We Gotta Hold On Tight

All the pieces have come together. Frank's set came together over the course of the last couple weeks, we had our lighting cue-to-cue rehearsal Saturday, and we had our sitzprobe (a run-through of the score with the band and actors) on Sunday. And now we're in the easiest Hell Week I think I've ever had.

This show is in great shape. I've never taken so few notes during the final rehearsals. That's partly because there are only four actors, so there are automatically fewer problems to clean up, but it's also because these four actors know exactly what they're doing. Even when they're dealing with the mics for the first time, the glass (you'll see!), the handcuffs -- their acting is so strong at this point that the various distractions we throw at them these last few days don't seem to faze them in the least. In fact, it's exactly the opposite -- despite all the technical stuff, the emotion of the show has just gotten deeper and deeper. And it's given us a chance we don't always have to focus on the smallest, most subtle moments -- that's so nice.

And though this is one of the more slowly paced shows we've worked on in a while, it also feels like it just zooms by when you're watching it. It actually runs about 95 minutes (no intermission), but it feels more like an hour...! It's so compelling!
To be honest, I have no idea what people are going to think about this show. It's so intense, so wild, and so incredibly emotional. Some people may be uncomfortable with it. Some may not like spending an evening with two kids who killed eleven people.

But I have this theory that, despite Conventional Wisdom, audiences don't only like what they know, and they don't want to escape -- they want what's good and they go to the theatre for connection, not escape. This show certainly delivers on those two counts. It's unbelievably strong, smart, artful writing, and you really have no choice but to feel for these characters -- all four of them. It's powerful stuff.

I've gotten very Zen-like about the show in the last week or so. It may not sell as well as some of our recent shows (and if the Cardinals go to the World Series, that may kill us), but we actually have money in the bank from our wildly successful last season. So even if ticket sales are low, we'll still be able to pay everyone. So that's not an issue, like it often is...

And I know what we've made is extremely good theatre. We have done this material justice. We are telling this story well and clearly. I think many, many people will respond to that.

We'll see. But however we do with ticket sales and with the reviewers, I am so proud of this show, these four remarkable actors, and our three indomitable musicians.

Come see us.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Stick With Me, Baby

I have to brag on my actors for a moment.

Phil Leveling, who plays Charlie Starkweather, has done only one other show with us, the surprising "monster" hit Return to the Forbidden Planet. Sometimes I felt like he was under-used in that show, but he did have a couple of great musical moments and, more than anything else, he was amazing at living in the moment, being alive in the background, keeping the reality of the story alive, and making us believe in a life that extends beyond the boundaries of this story. When we decided to do Love Kills, I thought about him right away -- he's got a great rock/theatre voice. I hadn't seen him play anything nearly as serious and intense as Charlie, but his talent and his professionalism was so obvious in RTTFP that I figured it was a safe gamble. And it turns out I was right.

Taylor Pietz, who plays Caril, also did one show with us before this, but hers was The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas back in 2003. She played Shy, and delivered the most beautiful, subtle performance as the fresh runaway looking for a new home. Even though hers was a relatively small part, she really impressed me with the honesty of her acting. No frills, no ego, no bullshit, just the Truth. The funny thing is that though I had done a show with her, I didn't really know how well she sang because she didn't have any solos in Whorehouse. So when I heard her sing for this show, I was blown away -- she has this powerhouse voice that can be rock and roll or Broadway ballad, ballsy or sweet. The other funny thing is that I mostly knew Taylor as a dancer and there's not a lick of dance in this show...

Zak Farmer, who plays Sheriff Merle Karnopp, first joined us in summer 2007 in the ensemble of Urinetown. He was really terrific and (like Phil) so fully living inside the universe of the story every second he was on stage. So I gave him some solos in our revue Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, which he totally nailed (his rendition of "Reefer Madness" was terrifying). Then came Assassins, and I needed someone to play the crazy egoist assassin Charles Guiteau. So far, Zak hadn't done any serious acting for us, but I really felt like he had it in him. He turned in an absolutely brilliant, chilling performance as Guiteau, finding not only what was ridiculous about the man, but also what was sad. Then the part seemingly written for him, Barry in High Fidelity. Another home run. Then the cross-dressing Tourist Lady in Hair. If you didn't see it, words won't do it justice. And finally, the role that knocked my socks off -- Dr. Prospero in Return to the Forbidden Planet, a totally ridiculous, hilarious, Shakespearean rock musical. But Zak wasn't just funny, he was soulful, full of rage, regretful, and periodically wacky. It was the most wide-ranging performance I've seen in years, and somehow he kept control of it and made it a unified whole. It was never Zak asking for a laugh -- it was always Dr. Prospero living earnestly in this wacky universe. And now, something even different from all of those: a subdued, walled-off, damaged, conflicted, older man. Zak really can do anything.

And then there's Alison Helmer. I've known her since 1987. We directed a lot of shows together in New Line's early years. She's a really terrific actor but I can only get her on stage now and then. The performance that really convinced me of Alison's power was in Sunday in the Park with George. Alison, as Yvonne, had a scene with April Strelinger (then Lindsey), as Dot, that was one of the most beautifully acted scenes I've ever had in a show. So much unsaid. So much subtlety. So much comfort with silences. And so much honesty. Alison can do sincere so well on stage. That's why I asked her to play Emma Goldman in Assassins (across from her husband as Leon Czolgosz). And that's why I knew she should play Gertrude in Love Kills, a very complex but subtle character, and in many ways, the emotional center of the show. I'm so glad she's a part of this project.

These are the artists I've been lucky enough to work with for the last few weeks, the ones I get to watch create vivid, emotional performances over and over in the weeks ahead. The most fun for me is watching a show as it moves through its run, as it settles, then deepens. The changes are almost undetectable but when you see a show that many times you can feel them. A good moment gets a little more honest. The timing of a punchline gets a little tighter. A shared moment between two actors gets realer. A laugh becomes bittersweet. A sad moment becomes ironic. There's nothing better than watching skilled artists loving what they're doing.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

A Hard Man

It's interesting to me... When I'm working on a show, the themes and issues from that show run around in my brain 24-7. And I see the world through the lens of those ideas. And this allows me to see things and consider things that never even occurred to me before.

Cast in point: The Congressman with Republican Tourette's, Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina), who yelled, "You lie!" at the President during his address to the joint session of Congress. It was mean and ignorant, but more than anything else, it was cold. And it was just like the Town Hall meetings in August, where people shouted down folks in wheelchairs, waved posters of Obama dressed as Hitler, and talked of secession. Much of this is born of fear -- and too big a slice is fear of a Black President -- and most of it is about de-humanizing Obama. It is to make him "Other," just like soldiers do to an enemy in wartime, so that they can attack him and call themselves patriots for it. It allows them to hate him and slander him, but still call themselves Christians.

At its heart, it is a lack of empathy, elevated to DEFCON 1. These people can't feel what the impact of their actions must feel like to the other person. They have no empathy. (Remember the Conservatives mocking the idea of empathy during the Sonia Sotomayor hearings?)

And being in the midst of Love Kills, I've been thinking a lot lately about empathy and about recent brain research that I've already discussed here. If it's true that a lack of physical affection in a kid's early years leads to an under-developed frontal lobe and therefore an absence of empathy, then you have to wonder if that leads us back to the kind of child-rearing Conservative America was practicing in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. From what I remember (being born in 1964), the more conservative families we knew were very formal with each other and there was very little physical touching but a lot of physical punishment. Now I can't help wondering what those folks' frontal lobes looked like...!

Admitting to being only an amateur psychologist and totally biased to the Left politically, who knows for sure, but I wonder if the kind of authoritarian family structure that much of America lived under during the mid-20th century has led us to this slash-and-burn, lie-without-shame, angry, crazy, Apocalyptic political landscape.

And it leads me to re-examine the character of the Sheriff in Love Kills. It never occurred to me before that he just might not feel any real empathy for others, not because he's mean or hard but because that part of his brain never developed, because he had a distant, authoritarian father. He has a song called "Hard Man," in which he tells us his father taught him to be that way, but maybe it was just as much about the structure of his brain.

And that leads me to see that Empathy is one of the central themes of this show. Charlie Starkweather doesn't have empathy and neither does Caril; they can both kill without remorse. They are unable to imagine how another person feels and therefore they don't feel the horror of the murder. Which is also why their love has no depth -- they need each other but don't understand real love. Both Charlie and Caril seem to have an inkling of this at the end of the show...

But Merle's lack of empathy serves him well in his job. (It probably also served him well in World War II, just 15 years earlier.) Merle is an enforcer of the law -- it doesn't matter if the criminal is a nice guy or not; it only matters if he's a criminal. Merle doesn't get emotionally involved in his work. But maybe this is the work he does because he doesn't get emotionally involved. And then what does that tell us about his marriage? In one telling exchange, Gertrude says, "Love isn't the same as need," and Merle responds, "Yes it is. That's exactly what it is." In a lot of ways, Merle is like Don Draper, the hero of Mad Men. Which I think bolsters my argument.

But Gertrude feels empathy. She identifies with Caril. She feels her sadness. She can put herself in Caril's place. But can we assume she had a more loving childhood? Who knows? But what a sad story this is -- both in micro and in macro, both for these fucked up kids and for mid-century America. These four disconnected people trying to connect to anyone or anything, but three of them not being able to feel how another person feels. It makes connection impossible. And it gives Charlie his Shakespearean Tragic Flaw.

I love working on this!

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

The Goal of Living

New Line doesn't pay very well. That's no secret; it's just the way it is. We can only do the kind of alternative work we do -- and balance our budget and stay in business -- by paying everyone (me included) far less than they're worth. So why do so many astoundingly talented people work with us, in some cases, over and over?

I'd like to think it's because of my sparkling personality and my musical theatre brilliance, but it's not. It's because of the work. When else will an actor get a chance to work on a bizarre but brilliant show like Return to the Forbidden Planet? Or High Fidelity? Or The Nervous Set?

And our musicians work with us for the same reason. How often do they get a chance to play the music of amazing composers like Bill Finn or Adam Guettel or Galt MacDermot? And the same is true for our designers, our techies... all of us. It's the cool, interesting, unusual work that brings us together and it's that work that makes us all do our very best.

The same is true of Matt Reedy, our graphic designer and unsung New Line hero. He's been designing our posters for about four years now. Before him, Kris Wright did equally wonderful work. What Kris and Matt really understand about poster art is that the art really does have a concrete agenda -- more so than with other visual art -- in this case, to get the viewer to buy a ticket. These guys are so terrific at what they do -- from understanding the nature of the show, its style, its tone, its themes; to understanding what about this show will be interesting to the audience; to translating those insights into visual images, and laying out way more additional text than I'm sure they'd prefer. But every time I get one of their designs, I'm dumbstruck at how exactly right it is for that show.

In the case of Love Kills, Matt started out with the famous Sun Records label, invoking the rock & roll that both articulated the pain and confusion of teens like Charlie and Caril, but also fueled their feelings of separateness and oppression -- and sexuality. Rock & roll took seriously the feelings of kids like Charlie and Caril. In parallel to the show itself, Matt fills the rock and roll with images of violence instead of the musical images on the original. Talk about a picture being worth a thousand words. You look at this poster and you know exactly what this show is going to be like.

Pretty cool, isn't it?

I have this theory, that the reason the TV dramas on HBO and Showtime are so superior to the shows on the other networks is their no-exceptions dedication to artistic freedom and the freedom to take risks and fail. Is it just about being able to say cocksucker a lot on Deadwood or show a shitload of nudity on Oz? No, those are just examples of how that freedom can be expressed. It's the freedom itself that matters. Artists do their best work when they are free.

And the same is true for the New Liners. There is nothing off limits at New Line. The only consideration is whether or not it's good art and has something to say. Artists want to work in an atmosphere like that. The money becomes less important when there is real art going on, without fear, without commercialism, without censorship.

So just between you and me... do I wish I made more money? No, not really. I'm doing fine...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott