I Can Breathe Again

Love Kills is over. As many people know, we ended up canceling the last week of our run because of a death in the New Line family. But it was a really strong show with a really strong cast, a really strong band, and if I do say so myself, some very strong direction. The audiences were smaller than we're used to (we're used to selling out a lot), but they were such good audiences, really tuned in, really listening, really focused. And surprisingly enough, considering the crazily intense content, we even had a few repeat customers.

The show's author, Kyle Jarrow, was very pleased with how seriously we approached his material, how well the show worked (it had been produced for six performances at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, but Kyle did major rewrites before giving the show to us), and how well it was received here (the earlier version was not all that well received in NYC). Hopefully, armed with quite a few great St. Louis reviews as proof of how well it works, the show will have a further life. New Line did that for High Fidelity -- none of the New York licensing agents would represent Hi-Fi because the New York production was such a mess and a failure, but because of our incredibly well reviewed production, many other companies have gone through us to contact the authors and arrange further productions. I hope the same happens with Love Kills.

However, as great an experience as it was for all of us, there was a genuine tragedy. Our guitarist Mike Renard passed away before the run was finished. Mike was a real artist with a guitar (and, on occasion, a banjo, a mandolin, whatever we needed). He played almost every New Line show going back to our first Bat Boy in 2003, when Mike was still in high school. He could play any style and was so terrific to work with. He was uncomfortable with compliments, but I hope he knew how much he brought to our shows and how much we all respected his enormous talent and how much we loved working with him. He was such a good guy and a consummate artist, and we will miss him terribly. I realize as I type this that we don't have any good pictures of Mike because he was always in the background, but I cropped this shot from Love Kills of Mike in action -- this was the first time Mike was both guitarist and conductor for us (there's no piano part in this show). He rose to the challenge as he always did and impressed the hell out of everyone once again. It will be so weird to do shows without him now. You ROCKED, Mikey!

Still, despite the sadness of this past week, I feel so proud of Love Kills. We took this tough, emotional, disturbing little show and we did what we do best -- we fashioned the most honest, truthful performances we could. In my not-so-objective opinion, this show had some of the best, most subtle, most truthful acting we've ever had on stage. It was a genuine pleasure to watch these four actors -- Alison, Zak, Phil, and Taylor -- work every night. What an amazing foursome they were, unbelievably connected to each other every night on stage, sometimes seeming more like a brilliant string quartet than four actors in a rock musical.

As the American director Alan Schneider has said, "There are no secret shortcuts, there are no formulas, there are no rules. There's only yourself and your talent and your taste and your choices." I love that quote. And then there's this one, from director Robert Falls: "I learned from acting teacher Edward Kaye-Martin about courage and using your fear in your work and always striving. He had a saying, 'Go for the gold,' which means always make the richest choice. Not the most obvious choice. The scariest choice, the juiciest choice."

That's what Alison, Zak, Phil, and Taylor did every night on stage, and it was a joy to witness. So thank you to everyone involved -- the cast, the band, Vicki and Ann in the lobby, Matt on sound, Trish on lights, our designers, everybody -- and most of all, thanks to Kyle Jarrow. I could not be prouder of this show.

Now on to The Wild Party!

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Look Down On Your Life

We're halfway through the run and this sure is one of the stranger experiences we've had. Love Kills is a very intense show, and though almost everyone who sees it is blown away by it, and though the reviews have been really strong -- some of them outright raves -- still our audiences have been awfully small compared to our other shows.

It will be interesting to see if our audiences grow these last two weeks or if this is a show that appeals only to a small subset of our usual audience.

I mentioned this in an earlier blog but it continues -- to this day, halfway through the run, our audiences still do not applaud after the songs in this show. On opening night, I tired to get applause started after the first song, and the night Zak's family was there, they tried to applaud Zak's two big songs. But other than that, no one has applauded at all for a single other song. It is apparently not that they don't like the show, but somehow it doesn't feel right to them to applaud. When we ask them about it after the show, some of them honestly don't realize they hadn't been applauding. We assume -- we hope -- that they're just so tuned in to the show that nothing can break that focus. We do notice during some long pauses in the show that no one in the audience even moves. There is dead silence. I don't think that would be true if folks weren't engaged in the story. And yet they don't applaud...

Weird, huh?

It is very cool to work on a four-character show. The only shows we've done that are this small were Songs for a New World (four actors) in 1998 and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (two actors) in 2004. It's really different than having our usual cast of 10-14. First of all, it's easier to polish the show because there are fewer performances to work on. Second, it's easier to avoid egos with so few actors. And third, the cast gets really closely bonded. Don't get me wrong, the New Line casts usually bond pretty strongly, but this is different.

It's been so nice for me to be able to send the author Kyle all these great reviews. There aren't a lot of companies that would have taken a risk like this -- it's a tough, little show and it demands something from its audience. It's not commercial. But now with these glowing reviews in hand, maybe Kyle will be able to find future productions and this beautiful show can have further life.

We're going to lose a shitload of money on this show, but this is why we exist -- to do challenging, relevant musical theatre that other companies are afraid of. We ended last season with a surplus and we'll probably deplete it all on this show, but it is so worth it.

I am so proud of our choice to do Love Kills, of our amazing cast, and of the excellent work we've all done on it.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

You Like What You're Seeing

Ticket sales are still somewhat slow, but we expected that -- it's a difficult and unknown show. But Jesus, the reviewers sure like us! That's usually enough to boost sales; we'll see...

We got two more reviews, both real raves, this time from Paul Friswold at The Riverfront Times, and from Andrea Braun at KDHX-FM.

Friswold writes in his RFT review, “Love Kills is a gripping and fascinating evening in the hands of director Scott Miller and New Line Theatre. . . Love Kills is not a comforting evening, not by a long shot. Identify too much with one couple or the other and you're bound to feel bad about yourself. But Jarrow keeps feeding you moments in which you want the four of them to achieve everything they desire, even when the characters are at cross-purposes. The end result is much like navigating love – how do you give yourself to someone else and hold on to yourself at the same time? Life is long; if you're lucky, long enough to figure it out.”

Andrea Braun writes in her KDHX review, “Watching their story unfold through a raw punk-flavored rock score and fine acting on the parts of all four cast members is sublime. The bad boy of musical theatre is gloriously back! . . . Composer Kyle Jarrow defines Love Kills as an ‘emo rock musical,’ and in the sense that it is highly charged and personal, that’s fair. Scott Miller directs with passionate intensity, and it’s among the finest work I’ve seen from this company, which is saying a lot. This isn’t the world’s best musical, but I defy anyone to leave it without much to ponder and plenty to talk about. I hope audiences will give it the attention it deserves.”

Gerry Kowarsky, of the local cable show, Two on the Aisle, on KDHX-TV, said, “The show bowled me over. It has a very well-crafted story and a powerful score.”

Wow! Once again, I think I may have underestimated our audiences and our reviewers. I really didn't know if folks would accept this tough, ugly little show, but they seem to fucking love it! So once again, we've proved that people don't only like what they know; they like what's good, even if it's challenging. Taking risks pays off.

I'm so proud of this show and of the New Liners!

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

You Love to Watch

We had a great weekend! The show was so incredibly strong every night and though the audiences were small-ish, they seemed to really love this show! One couple said it was the best thing they've seen at New Line! And so many folks really wanted to talk after the show. I think they needed to work through their conflicting feelings about Charlie and Caril. Which is exactly Kyle's point with this show.

And the reviews have begun to come in.... We weren't sure what people would think about this dark, angry, sad, wild show, and the reviews are suitably odd. Not our usual crazy raves, but all of them positive...

Gabe Hartwig reviewed us for the Post-Dispatch this time (so many shows opened this week that Judy had to delegate some reviews). The only negative things he had to say were about sound balance on a couple songs (which I think we've worked out now), and also that "at times the singing seems misplaced -- like when stern-faced Merle sweetly sings 'Someday' to Gertrude while seated at a table and barely looking up." But the latter complaint misses the point that what songs in musicals do best is soliloquy, in which the character reveals emotions that he would never reveal to the world. He doesn't look up at her because he is embarrassed by his emotion. Adult men in 1958 were supposed to be Gary Cooper, not pussies like Jim Stark...

The surface action in Love Kills is so dark and violent, and the emotional core of these characters is so vulnerable and often in contradiction to their actions; this disconnect may make some folks who are used to Guys and Dolls and Wicked uncomfortable. But that disconnect is also profoundly human and real. Merle can love deeply, and can be insecure about his wife's love, while also beating the shit out of Charlie to get him to confess. Most people are different on the inside from what they show the world. In the case of this show, I think audiences and/or reviewers may accept those contradictions from Charlie and Caril because they're supposed to "damaged" and "sick." But that contradiction is no less vital to understanding Merle and Gertrude. Merle's tenderness and emotion in "Someday" and "Hard Man" are so opposite his hard, cold exterior, but these moments set up the crack we see at the end in Merle's precious surety.

And that's great storytelling. Anything less complicated would do a disservice to these amazingly fucked-up, complex -- and let's not forget, real -- people.

Joe Pollack no longer reviews for KWMU, but he continues to review on his own blog, and he gave Love Kills a very positive review, but he did write one thing that bothered me, that "there is a banality to the lyrics that is off-putting." What Joe doesn't understand is that in modern musical theatre (unlike most shows of the so-called "Golden Age"), lyrics cannot be in the voice of the writer; they must be in the voice of the characters. And they cannot contain more insight or self-knowledge than the characters possess. Good theatre lyrics are no longer meant to dazzle or impress; they must fuse seamlessly with the script.

Storytelling comes first.

In the case of Love Kills, Charlie and Caril's lyrics may seem shallow and superficial because that's who these kids are, but if you listen closely, there are dozens of little references, turns of phrase, slight variations from one verse to the next that reveal these characters without them knowing it (as often happens in real life). If you pay close attention to Charlie's lyrics, they have the repetition that real rock lyrics have, but they also do the hard work of theatre songs -- it's just that that work is ten times more subtle and more artful here than it is in conventional Broadway dreck like Phantom of the Opera or Shrek or Mary Poppins, or even more extreme examples like the steaming piles of shit that are Spamalot and Young Frankenstein the Musical.

Love Kills doesn't offer up anything on a silver platter. You have to work for it. And that is what makes it great theatre.

About half the reviews are in so far, and at this point, Chris Gibson's thoughtful review on BroadwayWorld.com understands this show and our production most fully. He writes in his review, "Miller likes to color outside the lines, and his determination here reveals his passion for bringing fresh and challenging new musicals to the St. Louis region. This might be considered a risky choice, but I'm glad he and the company were willing to take it on, because I might not have gotten the chance to experience it otherwise." Thanks, Chris!

We knew this would be a tough show for folks because it really requires something of our audience, not just their attention but very complicated moral judgement that's just chock full of gray area. And believe me, our audiences are soooo tuned in every night, you can hear a pin drop in the audience from the first notes to the last. There are a lot of tense pauses in the show and the audience almost holds its collective breath during those moments. No one is flipping through their program or shifting in their seats. They are captive to this story and these characters.

The one really odd thing about this show, though, is that the audiences do not applaud the songs. Any of them. The first night, that worried us. But then we talked to folks afterward and they were just overwhelmed with emotion and totally engaged. Almost everyone just loves this show. But there's something about it that keeps them from interrupting the story the way we all do in every other musical -- and weirdly, it is somehow a collective decision the audience makes every night. I mentioned this to Kyle (the author) and he told me that this happened with other musicals he's written. For the life of me, I can't tell you why it works this way, but it has at all three performances. Maybe we'll figure it out before we close...

I could not be prouder of this show or this cast. I think the writing is exceptional in every way (even if it may be too subtle or unconventional for some reviewers) and the four performances from Phil, Taylor, Alison, and Zak are pitch-perfect. I can't imagine any other actors in town -- and I've worked with some of the best -- playing these characters. They tear my heart out every night.

Once again the theatre Gods have smiled on us.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott