I realized watching New Line's Grease over the past month that New Line really does have its own aesthetic, its own style, its own feel. Watching our shows will never feel like watching shows at Stages or the Muny or the Rep. We're like the early Steppenwolf or The Actors Gang. Our shows just don't follow the same rules as other companies' shows -- they're not better or worse, but different. I think it boils down to a few factors...
First, we start with the assumption that the material is absolutely great. You'd be amazed how many directors and actors don't start with that assumption. Instead they assume the script or score (or both), are deeply flawed and since these folks think they're more clever than the creators, they think they know how to fix the imagined flaws. They change the order of songs, cut things, add songs from movie versions, sometimes even write new scenes. (A local professional production of Grease did some of these things recently.)
At New Line, we assume that if we don't understand something in a show or if a certain moment isn't working, it's our fault (or more to the point, my fault as director), not the material's fault. And so we keep looking for other ways to approach it, to understand it, and eventually we figure it out. But we don't fix the problem by rewriting the show. Almost every time, it turns out the material is just as strong as we thought it was -- or even stronger, as in the case of Grease -- and we just haven't yet fully understood how it works. I completely restaged the end of Grease the week before we opened -- it had never really worked for me or the actors, but I knew it was our fault, not the show's. And after weeks and weeks of trying to figure out why it wasn't working, I finally Got It. I was trying to figure out how to End the Show instead of trying to figure out where each character had gotten to dramatically. I was working on a logistical issue that was actually a character issue. Once I realized my mistake, another solution was obvious and the ending worked great.
Second, our primary goal at New Line is always the same: figure out what the creators meant to say and then find the clearest possible way to say that. So many directors and actors never even ask that question (particularly when they're working on musicals!), and the result is bland, mindless productions that don't move, delight, or inspire their audiences. Every good piece of theatre has something to say. The director's job isn't to put his "mark" on a show, and it's not to impress the audience -- his job is to tell the story.
Third, we take our time putting a show up, which is a wonderful luxury. We're rarely, if ever, "avant garde," but we are "experimental" in that we love to experiment. Nothing is ever set in stone until we get close to opening. We're never afraid to go back and totally change something we've done, if better solutions present themselves. Again, you'd be surprised how many directors won't do that (often because they don't have the time). It allows the actors and me such incredible freedom -- the Freedom to Fail in rehearsal -- which opens the door to such wonderful experimentation and wild leaps of imagination. Sometimes the leaps don't pay off, and sometimes they pay off in spades. But you only get the good ones if you aren't afraid of the bad ones.
Fourth -- and perhaps most obvious to the audience -- we don't always subscribe to the same aesthetics as everyone else. For some shows, energy and intensity and ferocity and adventure are far more important than polish and precision. Some shows can actually be destroyed by polish and precision -- including shows we've produced, like Hair (obviously), The Robber Bridegroom, Grease, The Rocky Horror Show, and others. For those musicals, we consciously reject mainstream aesthetics, we embrace accident and chaos, we strive for being overwhelming rather than neat and clean. As Robert Lepage says in his excellent book, Connecting Flights, "Chaos is necessary. If there is order and rigor in a project, the outcome will be nothing but order and rigor. But it's out of chaos that the cosmos is born -- This is where true creation lies."
Last, we usually only take on projects that we're afraid of, that freak us out a little. If we know exactly how to make the show great before we even start, we won't end up with a very exciting show. It's the fear, the failed experiments, the struggle that bring real muscle and intensity to our work. I wouldn't have it any other way. I'd just be bored.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
A-Wop-Baba-Lu-Mop!
We come to the end of our adventure. New Line Theatre's Grease closes tomorrow, having sold out 9 out of 12 performances. I'm proud of all our shows, but this one has a very special place in my heart. Grease was the first show I ever music directed, when I was a junior at Affton High School in 1980 (and the first time Affton let a student music direct). It was the first show I ever directed by myself, with CenterStage Theatre Co. in 1986. But this was the first time I worked on the show as a professional and as a theatre scholar. I know now that I didn't know shit about the show the other times I worked on it.
It has been a great damn ride. I understand the show and its historical context better than I ever expected (due in part to Skip Berger -- you rock, dude!). I understand early rock and roll, its sound, its profound cultural impact, and its relationship to the Sexual Revolution and the counterculture of the 1960s. I've learned so much about American history working on New Line shows -- about the late 1700s (The Robber Bridegroom), the 1920s (Floyd Collins, Chicago), the 1930s (The Cradle Will Rock, Reefer Madness), the 1950s (The Nervous Set, Grease), the 1960s (Hair, Cabaret), the 1970s (Rocky Horror, Company, Best Little Whorehouse), and lots more... But Grease seems to be the link among all of that, that moment at mid-century when everything changed, that point toward which everything before it was leading and from which everything after it evolved. America's Obligatory Moment.
But it's not just about me finally understanding this remarkable, insightful, truthful material. It's also that I got a chance to take this material I loved deeply and give it back its self-respect and its balls, show people what it was meant to be, give them a glimpse of the artistry and muscle of the writing that has been ignored for the last 30 years. Instead of putting our "mark" on Grease (as we do with some shows), we chose to step back and defer to the show's original creators. We gave the show back its authenticity. Some folks didn't like that -- we know from past experience that some people do not want to be challenged and they do not want the truth. (They can't HANDLE the truth!) They want simplistic, comforting, empty calories that reassure them that the world is great and that the way they live is fine and has no consequences. Those folks should just stay away from New Line -- we'll never make them happy...
But the best part of these last few months was working with this group of 16 adventurous, fearless, talented actors, who understood what this show is supposed to be and found unique, surprising, and brilliantly truthful moments throughout the show. These actors understood that the characters of Grease are KIDS, silly, immature, cruel, horny kids. For once, Grease was not populated by 20- and 30-somethings who miss the central lie of the show -- that none of these kids are actually cool, they just think they are! What a joy to see the truth in these stories at long last! Despite its obsession with sex and its filthy language, Grease has a surprising innocence about it, a child-like joy that only kids seem to possess. I will forever be grateful to our cast for finding that innocence and that joy. Our audiences appear to be utterly thrilled by it.
I am so very proud of this show. It's not for everybody, but it's honest, intelligent, rowdy, and -- my favorite thing in the world -- Truthful. What more could you ask of a piece of theatre?
Thank you Greasers.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
It has been a great damn ride. I understand the show and its historical context better than I ever expected (due in part to Skip Berger -- you rock, dude!). I understand early rock and roll, its sound, its profound cultural impact, and its relationship to the Sexual Revolution and the counterculture of the 1960s. I've learned so much about American history working on New Line shows -- about the late 1700s (The Robber Bridegroom), the 1920s (Floyd Collins, Chicago), the 1930s (The Cradle Will Rock, Reefer Madness), the 1950s (The Nervous Set, Grease), the 1960s (Hair, Cabaret), the 1970s (Rocky Horror, Company, Best Little Whorehouse), and lots more... But Grease seems to be the link among all of that, that moment at mid-century when everything changed, that point toward which everything before it was leading and from which everything after it evolved. America's Obligatory Moment.
But it's not just about me finally understanding this remarkable, insightful, truthful material. It's also that I got a chance to take this material I loved deeply and give it back its self-respect and its balls, show people what it was meant to be, give them a glimpse of the artistry and muscle of the writing that has been ignored for the last 30 years. Instead of putting our "mark" on Grease (as we do with some shows), we chose to step back and defer to the show's original creators. We gave the show back its authenticity. Some folks didn't like that -- we know from past experience that some people do not want to be challenged and they do not want the truth. (They can't HANDLE the truth!) They want simplistic, comforting, empty calories that reassure them that the world is great and that the way they live is fine and has no consequences. Those folks should just stay away from New Line -- we'll never make them happy...
But the best part of these last few months was working with this group of 16 adventurous, fearless, talented actors, who understood what this show is supposed to be and found unique, surprising, and brilliantly truthful moments throughout the show. These actors understood that the characters of Grease are KIDS, silly, immature, cruel, horny kids. For once, Grease was not populated by 20- and 30-somethings who miss the central lie of the show -- that none of these kids are actually cool, they just think they are! What a joy to see the truth in these stories at long last! Despite its obsession with sex and its filthy language, Grease has a surprising innocence about it, a child-like joy that only kids seem to possess. I will forever be grateful to our cast for finding that innocence and that joy. Our audiences appear to be utterly thrilled by it.
I am so very proud of this show. It's not for everybody, but it's honest, intelligent, rowdy, and -- my favorite thing in the world -- Truthful. What more could you ask of a piece of theatre?
Thank you Greasers.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
Your spelling's kinda crummy...
Well, the reviews are out. Several of them are mixed but generally positive -- and the negative comments are pretty much exactly what we expected, quite clearly born of preconceptions about this show from which the reviewers apparently could not escape... Luckily (from a producer's perspective, at least), the Post Dispatch review was pretty much a rave.
And we're selling out most performances, so really, who cares what they think? Our audiences are having an absolute blast!
One review, in one of the smaller papers, by a reviewer whose identity will not be revealed here (to protect the clueless) was exactly the kind of unthinking, intellectually lazy review we were dreading...
He started his review by describing Grease as a show "painted in cartoonish bright colors and broad strokes." Ironically, the whole reason we did the show was to correct the misconception that Grease is a cartoon, that it is musical comedy, but if someone thinks that's what Casey and Jacobs wrote, it's inevitable that they would not like what we've wrought. That may be how many people produce the show now, but Casey and Jacobs wrote a gritty, rowdy concept musical exploring one of the most important cultural moments in American history, a show that explicitly rejected everything this reviewer thinks Grease is.
It's interesting to me that, with reviewers like this, it never occurs to them that they don't fully understand our shows -- they always assume (and I mean always) that the shows themselves are the problem...
He was terribly disappointed that we didn't actually bring a car out onstage for "Greased Lightning," because he thinks the car is the "highlight" of the show. I would argue that any production in which the car is the highlight must be a pretty shitty production of Grease.
This guy dismissed the show's structure as "too loose to quite earn the name of plot," not understanding that Grease is not a book musical. It never was. (Which may be why he also thinks it feels more like a concert than a book musical.) Grease is a concept musical. The "plot" isn't the point. The impact of rock and roll on American sexuality is the point. Which is why he so utterly misses the boat when he contends that Danny and Sandy's romance is central to the show -- only five of the show's twenty songs have anything at all to do with them, so how could they be conventional musical comedy leads? Grease isn't about them anymore than it's about Roger or Doody. It's about rock and roll and sex.
And contrary to what this guy thinks, the music of Grease is not parody (aside, perhaps, from "Raining on Prom Night") -- it's incredibly authentic evocation. I've been studying in depth the actual music of the 1950s and am amazed by the authenticity of the Grease score, musically, rhythmically, structurally, harmonically, textually... The writers weren't making fun of 50s music; they were celebrating it, exploring it, showing us how inventive and sophisticated and subversive much of it was.
And on top of everything else, this guy completely missed the truth of who these kids are. They're not "archetypes;" they're real, working class kids in an inner city high school. (Believe me, I've spent the last six months hearing stories from folks who were greasers who graduated in 1959.) It's a simplistic misreading of the show to think that Kenickie or any of the others are "the coolest of the cool and the hottest of the hot." They're high school kids, for God's sake! Have you ever met a high school kid who fit that description? None of them are genuinely cool -- that's one of the central points of the show! Likewise, Eugene is not a cartoon -- he's the straight A student who will go on to a happy, successful life (as we see in the opening reunion scene), a kind of life that will elude most of the other characters. Like the others, Eugene is not a cartoon character, no matter how much this reviewer wants him to be. There is not a word in the script that suggests he should be played as a cartoon nerd.
If this hapless reviewer would have expended just the slightest effort at peeking under the surface, it would have revealed to him so much more in Grease than he took the trouble to see. He came in with preconceptions about this show and nothing could shake them. Unfortunately, this reviewer routinely sees so little in our work, even when the other reviewers and our audiences see so much more...
I guess it seems to me only fair that a reviewer should expend as much thought and consideration on our work as we put into the work itself. It has nothing to do with positive or negative; it's about doing the job of theatre reviewing with intelligence and insight. Doesn't our audience deserve that? And don't our artists deserve that as well?
Same as it ever was, I guess...
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
And we're selling out most performances, so really, who cares what they think? Our audiences are having an absolute blast!
One review, in one of the smaller papers, by a reviewer whose identity will not be revealed here (to protect the clueless) was exactly the kind of unthinking, intellectually lazy review we were dreading...
He started his review by describing Grease as a show "painted in cartoonish bright colors and broad strokes." Ironically, the whole reason we did the show was to correct the misconception that Grease is a cartoon, that it is musical comedy, but if someone thinks that's what Casey and Jacobs wrote, it's inevitable that they would not like what we've wrought. That may be how many people produce the show now, but Casey and Jacobs wrote a gritty, rowdy concept musical exploring one of the most important cultural moments in American history, a show that explicitly rejected everything this reviewer thinks Grease is.
It's interesting to me that, with reviewers like this, it never occurs to them that they don't fully understand our shows -- they always assume (and I mean always) that the shows themselves are the problem...
He was terribly disappointed that we didn't actually bring a car out onstage for "Greased Lightning," because he thinks the car is the "highlight" of the show. I would argue that any production in which the car is the highlight must be a pretty shitty production of Grease.
This guy dismissed the show's structure as "too loose to quite earn the name of plot," not understanding that Grease is not a book musical. It never was. (Which may be why he also thinks it feels more like a concert than a book musical.) Grease is a concept musical. The "plot" isn't the point. The impact of rock and roll on American sexuality is the point. Which is why he so utterly misses the boat when he contends that Danny and Sandy's romance is central to the show -- only five of the show's twenty songs have anything at all to do with them, so how could they be conventional musical comedy leads? Grease isn't about them anymore than it's about Roger or Doody. It's about rock and roll and sex.
And contrary to what this guy thinks, the music of Grease is not parody (aside, perhaps, from "Raining on Prom Night") -- it's incredibly authentic evocation. I've been studying in depth the actual music of the 1950s and am amazed by the authenticity of the Grease score, musically, rhythmically, structurally, harmonically, textually... The writers weren't making fun of 50s music; they were celebrating it, exploring it, showing us how inventive and sophisticated and subversive much of it was.
And on top of everything else, this guy completely missed the truth of who these kids are. They're not "archetypes;" they're real, working class kids in an inner city high school. (Believe me, I've spent the last six months hearing stories from folks who were greasers who graduated in 1959.) It's a simplistic misreading of the show to think that Kenickie or any of the others are "the coolest of the cool and the hottest of the hot." They're high school kids, for God's sake! Have you ever met a high school kid who fit that description? None of them are genuinely cool -- that's one of the central points of the show! Likewise, Eugene is not a cartoon -- he's the straight A student who will go on to a happy, successful life (as we see in the opening reunion scene), a kind of life that will elude most of the other characters. Like the others, Eugene is not a cartoon character, no matter how much this reviewer wants him to be. There is not a word in the script that suggests he should be played as a cartoon nerd.
If this hapless reviewer would have expended just the slightest effort at peeking under the surface, it would have revealed to him so much more in Grease than he took the trouble to see. He came in with preconceptions about this show and nothing could shake them. Unfortunately, this reviewer routinely sees so little in our work, even when the other reviewers and our audiences see so much more...
I guess it seems to me only fair that a reviewer should expend as much thought and consideration on our work as we put into the work itself. It has nothing to do with positive or negative; it's about doing the job of theatre reviewing with intelligence and insight. Doesn't our audience deserve that? And don't our artists deserve that as well?
Same as it ever was, I guess...
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
Tell Me More, Tell Me More
We've opened Grease and I couldn't be happier with it. The show has turned out exactly the way I hoped it would. And now that we're open, as the reviews begin to trickle in, I'll offer my thoughts on the job of a director. Broadway producer and director Hal Prince once said in an interview that a director's job is to lay out a roadmap for the actors, point them in the right direction, let them create, and then act as an editor.
The way I see it, a director has several all-important jobs within that paradigm, beyond just blocking the show:
First, a director has to figure out exactly what the creators intended for the show. For most shows, there's plenty of information out there if you just look for it (including my books, shameless plug). What did the creators mean to say and how did they mean to say it? What impact and effect did they mean to have on an audience? Were they making new rules, rejecting old rules, or working entirely within mainstream aesthetics? In the case of Grease, we know from a number of sources that the creators were largely working from the model of the experimental theatre movement of 1960s New York and Chicago. They were aiming for a more visceral experience than most Broadway shows offer, intentionally rejecting mainstream Broadway aesthetics for a less polished, more aggressive, more spontaneous experience.
Also, Grease was never meant to be about linear narrative -- it has always been a concept musical, exploring a central idea rather than telling a detailed story, a show more like Hair, Company, Follies, Futz, Viet Rock, and other concept musicals. The proof of this is that Danny and Sandy didn't even exist in the original pre-Broadway, Chicago production. Grease has never been a love story. Never. Which is why fifteen of the show's twenty songs have nothing at all to do with Danny and Sandy...!
The second job is to figure out how to best communicate those original intentions to today's audiences. In the case of shows like Cabaret, Carousel, or The King and I, the prevailing Broadway aesthetics and audience expectations dictated the original approach; but to achieve the same impact today, a wholly different approach has to be found for today's audiences who have wholly different expectations. To shock the far more jaded audiences of 2007, Cabaret demands a completely different approach to achieve the same ends as it did in 1966. What could not be fully explicit in a musical like Cabaret or Carousel (1945), now can be, and today's far more sophisticated audiences are ready for it.
In the case of shows like Hair, The Rocky Horror Show, and Grease, the original approach is still valid and still packs pretty much the same wallop. Because mainstream musical theatre aesthetics haven't changed all that much (just look at all the bland revivals in New York today), the rejection of those aesthetics doesn't have to change much. The anarchy of Hair still feels just as radical today as it did in 1967. The raw, rowdy, unpolished aggressiveness of Grease is just as disorienting to today's audiences as it was in 1972, maybe even more so today, now that we're so far removed from the experimental theatre movement.
The third job of a director is to lay out clearly and articulately to the actors and designers exactly what road they're heading down, why they're taking that particular road, and what the destination will look like. In the case of Hair, Rocky Horror, and Grease. that required me to explain in detail what the original productions were like, and most importantly why they were like that and how they functioned. As we stage and rehearse the show, I have to keep us on that road, keep us from veering off one way or the other, keep us heading directly and relentlessly toward our destination.
The fourth job is to help the audience if the approach is unusual -- through design elements, program notes, marketing, materials in the lobby, materials on our website, and previews in the press. In the case of Grease, though our approach is based on the original, it's also an approach that is pretty unusual today. The film has made directors of the stage version mistakenly believe that the show is cute, tame, and worst of all, a sappy teenage love story. Helping audiences understand that that isn't what they'll see on our stage is as important a part of my job as any other.
The great shame of much musical theatre today is that directors think their only job is to block the show, and so alternative pieces like Grease devolve over time into silly, dishonest parody that obscures the true craft, artfulness, and insight of the material.
New Line was founded to rage against that trend and to celebrate the greatness of some of the most interesting -- and most misunderstood -- of American stage musicals. If we do nothing else, I hope we at least do that. Yay, Ringtails!
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
The way I see it, a director has several all-important jobs within that paradigm, beyond just blocking the show:
First, a director has to figure out exactly what the creators intended for the show. For most shows, there's plenty of information out there if you just look for it (including my books, shameless plug). What did the creators mean to say and how did they mean to say it? What impact and effect did they mean to have on an audience? Were they making new rules, rejecting old rules, or working entirely within mainstream aesthetics? In the case of Grease, we know from a number of sources that the creators were largely working from the model of the experimental theatre movement of 1960s New York and Chicago. They were aiming for a more visceral experience than most Broadway shows offer, intentionally rejecting mainstream Broadway aesthetics for a less polished, more aggressive, more spontaneous experience.
Also, Grease was never meant to be about linear narrative -- it has always been a concept musical, exploring a central idea rather than telling a detailed story, a show more like Hair, Company, Follies, Futz, Viet Rock, and other concept musicals. The proof of this is that Danny and Sandy didn't even exist in the original pre-Broadway, Chicago production. Grease has never been a love story. Never. Which is why fifteen of the show's twenty songs have nothing at all to do with Danny and Sandy...!
The second job is to figure out how to best communicate those original intentions to today's audiences. In the case of shows like Cabaret, Carousel, or The King and I, the prevailing Broadway aesthetics and audience expectations dictated the original approach; but to achieve the same impact today, a wholly different approach has to be found for today's audiences who have wholly different expectations. To shock the far more jaded audiences of 2007, Cabaret demands a completely different approach to achieve the same ends as it did in 1966. What could not be fully explicit in a musical like Cabaret or Carousel (1945), now can be, and today's far more sophisticated audiences are ready for it.
In the case of shows like Hair, The Rocky Horror Show, and Grease, the original approach is still valid and still packs pretty much the same wallop. Because mainstream musical theatre aesthetics haven't changed all that much (just look at all the bland revivals in New York today), the rejection of those aesthetics doesn't have to change much. The anarchy of Hair still feels just as radical today as it did in 1967. The raw, rowdy, unpolished aggressiveness of Grease is just as disorienting to today's audiences as it was in 1972, maybe even more so today, now that we're so far removed from the experimental theatre movement.
The third job of a director is to lay out clearly and articulately to the actors and designers exactly what road they're heading down, why they're taking that particular road, and what the destination will look like. In the case of Hair, Rocky Horror, and Grease. that required me to explain in detail what the original productions were like, and most importantly why they were like that and how they functioned. As we stage and rehearse the show, I have to keep us on that road, keep us from veering off one way or the other, keep us heading directly and relentlessly toward our destination.
The fourth job is to help the audience if the approach is unusual -- through design elements, program notes, marketing, materials in the lobby, materials on our website, and previews in the press. In the case of Grease, though our approach is based on the original, it's also an approach that is pretty unusual today. The film has made directors of the stage version mistakenly believe that the show is cute, tame, and worst of all, a sappy teenage love story. Helping audiences understand that that isn't what they'll see on our stage is as important a part of my job as any other.
The great shame of much musical theatre today is that directors think their only job is to block the show, and so alternative pieces like Grease devolve over time into silly, dishonest parody that obscures the true craft, artfulness, and insight of the material.
New Line was founded to rage against that trend and to celebrate the greatness of some of the most interesting -- and most misunderstood -- of American stage musicals. If we do nothing else, I hope we at least do that. Yay, Ringtails!
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
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