will get out of their Minnesota experience?
Our goal is to put the writers at the center of the process and have them articulate the next step for their work. Hopefully we can provide a safe, supportive environment and surround them with the talent to do so.

What do you hope your audience will get out of NEXT?
For a number of years we have been creating video trailers leading up to opening night that help to illuminate the design and rehearsal process. We want our audience invested in the creative process as well as the finished product. A new work series is the next logical step in that immersion, inviting our audience in on the development process from its early stages.

Why should people head to the Twin Cities to catch NEXT?
We have a dynamic line-up of shows and writers, and the snow should be melted by then.

For more info about NEXT, please visit www.theaterlatteda.com.

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Festival Show Update: SOUTHERN COMFORT

 
An interview with Dan Collins & Julianne Wick Davis, writers of 2012 Festival Show Southern Comfort, about creating such a bold show, how far it’s already come and preparing for its upcoming presentation at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, MA. The show is a past recipient of a Writers Residency Grant (Playwrights Horizons) and a Project Development Grant (CAP21) from our National Fund for New Musicals.

 Based on the Sundance Award-winning documentary, this heartwarming musical about a group of transgender friends living in rural Georgia is, at its core, a love story between their patriarch, Robert Eads, and newcomer Lola Cola. Through a unique folk and bluegrass-inspired score, the musical chronicles a year in the lives of this unique American family as they courageously defy the odds by simply remaining on the land to which they were born, reminding us that home is where we find comfort in our skin.

What were the first steps you took when you were asked to turn a documentary into a musical and how did you find the story’s voice? 
We were approached by Tom Caruso and Bob DuSold, who hold the stage rights to the documentary, to consider adapting it into a musical. After watching the documentary, Julianne and I had a few discussions about what music would mean to these characters, and in this environment, and if/how it could enhance their story. We began by discussing a number of intriguing points in the documentary that might be able to sing, and ultimately wrote the solo “I’m Goin’,” which Robert sings near the end of the second act. While the documentary’s subject matter, and our discussions, revealed many challenges to be faced in adapting the story to the musical stage, writing “I’m Goin’” revealed just the opposite: it was one of those rare moments in which each part of the process (spotting the song, writing the lyric, setting the lyric) unraveled with great and exciting ease. Energized by that rewarding experience, we moved forward. Inspired by the seasonal framing of the documentary, we explored the score by creating a song for each of the seasons – to be sung by an onstage folk band. It was these seasons, coupled with “I’m Goin’” and the conceit of our onstage band that served as the foundation for the rest of our process. But it wasn’t all beautifully simple, of course. Adapting a documentary meant we had to take some license in the storytelling for dramatic purposes, which is a tricky undertaking as it was important to us to be able to keep the integrity of the true story and characters (most of whom are still living), while also ensuring that we were creating a dramatic narrative that would engage theater audiences – because to fail at the latter would mean that the story, for all of its good intentions, would never reach much further than the page.

Southern Comfort has evolved a bit from your first reading at Playwrights Horizon a few years ago to your presentation at the Festival. How has it changed over the years?
Most of the developments and changes in Southern Comfort have revolved around either the integration of the onstage band or our exploration of the narrative outside of the specific action of the documentary. We’ve conceived the band in a myriad of ways; a group of vocalists who are separate from the instrumentalists; a male and a female soloist who act as the ‘lead singers’ of the band; etc., but we found, particularly through our experience at CAP21 (discussed below), that the concept of having the instrumentalists present as both singers and actors really resonated with audiences. As for the narrative, Kate Davis (the producer/director/editor of the original documentary) has been incredibly generous, supportive and gracious throughout our entire process; one such occasion is when she shared with us the original transcripts of documentary, which contain many scenes and interviews that were not part of the film’s final edit. These transcripts, coupled with her encouraging attitude toward our process, have been (and continue to be) invaluable as we explore the world, characters and their stories as they have come to exist on the musical stage. 

You had a great workshop production at CAP21 in 2012. What did you learn from getting the show up on its feet?

The workshop production at CAP21, which was so beautifully supported by Eliza and Frank Ventura, was the first time we had seen the show move. We had never been able to see if our idea about the band being on stage, moving in and out of the action and playing all the characters outside of the chosen family, would work! We were asking a lot of these actors/musicians since they had to memorize the score and be free to move with instrument in hand at any time. The idea to have the band function this way was there from the very beginning for us, and it was an idea which people kept questioning and telling us would be nearly impossible. The CAP21 workshop production was the first time we saw that it indeed worked and it was exactly what we had hoped for.

The show is heading to Barrington Stage Co. this summer. What further work do you want to do on the show for its next step? 
Our main objective is to continue to streamline and strengthen the narrative. We’ve learned so much throughout all of our development opportunities, and we look forward to the opportunity to implement those in Pittsfield this summer. There have been cuts, rewrites, edits and restructuring, all of which we feel have strengthened the piece, while retaining those aspects that have consistently resonated with our audiences throughout our presentation history.

What do you hope comes next for Robert and his chosen family? 
Our hope is relatively simple: that we continue to find wonderfully supportive theaters and institutions, such as Playwrights Horizons, CAP21, NAMT and Barrington Stage, who are willing to tell Robert’s story and widen its reach. Just as the medium of film/documentary was able to bring light to this important subject, the medium of theater (particularly, musical theater) has the ability to bring that light to a new audience, further expanding the reach of the affirming life and message of Robert and his chosen family. Our hope is to broaden that audience as much as possible.

Why should people head up to beautiful Pittsfield, MA this summer to catch Southern Comfort?  
Aside from the (already mentioned) beautiful setting, our cast is a dream. Not only are they a privilege and a pleasure to work with, but their commitment and passion to this story is astounding, and it is evidenced in each performance. Our band is equally amazing – they are onstage throughout the entire show, playing the score, singing and performing ensemble speaking roles! When we conceived the idea on paper, all we could do was hope that it would work, but this amazing group is able to make it more than just work; our hopes are exceeded night after night after night!

For more information about Southern Comfort, please visit www.barringtonstageco.org.

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New Work in Progress- FAR FROM HEAVEN at Playwrights Horizons

An interview with Kent Nicholson, Director of Musical Theatre and Literary Associate at Playwrights Horizons, about their upcoming production of Far From Heaven, with a book by Richard Greenberg, Music by Scott Frankel and Lyrics by Fest alumnus Michael Korie (Blanco– ’89). The show is a recipient of one of NAMT’s National Fund for New Musicals Production Grants.

Cathy Whitaker seems to be the picture-perfect wife and mother in 1957 suburban Connecticut. But roiling beneath the surface, secret longings and forbidden desires cause her world to unravel, with incendiary consequences. With a lush score that is both jazz-inflected and hauntingly lyrical, Far From Heaven is a powerful story of romance, betrayal and intolerance, as a woman grapples with her identity in a society on the verge of upheaval.
Image: Kelli O’Hara in Far From Heaven at Williamstown Theatre Festival

Far From Heaven is a Playwrights Horizons’ commission. What came first: the project or the writers?
The writers came first. It was their idea. Scott Frankel and Michael Korie had talked with Richard Greenberg about working on something together during the run of Grey Gardenson Broadway. In their subsequent discussions, Far From Heaven came up as a project they all admired that they thought could have a new life as a musical. They came to us with the idea and we thought it was a good one.

Why choose to musicalize Far From Heaven and why were Scott, Michael and Richard the right team for the job?
The film is an exploration of the nostalgia we have for “simpler” times. Those times have a dark side, a side that forces people to live in denial of their own prejudices and desires. The film places its main characters on the edge of the ’50s bleeding into the social consciousness of the ’60s. Shot in a melodramatic style, as an homage to Douglas Sirk, it contains all the elements of a great musical: inner emotional lives, strong plotting, a simple character arc. The lushness of the film’s visuals have translated into a lushness in Scott Frankel’s score. In transforming the story from one medium to another, we feel that we have the ability to continue to explore the themes, that the film begins to explore and dig a little deeper into the characters’ emotional lives.

This is your theatre’s second time at bat with Korie and Frankel. What draws Playwrights Horizons to their work and why are they a good match with your audience and mission?
Our focus at Playwrights is always on the writers, and our mission includes composers and lyricists as writers. We focus on writer driven work, which tends to mean that the projects we produce are the ideas and province of the writers’ obsessions with the world. Scott and Michael have brought us many of their projects. Obviously, some of any producing decision is an aesthetic one, meaning we simply like their work. But beyond that we find that artist-driven work tends to move the form forward and explore the boundaries of what the form can be. Grey Gardenscreated a narrative out of documentary source material, and Far From Heaven is almost operatic in its approach to the material. They’re still musicals, but they play with the form in artistically challenging ways.

The show was recently at Williamstown Theatre Festival before coming to Playwrights Horizons. How has the show changed and grown over this process?
The piece went through some significant tweaking during the reading and production process. While the plot is generally a given and hasn’t changed much, how many scenes we keep from the movie, how we elide them together and where we choose to place our focus has shifted a lot, as has the amount of underscoring and music. Some characters have been made significantly smaller than they are in the film. And we learned a great deal from the Williamstown audiences. The opportunity to see the piece in a fully realized production prior to coming into NY, while we still have a chance to make significant changes, not just in the text, but also design and approach, is invaluable.

What will change as the show heads to the Playwrights Horizons stage?
You’ll have to come and see!

Why should people come see Far From Heaven on West 42nd Street?
Our space is unique in that is equipped pretty well for musicals and yet it is small and intimate. This is a grand show in many ways and the opportunity to see something of this size in a house as intimate as ours is rare. It’ll be a special experience.

For more info about Far From Heaven, please visit www.playwrightshorizons.org. 

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New Work in Progress- OTHELLO: THE REMIX at Chicago Shakes

An interview with Rick Boynton, Creative Producer at Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST), about their upcoming production of Othello: The Remix by the Q Brothers. The show was a past recipient of a NAMT National Fund for New Musicals Writers Residency Grant.
This fresh urban take on Shakespeare’s tragedy is spun out and lyrically rewritten over original beats by The Q Brothers, America’s leading re-interpreters of Shakespeare through hip-hop (Funk It Up About Nothin’, The Bomb-itty of Errors). Whether you’re looking for a rockin’ night of rhythm and rhyme or a new way to think about Shakespeare, Othello: The Remix delivers an intense, high-energy spin like no other.


How did CST meet the Q Brothers? 
We first met several years back when CST produced their show Bombitty of Errors, a hip-hop musical based on The Comedy of Errors. They approached us a few years later to see if we would be interested in developing a show based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.  We agreed, developed the musical (Funk It Up About Nothin’) and premiered it here in our studio theatre.

Why did you commission them to adapt another Shakespeare play?
The idea for Othello: The Remix really found its way to us.  The Globe in London was organizing a festival of Shakespeare’s work, each performed by different countries around the world, for the cultural Olympiad prior to last summer’s Olympic Games.  They had seen Funkwhen we performed in London, had liked our work, and wanted us to represent the US by creating a hip hop piece based on Othello.  It was an exciting opportunity and, quite honestly, a bit of a daunting yet exciting challenge.  I always find those the most interesting, so we accepted.
What was it like to take a show created in Chicago to international audiences?

We had played Chicago, London, Edinburgh, Australia with Funk and were hoping Othello would have similar opportunities.  After our premiere at the Globe was so well-received, we went to Germany and then spent the summer in Scotland.  It is truly thrilling to watch a show transcend language barriers and/or cultural differences.  As theatre creators, we all strive to move an audience in some way and when it happens, even when they don’t speak the same language, it is incredibly rewarding.
 
What do you hope your audience experience seeing this show in action back in Chicago? 
This is the first time we have developed a show and not premiered it in our own space first.  We are thrilled to share this work with our hometown audience and hope they will enjoy it as much as our international audiences have.

Why should everyone head to Navy Pier to see Othello: The Remix? 
It has an incredibly fresh approach to the art form through a hip-hop lens.  It is a show that is filled with big laughs yet packs a tragic punch.  I am very proud of our work and hope all will come out to see it (besides, we let you drink in the theatre!).

For more information about Othello: The Remix, please visit www.chicagoshakes.com.

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Insights From NAMT's New Success Survey

As part of NAMT’s 2011 strategic planning process, we evaluated all member services, including the publication formerly known as the Royalties Survey. Members surveyed were more interested in the overall success of the various musicals produced by NAMT’s members than the royalty information, which has become more standardized in recent years.
Thus, the Success Survey was born! Recognizing that success is relative (was the show a risky labor of love that you didn’t expect would make money? was it a hit with the audience but a flop financially? did it meet your financial goals but not your artistic ones?), we asked a variety of new subjective questions to measure how respondents felt each show did. We also asked about marketing and overall production income and expense.
Full results of the survey are only available to organizations that participated in it, but we wanted to share some of the most interesting findings more broadly.
Defining Risk
Theatres’ very definition of risk varied. Classic titles like A Chorus Line and Sweet Charity were ranked as risky by some theatres, perhaps due to expense. As theatres’ missions and audiences vary, some saw the same titles in very different lights. While classic musicals were generally considered not to be risky, that did not necessarily make them successful (though we would have to survey the audiences to understand why).
Audiences appreciate risk…if they attend.
Risky shows seemed to pay off, at least with those who attended. Over half of the shows considered “somewhat risky” or “extremely risky” scored well for audience response, and a third ranked high financially.
Does Safe = Successful?
Meanwhile, about 20% of the shows ranked “not at all risky” by members also received “lower than average” audience response or financial success scores. While that is a much better success rate than shows deemed risky, it still seems high considering the perceived risk factor.
Looking Ahead
We learned a lot from this first round of the Success Survey, and I hope to see it expand over the years (it will be administered every two years, alternating with the Salary & Benefits Survey). I hope this peek inside the survey results will inspire more NAMT members to participate next time! More data will allow us to zero in on trends that can help members plan and manage risk and reward in their seasons.

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Conference Report: TEDxBroadway 2013

For the second year in a row, I got to attend the TEDxBroadway conference last month (it’s also the conference’s second year), and soak up some ideas about the future of theatre and what we might be able to learn from other industries and examine some fresh approaches. This year, the conference organizers said we’d be looking more at Broadway the street, as a neighborhood and a destination, through the lens of its theatres. I wondered briefly if I should go, since this sounded very New Yorky and I wasn’t sure where I’d fit in as a representative of NAMT and its members. But it turned out that the discussion centered largely around theatre and communities, the world around arts institutions, not just in New York and not just commercially. I came away with a lot, and not always from expected sources.

Below you’ll find highlights of speakers and ideas that stood out for me personally (and as a representative of NAMT). Despite the very different backgrounds of these speakers and topics they addressed, there are a few common themes running through this:
It’s all about passion.
It’s all about connection.
It’s all about the audience.

Sure, that’s nothing we haven’t heard before, but as you’ll see as you read on, there are surprisingly diverse ways to approach these ideas.

Producer Daryl Roth spoke about the impact of theatre on audiences’ worldviews and connecting art with activism. Her experiences with plays like Wit and The Normal Heart – great plays that also have something important to say – have helped shape her as a producer and a person, and gave her opportunities to bring audiences into a discussion about the issues in the plays, as well as engage with people who might not be habitual theatre-goers but are drawn in by the topic. “If we share the deep belief that theatre matters…then isn’t that the best Broadway can be for all of us?”

Critic Terry Teachout pointed out that 75% of Broadway shows lose money, so everyone who works on Broadway is gambling. “Why do people gamble? Because it’s fun!” He made it clear that he wasn’t bringing up this harsh reality to crush anyone’s dreams, just to make them “look at them from a different point of view.” He wants people to say to themselves, “I’m going to write the best, most original show I can think of. It’s probably going to lose money anyway, so why not try? …Don’t settle for safe, gamble on great. Make something that makes you proud.” Sound familiar, Festival alumni?

I’ll admit that I was both most excited for and most wary of our next speaker. As a nerd who grew up a huge fan of the original Star Trek, I was thrilled at the chance to meet George Takei. But why was he here? What could he possibly have to say about theatre? A lot, actually. I’d forgotten that he’s written an autobiographical musical about his family’s experience in Japanese internment camps during World War II. When Allegiance premiered at NAMT member theatre The Old Globe in San Diego, it broke records and played to packed houses. Takei will always be famous for Star Trek, but in recent years he’s become an internet personality separate and apart from that, using social media to build a personal brand built on smart humor, science…and cats. He used that to help sell Allegiance, but also asked us why theatres weren’t doing more of it on their own, bringing it back to his science fiction fame and love of technology. “I don’t think Broadway has boldly gone where it needs to,” he said, imploring us to “embrace all of the technological advances of the times.”

I don’t usually do the celebrity thing,
but come on! It’s Sulu!

He also spoke of the power of musical theatre to “tell stories that need to be told.” It has an accessibility that can bring people in, and the music can reach them emotionally. (During this, playwright David Lawson tweeted, “Musicals are incredible at preserving history that might have been forgotten: mid 80s UK miners’ strike, June Rebellion, 1899 newsboy strike. And yes, two of those were not musicals first. But it was setting that history to music that made me hungry to learn of the history.” I couldn’t agree more.) Allegiance is aiming for Broadway this year, and hopefully it will expose audiences to this relatively little-known dark spot on American history. I got a chance to speak with Takei later in the day, and I was struck by what a theatre geek he is (he’s done stage work throughout his career, though when Allegiance (in which he also appears) comes in, it will be his Broadway debut) and how passionate he is about not just his show but about musical theatre in general. It was great to see. And I’ll admit that when he recited the opening lines of Star Trek during his speech, I teared up a little; the man knows his audience.

Christine Jones, a scenic designer and creator of Theatre For One, talked about the experience of making an intimate connection between audience and performance in any size space, creating design that can “respond to the visual acoustics of the moment, sometimes with a moment’s notice.” “I wish we had the same ability to make choices about how the audience is seated as I do with what’s on stage,” she said. As I work out the crick in my neck from seeing an otherwise fabulous show last night, I can’t help thinking that Broadway’s historic theatres and often tight space make this a largely unsolvable problem. But I also think fondly of the many comfortable evenings I’ve spent at NAMT member theatres around the country, and the opportunities those of you building or renovating theatres have to make flexible, comfortable spaces. Jones quoted Jujamcyn Theatres President Jordan Roth as saying “Seats are not born partial, they are made partial.” Here’s to never making a seat – or a patron – partial.

Tom Schumacher, head of Disney Theatrical Group, started off a little surprisingly, telling a story about hating and judging tourists (any New Yorker, however kind-hearted, can relate to this). “I have friends,” he said, “who believe the sippy cup is the end of days…. In the 1600s people thought ‘machine plays’ were a sign of theatrical apocalypse too,” but here we still are. “Times are changing. They are also staying very much the same.” 40% of adults surveyed at The Lion King were seeing a Broadway show for the first time. “Our pretention towards the audience seeing the show for the first time simply stands in the way of growing and sharing our business…. These lovely people had bought a ticket, and here I was judging them.” From a business standpoint, “by the definition of our venues and union contracts, this is not a growth industry,” but there is great potential for growth in the audience. While Broadway has a reputation as a place of aging audiences, it turns out kids are also coming in unprecedented numbers, so let’s embrace them and make magic for them – the same kind of magic Schumacher says he experienced going to the theatre as a child and learning that “a guy in a white turtleneck can be a horse and a white box can be a jungle.” Disney, unsurprisingly, takes its populism very seriously, serving as an important entry point into the world of musical theatre for multiple generations.

Two talks that really made me think of our members were by Susan Salgado, of Union Square Hospitality Group, and Erin Hoover from Sheraton. “To say it’s just about the show is discounting everyone who affects the experience of customers,” Salgado said. “We need to provide a great total experience.” (Considering I was yelled at by an usher last night before I had even taken a full step inside the building, I couldn’t agree more!) Hoover talked about how hotel lobbies have changed over the last few decades from purely transactional to spaces “designed to give the guest a series of branded experiences [where] connectivity is expected.” She suggested that theatre lobbies can be transformed to “a series of touch points to enhance the Broadway brand.” I know from my travels, and from lengthy discussions at last year’s Spring Conference, that this is something many NAMT members are already doing. They strive to make customer service a top priority, and recognize that every point of contact, from box office to usher to bar, affects a patron’s experience. Institutional theatres have brands to uphold and seasons to sell, and building a relationship with a customer is vital. What if Broadway focused on service and design brand-wide, like a not-for-profit theatre (or a hotel chain!) does? Your building and your staff can tell a story and be an experience you share, along with the play.

I was particularly inspired by Seth Pinsky, of the NYC mayor’s office, declaring that “the arts are a critical industry in New York and the ripple effect is a major economic engine… New Yorkers believe arts matter.” (We’ll be looking at how some other cities are supporting their arts communities and how theatres can advocate for themselves at this year’s Spring Conference.)

David Sabel from the National Theatre in London gave a great talk about the NTLive series of movie theatre screenings of plays. He referred to the National’s “spirit of R&D,” which covers both new theatrical work and new ways to get that work to audiences. Digital is considered part of the experience (or one possible experience), not just a marketing platform. Because NT is subsidized by the government (25% of their budget!), they feel a responsibility to give taxpayers access to their art and have “a commitment to openness, wide-ranging engagement and access to everyone” in their mission statement. They’ve never seen NT Live as a replacement for the live event, but a separate and worthy experience in itself. When a performance is filmed, the priority is on making a good film of that theatrical event, and the audience is treated like a studio audience for the film, with cameras going where they need to go. The screenings are limited to a brief window, so it’s still an “ephemeral event.” Perhaps of most interest to American theatres is the way the National worked with unions and artists to create something new. They replaced up-front fees with profit-sharing, giving artists and crews literal ownership over the project. And they’ve found that screenings haven’t hurt sales in the theatre at all. “Tech changes fast,” Sabel concluded. “You have to be flexible, nimble, fast. You have to use both sides of the brain.”

Other speakers talked about turning your passions into your work and achieving your dreams by being “flexible with the outcome” (Zachary Schmahl); making Broadway more diverse by telling diverse stories, embracing the theatre “community of nerds and misfits” and writing and producing shows that “cut so deeply to the heart that they transcend…into the cultural conversation” (Kristoffer Diaz); bringing theatre to schools and schools to the theatre (Vincent Gassetto); predicting the future by inventing it and learning what customers want and need by observing them rather than asking them (Ellen Isaacs); marketing to people who you know will never come to your show to make the arts matter to everyone (Adam Thurman); and finding Broadway’s equivalent of the Kindle to overcome limitations of space and money and connect to a wider audience (Randi Zuckerberg).

This year’s conference had some great examples of what we can learn from each other and from other industries. There was a great buzz in the room and online as people discussed ideas and how we might implement them, and old friends were introduced to new ones. Just like at NAMT conferences! (Oh come on, I had to.)

Thanks to the conference organizers, speakers, and especially everyone who was tweeting and blogging along. See you next year!

(For some other people’s observations about TEDxBroadway, I recommend Howard Sherman’s selection of quotes and write-up for the LA Times, and Ken Davenport’s takeaways.)

Updated 3/4/13: Now with videos! For all the videos from last year and this year, just search for TEDxBroadway on YouTube.

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New Work In Progress: TRAILS at The Village Theatre

An interview with Steve Tomkins, Artistic Director of The Village Theatre in Issaquah, WA, about their upcoming production of Trails by Kristy Hall, Jordan Mann and Jeff Thomson.

After twelve years of silence, two childhood friends, Seth and Mike, find themselves face to face.  Unexpectedly, Mike reminds Seth of an old promise to hike the Appalachian Trail together from beginning to end.  Desperate to escape his stifling hometown and the recent death of his mother, Seth agrees to fulfill that promise.  As the challenges of the trail become increasingly difficult, long-kept secrets begin to surface, and their friendship is put to the ultimate test.
How long has the Village been producing new musicals and what is the goal of the Village Originals program? 
Village Theatre has been committed to the development of new musicals since its inception in 1979, and has produced and developed over 90 new musicals. Many of these have gone on to stages around the world, including the Tony Award-winning Next To Normal and Million Dollar Quartet.
 How did Trails find its way out west to Issaquah?
Authors Christy Hall, Jordan Mann and Jeff Thomson were friends with an actor who had been in several shows on the Village Theatre stage.  He recommended Trails to our Village Originals program.  Upon receiving the script, both Robb Hunt and I were enchanted by this innovative new musical, and we started Trails in our new works program, culminating in the 2011 reading at our Festival of New Musicals.

Why was Trails the right show to take from the reading at your Festival last year to your main stage this year?
Our audience’s response to Trails was immediate and overwhelming.  We both felt that significant progress has been made in the development of the script to give it the production values needed for our Mainstage.  This resulted in two more readings and endless discussions readying the script for our 2013 production.

Why is Trails a great show for your theatre and your audience?  
Although Trails is set in the Appalachian Mountains on the East Coast, this remarkable new musical still captures the vitality and energy of the Pacific Northwest.  Because of the unparalleled beauty of the Puget Sound, it is home to many hikers, trailblazers and adventurers. During the last few years, walking the Pacific Crest Trail (the West Coast version of the Appalachian Trail) has become a rite of passage for many young people. Trails encompasses the spirit and essence of our community.

Why should people fill up their hiking backpack and head west to Washington to see Trails this spring? 
They have the opportunity to experience the first major production of an outstanding new musical, written by three talented new writers.  Christy Hall, Jordan Mann and Jeff Thomson are at the beginning of what I feel will be a remarkable career.

For more info about Trails, please visit www.villagetheatre.org.

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Festival Show Update: THE MEMORY SHOW

An interview with Sara Cooper and Zach Redler, writers of The Memory Show from our 2009 Festival, about the life of the show and its upcoming Off Broadway production.
The Memory Show is a two-person comic tragedy about the troubled relationship of a woman who has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and her estranged daughter who moves back home to take care of her.
What has happened with The Memory Show (other than a shorter title) since the Festival in 2009?
We had a reading and then a production at Barrington Stage Company, which was an excellent experience. The Memory Show was also translated into Korean and produced in Korea this fall season. We got to go out there and see it, and it was awesome!
What was it like having the production up at Barrington and seeing the show on its feet? 
We were so fortunate to have Bill [Finn] and Julie [Boyd] supporting us and believing in our work, and to have such an amazing director and MD and actors and designers. It was a really smooth process. We were so happy with how it turned out.
What has changed in the show since your NAMT Festival reading and what has changed since Barrington?We did some rewriting after NAMT, and then Joe [Calarco, director] and Vadim [Feichtner, music director] were really helpful in figuring out what to cut at Barrington. Basically, the piece has just gotten tighter.How did The Transport Group production come about? 
Barrington produced a closed reading in New York, and Jack and Lori from Transport came to see it. We love them. We can’t wait for the production.What is most exciting about finally having your show Off Broadway? 
Because the piece is so personal, we are just really excited to share it. The piece takes place in Brooklyn and so the tone is very New Yorky. We feel like it’s just coming home.
Why should people come check out The Memory Show? 
It’s a wonderful cast and creative team (truly!!!) and they have really brought our little two-person musical to life. We poured a lot of ourselves (and our parents, and our grandparents) into this piece, and we think it says something very truthful about parent-child relationships. We hope this is a show that is universal because it’s so real to us.
For more information about The Memory Show, please visit www.transportgroup.org.

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The Circus In Winter: A New Musical on a Unique Journey

But the catalogue of American musicals is far broader than the dozen or so holding down residence on Broadway marquees, and often the development of new musicals travels a much more winding path than that from the movie house to the playhouse. Instead, they are created by emerging artists with an excitement for the creative process and the hope for a wider audience.
Every year a handful of these organic musicals arrive in New York at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Annual Festival of New Musicals for a short staged reading and showcase in the hopes of support, funding, and most of all a path down which they may continue the journey of their creative process. One such show at this year’s festival, THE CIRCUS IN WINTER, is on a most unique journey. Its creation began not in a movie theater or as a time-tested show, but in an undergraduate classroom at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana where fourteen students and one theater professor spent a semester together writing a musical.

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From the New Works Director: More Festival Fun!

The cast of THE CIRCUS IN WINTER

Miss out on the Festival or just want more? We’ve got you covered! This year we have some new ways you can catch all of what happened at the Festival (and two of them are for members only!).
Festival Jukebox
In the Members-only section* of namt.org, you can find all of this year’s Festival demos streaming in jukeboxes. This is a great way to hear this year’s demos without having to track down the CD you picked up. Tell your fellow staff members to check them out and share the great music from this year’s Festival with your entire organization.
“Other Shows You Should Know” Jukebox 
For years, we have been handing out a CD to every conference attendee filled with 7-9 shows from our selection process that the Festival Committee wants the membership to know about. The CDs are gone and have been replaced by an online jukebox in the members-only section* of the website. There are 2 streaming tracks from each of over a dozen shows along with contact info and show info. These are great shows that are worth your attention and because they are online, we are able to share a lot more fantastic shows with you.
Photos! Photos! Photos! 
Now that you have the sounds of the Festival, how about some sights? Every year, we hire the great photographer Ric Kallaher to take shots of the Festival from rehearsals through the party. You can see ALL of the photos he took on his site. There are great shots of many members and writers in the mix! Even my new photo above is from our closing party! If you would like a hi-res copy of any of the photos, just let me know.
I hope you all will take a moment to check out the two jukeboxes and take a stroll down (recent) memory lane. It was a great event and I, for one, had an amazing time!
*In order to access the members-only section of the website, you will need your log-in and password which carly@namt.org can give you if you have lost it.

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: The NAMT Festival Experience

A guest blog entry from Arthur Lafrentz Bacon about his experience at our Festival with his show Bleeding Love.   
 
Being at NAMT was an awesome, once in a lifetime (hopefully not just once!) experience.
Everyone knows about NAMT, and it’s a big deal. A big deal because hundreds of theater companies and producers come to see the 8 shows that are chosen each year. Where else does this happen? Nowhere. A huge, golden  opportunity for any writer, courtesy of the amazingly talented, hard working staff at NAMT. 

For me as the composer, I knew that getting the score together for the singers and musicians was my first priority. With help from my friend Harris (lyricist of Bleeding Love) and his expertise with Finale software, we got it done just in time, although I was still tweaking the guitar parts minutes before each show. Speaking of guitar, in true rock star fashion, our guitarist was late to the 2nd show, popping out of the curtain just before he had to play…. the reason?… a stalled subway car!

If you’ve never done NAMT before, nothing can really prepare you for the moment you walk into New World Stages and see the hundreds of people that are there, waiting in lines to see the shows. It was almost overwhelming for me until I started to talk with some of the people, and get comfortable with it all. (I played in The Caroline Rhea Show band on NBC for a year, and I didn’t think I’d be phased by the crowds and hoopla, but I was!)  I also think our Bleeding Love team may have had some extra nerves going on, because we never had had even a reading of the piece before this. But with our stellar cast, and terrific director, music director and musicians, they pulled it together in a wonderful way. Before I knew it, there was Sarah Stiles, Nancy Opel and the rest bringing the piece to life in front of a packed audience. All of the songs that I heard in my head for the last couple years, sounded even more terrific when the singers gave them a voice. I was so happy to be able to hear Harris’s
captivating lyrics, Jason’s witty and wry dialogue and see the story unfold. A beautiful thing to be realized and shared with each other.

By the second show, everyone had found their groove, and was killing it (after 25 hours of rehearsal!). I was so proud of them all, and so thankful to be given an opportunity like this. After the second show, I had the pleasure of speaking with many theater companies and producers, all of which were very positive and encouraging. Being told by producers that they loved my melodies made my heart smile the most, for that is my life…melody. A big thank you to Branden, the NAMT staff, the staff at New World Stages and to everyone who came to the festival!

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: First time at the Festival

Our guest blogger, Dan Collins (writer of Southern Comfort), talks about what he learned from his first time presenting at our Festival.  

This is my first blog post.  Ever. 

As monumental as the occasion may be, I can say (type?) with confidence, and relief, that this is far from the top of my ‘take away’ over the course of my experience as a writer at this year’s NAMT Festival;  which – like this blog –  was also my first.  Ever.   And, similarly, I was only familiar with NAMT from the outside looking in and based on the experiences of others.  I knew the basics, but what I didn’t know could fill books (blogs?) – however, in the interest of being short and (hopefully) sweet, there are two “big thoughts” I’ve walked away with as a NAMT first-timer:

1   The 45 minute cut is NOT a throwaway.  My cynical assumption was that I would do a lot of work to create a disposable, condensed version of the show.  And while it’s true that our 44 page draft of an abridged/re-organized Act 1 is not going to be replacing the full libretto; I was astounded by what I learned from the process.  By forcing myself to scrutinize, in a very real way, how each moment connected to the next, and what occurred if a moment was removed, I discovered things about the story and characters that were brand new (or, if not, things of which I had  only been aware on a ‘subconscious plane’).  Beyond that, the cut also forced me to be  less “precious” about the scenes – knowing in the back of my mind that I was “only doing this for the 45 minute version” allowed me to make edits in which I otherwise might not have recognized the value or had the courage to make; edits that – in some cases – may remain and result in a more streamlined version of the full libretto.  But aside from being simply informative, it was actually just fun to get back into the writing of the musical; to “get to know it again” – like an old friend who’d been all business lately, and then we rediscovered the good old days!     

2   Theater is huge!  It’s easy to get wrapped up in the New York City theater scene – but it’s also just a small part of the theater world/community.  This certainly isn’t a revelation to anyone by
any means, I know.  A Chicago transplant myself, I’ve always been aware that theater is happening from black boxes tucked away in the backrooms of hardware stores to the main stage of Steppenwolf and everyplace (and space) between.  But a cerebral understanding is no match for seeing it face to face (to face to face to face!).   Meeting the numerous individuals from theaters all across the country was not only a lot of fun – but incredibly inspiring.  It was a reminder that I first became compelled by (i.e. ‘obsessed with’) theater while watching a production of The Wiz at the Marriott Lincolnshire Theater in Illinois.  These are the experiences and places that keep theater relevant, vibrant and immortal – like missionaries of a faith, spreading the “good word” far and wide.  Because the pulse of the living theater relies on so much more than a handful of commercial productions in any one city, state or country; and I can’t imagine anyplace where that truth is more evident, and more celebrated, than NAMT. 

Admittedly, I am only a few days removed from the festival and therefore still “within the experience”  (seeing as how a large part of NAMT is the result of the presentation).  However, the new discoveries and re-discoveries made as a result are already well worth the effort.  And whether that’s just the tip of the iceberg or the whole thing, I can still say, with total certainly, that this was my best first NAMT.  Ever.

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Making the most of rehearsals

A guest blog entry from Itamar Moses, one of the writers of Nobody Loves You, about the secret blessings of only have 25 hours to put together your show for the Festival. 

There’s a possibly apocryphal story that I’m too lazy to verify right now about a Russian director who was asked how long he wanted to rehearse a production of Chekhov. He said, “Two years.” When he was told that that was impossible he said, “In that case, two days.”

Actors will often tell you that their best performance in rehearsal is at the first read-through and that they spend the remainder of the rehearsal process gradually working their way back there, hopefully arriving by opening night.

All this came to mind when I sat down to write a blog post on the subject of presenting a musical with only a few days to rehearse, which is what you have to do when your lucky enough to have your musical in NAMT. Because having only twenty-some-odd hours of rehearsal is, in a way, not as big a burden as one might imagine. There’s a spontaneity, an instinctive tendency towards surprising and daring choices, to which performers often have access early in a process that actually becomes more difficult (for a while) as those initial impulses are gradually complicated by the questions and alternatives that inevitably arise when you start to live with material for weeks or months instead of days. And while all of that exploration leads (ideally) to deeper and more nuanced performances on the other side, there’s a long slog through the desert of murky confusion in between in the midst of which it’s probably best not to make an audience sit through what you’ve got. That’s why the (possibly fictional) Russian director’s second choice after having all the time in the world was to have almost no time at all.

All of which is to say that there’s something clarifying, simplifying, even useful, about having just enough time to learn the songs, run the scenes, and make a few very basic decisions about how best to tell a story, before you put it in front of an audience. You may not have enough time to plumb your piece to its deepest depths but you also don’t have enough time to get in your way. Put another way: unless the middle of your process is going to be long enough, you might be better off having a process with only a beginning and an end.

In the case of our show Nobody Loves You in particular we’re in a slightly different situation in that five of the eight members of our cast have played these roles before, in the musical’s world premiere at The Old Globe in San Diego. But even in a case like this the principle applies. Our three new cast members are having to dive right in with nothing but the few hours of rehearsal we’ve got and, in turn, our returning cast members have only these few hours of rehearsal to incorporate and respond to the new energy this adds to the piece.

So as you watch all the great musicals at NAMT this year and you want to think to yourself, “This acting and singing is amazing! I can’t believe they had only a few days to rehearse!” instead think to yourself, “This acting and singing is amazing! They’re so lucky they didn’t have more time to rehearse!”

It’s like that Malcolm Gladwell book BLINK. Which I didn’t read but which when I think about it for a second think I have a pretty good what it says.

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Day(s) away...

A guest entry from Valerie Vigoda, Lyricist of Sleeping Beauty Wakes, about final preparations for the Festival.  
 
Okay, technically it’s one day away – but that’s because the whole process of NAMT is such a whirlwind; time seems to go faster than usual, and it feels like we have just started rehearsal.
We’ve got one more two-hour runthrough-plus-notes session today, with the full cast + Brad Haak on piano + our wonderful Gene Lewin on drums  – and then that’s it! Performance Thursday morning (we kick off the festival at 10:30 AM)…and after yesterday’s terrific rehearsal, I feel really good about the whole thing. I can’t wait!

Gene, Brad, Nicholas, Olli, Mary Jo
and Katrina at sound check,
photo by Vigoda for NAMT

These actors, some of whom came in at the very, very last minute (for instance, Christy Altomare, who is starring as “Rose”, came in to save our butts two days AFTER rehearsals had begun!) – they are ALL AMAZING and doing something truly heroic, which is learning these roles in 25 hours of rehearsal – actually even less, in most cases -and then portraying them as if they’d been in production for months. 
 
Yesterday felt like a turning point – where the nervousness seemed to vanish and the whole cast started relishing and enjoying what they were doing, really sinking in to their parts…and the energy in the room truly started to pop. Brad the music director smiled more and more, and so did Marcy the stage manager. Always a good sign.

There are some pretty tricky close harmonies for our four patients – and I’ve never seen singers learn their parts so fast and so accurately. There’s a wall of energized, perfectly in tune,
GORGEOUS sound coming at us from Nick Cohn as “Murray” the snorer, Olli Haaskivi as “Leon” the insomniac, Mary Jo Mecca as “Hadara” the restless legs sufferer, and Katrina Rose Dideriksen as “Cheryl” the night terrors patient…and Brendan and I are ECSTATIC listening to them.
 

Nicholas, Olli, Bryce, Christy, Peter, Tonya, Mary Jo and
Katrina at sound check, photo by Vigoda for NAMT

Tonya Pinkins as the “Doctor/Bad Fairy” is tearing up the place with her sizzling, beguiling, volcanic wickedness…Peter Friedman is absolutely breaking all our hearts as Rose’s father the “King”…Christy Altomare is finding unbelievable edge and depth in our non-princessy princess…and Bryce Ryness, our only returning cast member, continues to outdo himself with his brilliant characterization of our narcoleptic/cataplectic clinic orderly, the unlikeliest of princes.

Our new opening number IS WORKING!!! This is the first time we’re seeing what we have recently wrought – and I think we have finally cracked it. We made a few trims to songs later in the first act to make sure we don’t go over our 45 minutes…and I feel like we’re in really good shape. 

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: On The Road To NAMT Fest-- 3 Writers talk about the NAMT experience

“On The Road To NAMT” will be a special sub-series of the Festival Countdown featuring blogs from Tom Mizer (Book & Lyrics of TRIANGLE) that will also be featured as part of his blog The Broadway Blog.  This is Tom’s second entry in the series. 
 

William Ryall, Robin de Jesus, Sarah Stiles, Damon Daunno, Nancy Opel & Nicolette Hart rehearsing “Bleeding Love”. Photo by Jason Schafer.

Writing musicals can be a lonely business. Most of the time it’s just you and a collaborator in a room together. So when I was presented with the chance to talk with a few of my fellow writers presenting shows at NAMT this year, I jumped at the chance. If nothing else, it would be like group therapy. But rhymed.
Just over a week ago, I sat down with two amazing writers: Gaby Alter, composer and co-lyricist of the recent Old Globe hit Nobody Loves You; and Harris Doran, lyricist for the post-apocalyptic fairy taleBleeding Love. With presentation preparations hitting high gear, we took a brief moment to breathe, talk about our inspirations and discuss the best part of writing versus acting in a musical (hint: booze).

Gaby Alter. Photo by Stephen Mallon.

When did you get the bug to write music theater because…how old are you?
GABY: Old.
(laughter)
HARRIS: I’m younger.
GABY: Usually people are younger than me.
HARRIS: You look younger.
GABY: Well, thank you.
And I’m the oldest one in the room so shut up.
(laughter)
HARRIS: But you look younger than me.
That’s staying in the final interview.
(laughter)
My point is that when I look back and think about when I was in high school and college, music theater was not popular. There’s a renaissance right now…
HARRIS: Is there? Because of Glee?
When I talk to an 18 year-old or a 22 year-old, within a certain segment, they think music theater is cool.
HARRIS: True. There are musical movies now and Glee and something else…
And Smash. There are certainly now people wanting to get into the field. An excitement. And that wasn’t so much the case when I was that age. So how did you start?
GABY: It was sort of an accidental thing, a convergence of stuff that I did. It was after high school and I had a friend who wrote plays. He was like, “Want to write a musical?” It was over the summer. Neither of us were musical fans. It’s not like I hated musicals, I just knew very little about them except what I knew as kid. I knew the Rogers and Hammerstein stuff. He said, “Do you want to write a rock musical?” And I said, “Yeah, sure.” But I thought it was a ridiculous idea.
(laughter)
GABY: I also didn’t think we were going to do it. Especially when you’re 17 or 18, you say so but…actually he had a whole plan and he was very organized. He came over the next day and had some lyrics.
HARRIS: Oh wow.
GABY: So we ended up doing it over that summer. And it was the high of doing it. “Let’s get our friends who were actors in high school and involve everybody.” And you invite your family and you feel really cool because you’re all of a sudden on stage. I hadn’t had that experience except in a band. But it was easier for me to write stuff in that format. I was writing with him. “You do this and I’ll do that.” There are clear guidelines. Like fun homework. I really responded to collaborating and working as a group… Later I came to appreciate musicals and how difficult writing the really good ones is.
(laughter)

We can all second that.
HARRIS: I had no idea.
(laughter)
GABY: What about you guys?

Harris Doran. Photo by Chris Pereira.

HARRIS: I’m an actor. I’ve done musicals over the course of my career. But mostly I’ve done plays and more recently films. I’ve always written, even as a little kid, I wrote poetry. It was recommended to me that I go to BMI (Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop) and I was like, “I don’t know.” I ended up having the interview for BMI and still hadn’t written anything so I spent the night before writing some stuff…
(laughter)
HARRIS: I went in there with my lyrics and I acted them out for them and I got accepted. I thought, “OK, I guess I’ll do that.” I didn’t take it seriously. Got some good feedback but still couldn’t care less and then I was assigned to Arthur, who is still my writing partner, and we were paired up to write an assignment on It’s a Wonderful Life. We wrote this rock song. I went through and thought, “This movie is so boring.”
(laughter)
HARRIS: But there was this one tertiary character who’s got this idea, “You’ve got to have plastic.” And he comes back all rich at the end so we wrote this song called “Plastic is Fantastic” which was killer and I thought, “Maybe I can do this.” And I kept going.
You saw you could come at musicals from a different angle.
HARRIS: Exactly.
Same thing for you, Gaby, coming at it from a rock/pop angle.
HARRIS: Over time, it has given me something else to put my energy into. If I’m not acting, I’m writing. And I usually forget that I do the other while I’m doing the one. I say I’m an actor and I feel like I’m a liar. Then I’m writing and I feel like a liar because I’m an actor.
(laughter)
Didn’t you find that, because I was at a similar fork in the road, that writing is something I can do wherever, whenever I want. No one has to hire me as a writer. And I loved that I could go home and be creative.
HARRIS: Sure.
I mean, I could go home and do my monologues but the roommates don’t really want to hear you doing that Brighton Beach Memoirs monologue again.
(laughter)
HARRIS: (in perfect Simon accent) “Two up, bases are loaded…”
(laughter)

Harris Doran in “Brighton Beach Memoirs”. Image via the Pioneer Theatre Company.

I played a lot of young Jewish boys. Look at me. How that happened I have no idea. But in the Midwest…
HARRIS: …this is as close as it gets.
Gaby, you spoke of R&H. Is there some show of theirs that you are able to look at now, with experience, and you do see it as a goal?
GABY: I went to Tisch; the graduate musical theater program there is really good. It got me thinking about the classic musicals and why are they classic. And then I saw South Pacific at Lincoln Center and I remember thinking I was very skeptical about it. I know their stuff is good but…it seems a little bit schmaltzy and dated. But it wasn’t those things. It was a romantic musical but it wasn’t cheesy. It looks at racism and it looks at death. And they were great songwriters… I wouldn’t write like them now but you can see the things that were at stake.
HARRIS: Did you see that Carousel revival? Lincoln Center years ago?
GABY: It was good?

Lincoln Center revival of “Carousel”. Photo by Joan Marcus.

HARRIS: Oh yeah! There might be a video at Lincoln Center library. If you liked that South Pacific revival, thatCarousel was unbelievable.
What blew me away was…you think of all those songs that you’ve heard, but the way they are woven through scenes is so modern. They don’t stop to just sing one of those pretty songs; they flow through the scenes. I hadn’t realized…
HARRIS: And those shows were written very quickly. Now we spend years and years writing and developing with everyone’s opinions. We actually wrote this musical [Bleeding Love] in less than a year. We talked a lot about The King and I, which I guess they had the entire structure worked out but started rehearsals without a second act and they wrote the second act while they were rehearsing. If you take the time to focus on the structure before you write a word then you save yourself a lot of rewrites later…
That sounds like heaven.
(laughter)
HARRIS: If you write a show without everything figured out ahead of time, you write a song and you’re like, “Wait, that song is 5 degrees off.” It’s not like it’s the wrong song. It’s almost…but you’re f*cked…oh…
You can say f*cked, it’s fine.
(laughter)
HARRIS: If that little wrong is the core of the song, then you’re screwed.
GABY: It’s true. Figuring out structure is smart… But sometimes it’s a matter of knowing what it is. The last few musicals I’ve worked on we didn’t know. It’s sort of developing its own tone and world as you write. The one I’m working on now with Itamar, he’s very good at structure, but structure also changes or in this case changed as we did it.
Harris, would you ever want to act in your own stuff?
HARRIS: (beat) I don’t really want to do musicals.
(laughter)
And why is that?
HARRIS: You can’t drink.
(laughter)
HARRIS: It’s a lot of worrying about your voice. It’s a lot of work.
They work hard.
HARRIS: They work hard.
(laughter)
HARRIS: I don’t love doing musicals. I love the idea of musicals. I love watching them.
Which music theater performers do you look at — do you think have the acting chops and the musical talent to pull it off?
HARRIS: Vicki Clark. I thought that Alice Ripley was amazing in Next to Normal. Tanya Pinkins inCaroline or Change… I like a performer that is risky. I like the cast that we’ve got [for Bleeding Love]. They’re a bunch of quirky, interesting performers. It took us a while to find these people because we were like, “No, much quirkier, much weirder.”
(laughter)
HARRIS: We wanted people who would jump at it and bring it to life… You guys have had workshops and productions?

Adam Kantor and Old Globe Cast of “Nobody Loves You”. Photo by Henry DiRocco.

GABY: We had a production in May in San Diego.
HARRIS: And you applied to NAMT?
GABY: We applied because we didn’t know what was going to happen after the production. These days, unless you have a producer signed on, as I’m sure you know, it’s up to you to find the next thing. Depending on how it works out, we wanted other people to see it and we didn’t know if they’d come out to the West Coast. We found out we got in [to NAMT] during the production and we thought, “Well, good!” How about you, guys?
Our [journey] is harder to describe. Triangle is at an earlier stage because we haven’t had a production yet. Basically, the show existed for a while [with drafts in 2005 and 2006] then it went on a shelf because of a bookwriter issue. [After a number of years], the show became ours to work on again and we did a reading of it at Northwestern last year, testing a completely new half of the story. The modern half of the story we totally rewrote. We thought, “this can work,” so we started applying for stuff to do this year. We applied to NAMT and got into TheatreWorks at the same time. We did a two-week workshop at TheatreWorks [in August]; you do a reading, rewrite for a few days, do a reading, rewrite and reading. It’s sort of a natural progression to be here now…
HARRIS: We’ve never even had a reading of our musical, other than me and the bookwriter. We were pretty good, though.
(laughter)
GABY: Awesome.
That first presentation is going to be so exciting.
HARRIS: Monday [the first rehearsal] is going to be exciting when we have actors.
You’ve never had actors read it?
HARRIS: No one. The only actor that’s ever read it is me. It’s going to be so exciting to have an amazing cast do the first reading.
What’s your favorite part of the process when you’re writing, from the moment the idea comes up to presenting to an audience?
HARRIS: When it’s being performed.
You like that? I find it maddening.
(laughter)
HARRIS: Really, why? Because you feel like it’s not being interpreted how you intended?
No. No. Because I want to be involved — maybe because I was an actor at one point – and that’s the part I have to sit back and twiddle my thumbs. I get so nervous.
HARRIS: I’m really excited about what an actor can bring.
Oh, I totally get that.
HARRIS: I get a feeling of pride, not in my work, but in them. Look at them shine. I really like that.
Gaby, what’s your favorite step?
GABY: God, I don’t know. The cocaine.
(laughter)
The party after.
HARRIS: The money.
(sustained laughter)
GABY: No. It sort of depends. I had done a production with Band Geeks but somehow with Nobody Loves You it felt more…no they were both momentous. Make or break. I was terrified. I was sh*tting myself. We’ve worked on this for five years… you’ve crawled over broken glass to get there and actually this might go wrong… I don’t think that part is fun. You know, it might be when you are in rehearsal and everyone’s all in to it and you stage a number for the first time and you’re like, “Oh my god, that’s so much better than I would have imagined.” And the actors are like, “Yeah, that’s awesome!” And there’s no audience there to say, “What is this sh*t?”
(laughter)
We’ll find out how those presentations go, harrowing or triumphant, this Thursday and Friday in New York City. 

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Giving THE CIRCUS IN WINTER a voice

A guest blog entry from Ben Clark, composer/lyricist for The Circus in Winter, about getting ready for the Festival. 
 
In this week of rehearsals, we have seen our production grow up right before our eyes. The Circus in Winter has had nine staged readings in various forms over its three years in existence and one fully staged production, all at Ball State University, where the concept to bring the novel to life on stage was born. 

But this is New York City, and we have the privilege of casting actors for the first time in our show’s young life. Not only age-appropriate, but also Equity members with Broadway credentials. You just can’t argue with a deal like that. 

The Circus in Winter in rehearsal,
photo by Ben Clark for NAMT

For myself personally, it is a new territory in that I have always played the guitar and led most rehearsals for the previous readings and production. Thanks to Music Director Matthew Webb and guitarist Eli Zoller, I won’t be required for those roles at NAMT. It was a fearful, uncomfortable beginning in my head as I approached our rehearsal space on West 18th Street, but I was quickly reassured by Matt’s careful interpretation of my pieces. He, as well as the rest of our production team and the NAMT festival coordinators, all have a presence in rehearsal that suggests a nurturing of new work. They all want your material to be the best it can be, and that pulls practicality and honesty out of these professionals. 

Each added experience tops the rest. Victoria Bussert joined
our team as director after three rehearsals, and used practical blocking to turn a bare stage into something that resembled the midwest of the late 1800’s. And when it was my turn to step away from the guitar, it went more smoothly than I could have imagined. Eli took in the unique style and process of captaining the show on acoustic, and my mind at this point is very much at ease thanks to his commitment.

And the cast. Wow. They take in notes and work so quickly, none of the process with any of them is close to being called a challenge. They have adopted the energy and groove essential to establishing what this show is about, its appeal to the masses, which in my opinion, is good, fun, driving, powerful music. I can indicate only so much through notes written in a score; it takes our whole team to specify exactly how it’s done. And no matter how big the role, whether its two-time Tony winner Sutton Foster making moments come to brilliant life, or her understudy Shannon O’Boyle, who stepped in on her fair share of rehearsals without thinking twice, the quality of work being done is nothing short of tremendous. 

Corey Mach and Steel Burkhardt,
photo by Ben Clark for NAMT

We have men, too. The unquestionable presence of Steel Burkhardt in our leading role paired with Cory Mach and his powerful tenor strength brings vocal range that is always available. Good solid walls of sound come out of this ensemble, making this larger-than-life musical explode into the audience. 

Life beyond music rehearsals is looking good. There’s nothing more satisfying to a writer than feeling like you could open your material to an audience early if you wanted, due to the commitment of your production team. Whether the show has a long life, or this is the beginning of a number of other experiences, I will forever keep with me the things I was a part of here at NAMT. For a musical composer, there is simply no other festival that accommodates new work like these artists do. 

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: First Rehearsal...

A special entry from Harris Doran, lyricist of Bleeding Love, about their first (ever) rehearsal for their Festival show.  

After months of watching hundreds upon hundreds of youtube videos, our six person Broadway dream cast —Damon Daunno, Robin de Jesus, Nicolette Hart, Nancy Opel, William Ryall, Sarah Stiles— stepped out of youtube, walked through the door, and were casually chatting and snacking on the honey wheat pretzels I had bought for them. 

Unreal.

We didn’t know what to expect, because BLEEDING LOVE has the great fortune of being chosen for NAMT after never even having a table read, so the first time the cast was reading the script was the first time we had ever heard the script read out loud other than the one day we spent recording songs for our demo—or that time Jason and I read though the script in a rehearsal studio. We were decent.

I’m sweating, couldn’t sleep the night before, nervously eating the organic black licorice bits I had also bought for the actors. We had worked very hard to get a cast that was as bold and unique as the piece. Each of them a shining star all in one room, and I had lost my sunglasses earlier in the day, so I happily accepted the glare. Back to the sweating… the script is cracked open and John Michael Crotty, our fantastic stage manager (highly recommend), is reading the stage directions. So casual. Having no idea how he’s the first one to read our stage directions, which of course would have no significance to anyone else in the world but us. And our mothers. And we’re off.

One by one watching these actors feel as if they had walked off of the page and were suddenly sitting in chairs around the table.
Arthur Bacon, our composer, and Jason Schafer, our bookwriter, laughing, crying, and sharing shocked faces and thumbs up as each of the actors opened their mouths and gave life to the characters for the first time. Our piece has a tricky tone because it’s both dark and light at the same time. Like a Tim Burton movie. It has to be both very real and very big at the same time, very funny and yet very emotional, and although I knew the actors we had gotten were capable of doing it, I didn’t expect them to nail the tone in that first read thru. Nailed it, they did. Jumping through the script like an obstacle course, fearless, funny, moving. Needless to say, we got to the end, and if I had the skills, I would have done a one-legged triple axel back flip for each of them.

We had met with Stephen Brackett, our smart, smart, smart and warm director a few times beforehand. It was very important to us that we found someone who was a real actor’s director and Stephen is just that. But still, as with everything, you never know. When the day was done, and he had commanded the room with such egoless ease, we stayed after and he gave us some notes. The exact right notes. Jason Wetzel, our musical director, who we’d never worked with, but heard was wonderful (and the rumors were true) played the score effortlessly and taught the music with confidence and efficiency.
Boom.

It’s a funny thing, expectations. And balancing them. You never know on the first day what you’re going to get when you’ve never worked with people before. But what I do know is there are extraordinary, talented people out there, who shine if you just let them. It is a miracle to us that such incredible people have all come together in order to make BLEEDING LOVE happen. We feel tremendously lucky.

And that was just day one.

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