We Still Have the Magic

I'm so proud of Evita. I'm so proud of pretty much every show we do. With every single show, we do the absolute best work we can do, we put every ounce of energy and heart and thought into it, and we give 110% to every audience who walks in our doors. I really love the work we do. Thankfully, lots of other people do too.

But I'm also realizing lately how proud I am of this company we've all built. As we approach the opening of our 20th season this fall, I love what New Line Theatre has become. I love that people who've worked with us on just one show will ask me, "What are we doing next season?" -- we, not you. They immediately feel ownership. I love how often I hear folks repeat one of our catch-phrases, "Once a New Liner, always a New Liner." It sounds like a cliche to say we're a "family" and I'm not sure that's exactly what we are. I think it's more accurate to say we're a close-knit community of like-minded artists. We don't just "do shows." There's a philosophy behind what we do.

And I think that goes to the very heart of what makes New Line successful and what has given us such amazing longevity. We never set out to make a hit. We never set out to have fun. We never set out to make money. Instead, everyone involved knows that our only goal is to make good art. To say something. To move an audience. To make them think. To challenge them. The fun comes from that -- and sometimes so does commercial success (as with Evita)...

And we are fierce (one of our favorite words) about that endeavor. As much as I enjoy an old-fashioned musical now and then, personally I can't see the point in working on a show like The Drowsy Chaperone or Nunsense. What does that contribute to the world? Laughs? Well, sure, but I defy you to find a show that delivers more laughs than Bat Boy, Urinetown, Spelling Bee, or The Robber Bridegroom. We often have our audience rolling on the floor (usually metaphorically speaking), laughing their asses off. But we also offer them more than that. We also get them thinking about intolerance among so-called "Christians" (Bat Boy), the mindlessness of much political activism (Urinetown, which may be even more relevant today, now that I think about it), the incredible, destructive pressure our society now imposes on most of us (Spelling Bee), or the dangerous morality hidden behind much of mainstream American culture (The Robber Bridegroom). Even though these are not all new shows, they all speak powerfully to our culture today. And that's why they're worth doing.

When you can give an audience both fun and insight, big laughs and social criticism, why settle for just laughs? Acting guru Stella Adler once said, "Unless you give the audience something that makes them bigger – better – do not act."

Art can be fun. Art can be rowdy and rude and aggressive and wildly entertaining. That seems to be news to too many people. I think it always surprise folks working with us for the first time how seriously we take the work, even when we're working on Urinetown or Bat Boy. It makes them Bigger. I love to watch the new New Liners go from "musical theatre freaks" to "musical theatre artists," from cultural outcasts to tribe shamans. It's a transition you can actually see happening.

And then when the reviews start coming in, the new folks get the proof, if they need it, that our seriousness is not bullshit. We make really good art.

One of the great joys for me in reading the New Line blogs -- with every single production, a bunch of us working on the show keep ongoing blogs chronicling the creation process -- is reading over and over and over again that working with New Line is the most amazing theatre experience many people have ever had. It's like eating McDonald's hamburgers all your life, and then someone sets down a really great steak in front of you. It's like watching romantic comedy movies all your life and then seeing a Fellini film for the first time. Your perception of what is possible gets upended. Your eyes get opened.

And believe me, that's not all my doing. The credit for the immense joy we all get with each new project goes to every single artist that works with us, who throws themselves heart and soul into the work and collectively creates something wonderful and transcendent to share with our audiences.

Once you've had that experience, it's tough to go back to working on crap.

I'm just sayin'.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Tasteless and Vulgar, Uninspired...

I got this rather insane email this morning...

i had planned to attend evita...we had a group of 7, but when we discovered your ridiculous political agenda, we decided to boycott...so unless you sold out on thursday night, you lost $140 of ticket sales. hope you'll reconsider your position in the future...if the usa were a dictatorship, as you imply w/ your posters, you wouldn't have been able to hang your antagonistic backdrops! hope i don't have to become a former patron. my group have been regulars, so it'll be your loss...

quote from judith newmark, who liked the production, ended her review with this: "The sides of the stage are hung with posters of more familiar political figures: Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, George W. Bush and Glenn Beck. It's too much. Miller's tough, deglamorized treatment of "Evita" shrewdly lays bare a cult of personality. That's plenty; why try to force it to a conclusion?"

So I replied...

Hi,

We did sell out Thursday night, but I have no idea what political agenda you're talking about... Who has said anything about the US becoming a dictatorship??? That is NOT implied by the photographs on our set (which you have not even seen!), and I find your ridiculous accusation extremely offensive.

Telling the story of the Perons in a well-known Broadway musical doesn't endorse their politics any more than producing the show Assassins endorses Presidential assassination...

You should see our show before you condemn it blindly. Yes, we have photos on the side of the set of several political figures, both liberal and conservative, who are both deeply loved and deeply hated by the public, just like Eva Peron was. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a dictatorship, but it does point up parallels in the angry, mindless, populist politics that is poisoning American political discourse these days -- and that has apparently fueled your attack on us.

You certainly don't have to see our show, but I do find it bizarre for you to condemn a show you haven't even seen... That's what dictators do...

Scott

I have a feeling this woman is one of those people who's just dying to be outraged by the world around her, seeing demons and enemies everywhere she looks, real or not. I guess if we want to do relevant, aggressive theatre, we're going to get someone's hackles up once in a while. I just wish the attacks would come after they see the show.

Whaddya wanna bet this woman watches Glenn Beck?

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

And As for Fortune, And As for Fame...

In the dressing room last night, before the show, the conversation turned to people's memories of the first musical they ever saw. And I realized I don't have that memory. I can't remember a time before I knew I was in love with musicals. And I mean, crazy in love with them. My family was taking me to the Muny further back than I have conscious memories.

Maybe it's about reaching middle age that's got me thinking about early cultural and artistic influences on me, and how obvious it is now, looking back, that I would become the artist I am today, doing shows like Bat Boy, Urinetown, A New Brain, Forbidden Planet, High Fidelity, The Wild Party, Evita...

When I was a little kid, our family albums -- all on LP! -- included a little Sinatra and a smattering of what we now call elevator music, but 90% of it was cast albums. I didn't grow up with kiddie songs -- I grew up with Fiddler on the Roof, Carousel, Camelot, The Music Man, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma!, Man of La Mancha, Hello, Dolly!, Brigadoon... But now that I think about it, almost none of them were musical comedies. Dolly and The Music Man are the only two I can think of. The rest were serious musicals.

My parents started me taking piano lessons when I was four. I pretty much hated it until I was about 14, but goddamn, I am so grateful to them today for making me do it. Take note of that, any parents with young kids. I remember that to keep me taking lessons and to get me to practice -- only 30 minutes a day, but god, I hated it -- every week my lesson consisted of fingering exercises, a classical piece, and a theatre song. I remember the first "real" (i.e., popular) song I ever learned to play was "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof. I think I spent about a month learning it, and my mother nearly lost her mind listening to me pound those minor chords day after day. But I was in heaven.

With 20/20 hindsight, I see that my taste for musicals with substance and serious, truthful emotion was formed -- accidentally? -- by these early forces.

Later on -- I guess I was about 10 or 11 -- I have a really clear memory of seeing Of Thee I Sing at Affton High School, because my middle brother was in the pit orchestra. My older brother had been in the chorus of all the school musicals (including Hello, Dolly! with John Goodman!), but I don't have clear memories of those. But I remember being thrilled at this incredibly funny, smartass, cynical, absurdist, political -- and brilliant -- musical called Of Thee I Sing. It literally changed my life.

I look at that list of adjectives I just typed and they pretty much describe every show New Line has ever produced. Wow.

Also, around that same time, that same brother accidentally introduced me to 1776. It was being broadcast on TV, but the rest of the family wanted to watch sitcoms. So my brother went upstairs to watch it on his 12" black and white TV. (I'm not sure how he knew about it.) Not long after it started, I came upstairs to see what he was watching. And I fell in love with it. That was the kind of musical I wanted to see. Serious. Funny. Political. Important. Truthful. Soon after, he bought himself the soundtrack, but I played it way more than he did, so he officially gave it to me. I nearly wore the damn thing out.

When I was in junior high, the high school kids came down to do a 30-minute cutting of the spring musical. They had done this before, but this time, the show was Godspell. I had never seen anything like it. It was so crazy and so full of apparent anarchy. It was so free and it felt so contemporary -- which my other favorite shows really didn't. My mom took me to see it at the high school that night. It was my first concept musical and I fell madly in love with it. Later that night, after the show, I asked my mom if we she would drive me to Peaches Records and Tapes (they were open till 1:00 a.m., I think) to get the Godspell cast album on LP. Bless her heart, she put on her shoes and drove me to the store. (A few years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Stephen Schwartz, composer of Godspell, onstage at the Edison at Washington University. I brought that same Godspell cast album with me and told him that story. I almost never do this, but I asked him to autograph it and he was really cool about it -- I think he was really flattered. )

When I was in high school, I was quite the over-achiever and so I was in the Honor Society. Our assistant principal was from New York, so each spring, some of the Honor Society kids would go to New York for a week to see Broadway shows. Both my brothers had gone. So I went my junior year, and saw seven shows in six days -- Barnum, Deathtrap, Evita, A Chorus Line, 42nd Street, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, and one more show that would change my life again.

It was the first show I ever saw on Broadway. It was The Pirates of Penzance, with Kevin Kline, Rex Smith, Linda Ronstadt, George Rose, Estelle Parsons, Tony Azito, and Karla DeVtio. At first, I had been pissed that we were going to waste a night of Broadway on an operetta! But I'll never forget that performance as long as I live -- it was outrageous, wild, wacky, rowdy, sexy, aggressive, athletic, smart, sly, and utterly joyful. I'll never forget Kevin Kline as the Pirate King, sword fighting with the conductor, and once Kline knocked the baton out of his hand, the conductor did the rest of the show without a baton. I'll never forget how rowdy the pirates were when they first came onstage, yelling and laughing. I instantly knew this was the kind of musical theatre I wanted to make. It was like The Marx Brothers, The Monkees, and H.R. Pufnstuf, all rolled into one and set to music. Now that I think back, it had exactly the same kind of manic energy that Bat Boy would have all those years later. I was in musical geek heaven. (This cast did a movie version, which was kinda bland, but they finally released on DVD the live stage production, which is totally worth seeing!) I found out many years later that the director of this production, Wilford Leach, had been part of the experimental theatre movement in New York in the 1960s. No wonder I loved his approach!

A few years later, my brother gave me one of those brass keychains in the shape of a theatre ticket -- somehow he found one with The Pirates of Penzance on it. I still carry it.

When I got to college, I discovered that the Harvard Coop (the campus bookstore) had the biggest record department in New England. Seemingly overnight, I introduced myself to Company, The Robber Bridegroom, Little Shop of Horrors, March of the Falsettos, Chicago, Nine, Dreamgirls, Cabaret, Tommy, Pippin, Best Little Whorehouse, The Wiz, How to Succeed, Promises, Promises, Sweeney Todd, and tons of others. All different, all totally unique. The result? When I got to college freshman year, I had 100 cast albums; when I graduated, I had 500.

Looking back, it's so obvious that I would end up doing exactly what I'm doing, artistically. (After all, I was born the year Fiddler on the Roof, Hello, Dolly!, Funny Girl, and the wonderfully bizarre Anyone Can Whistle all opened on Broadway.) I think my less mainstream taste rescued me from the usual yearning to go to New York -- I knew I couldn't do in New York what I can do in St. Louis. And it also gave New Line a personality that's unlike any other company in the region, probably in the country.

And lucky for me, there are a ton of talented actors, musicians, and designers -- and even more important, audiences -- who seem to enjoy this kind of work as much as I do. It's so cool when the universe works out that way.

Long Live the Musical! And God bless St. Louis theatre!
Scott

You'll Think It Strange

We have gotten some really cool reviews of EVITA!

“Simply put, New Line Theatre’s current production of Evita absolutely rocks! Employing a more intimate staging and utilizing stripped down orchestrations acts to reinvigorate the work, personalizing the story and adding a real edge to the music. This is one of the chief reasons I'm always drawn to New Line’s productions; they don't conform to the norm, offering regular theatre goers the opportunity to witness creative and imaginative takes on new works as well as more familiar ones. If you're already a fan of Evita (or musical theatre in general), or if you've only seen the misguided movie version with Madonna in the lead role, and you've been turned off to the subject as a result, then you owe it to yourself to check out New Line's darkly engaging presentation. . . Scott Miller’s direction is impeccable. The story moves along at a whirlwind clip, with seamless transitions allowing the action to flow unabated. The cast is sharp and focused throughout, and the ensemble singing is gorgeous.” – Chris Gibson, BroadwayWorld.com

“Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber come in for their fair share of criticism, but future historians may judge them a little more kindly than we now suspect, if this new Evita is any guide. True, we already know that Lloyd Webber can give us lovely musical passages. And here, director Scott Miller's excellent New Line chorus and band, featuring a fiery leading lady, sets our hearts marching into battle. . . . It's a perfect show for this moment in (North) America.” – Richard Green, TalkinBroadway.com

“I was intrigued because Scott Miller is the one director I can think of who would find the politics in Evita more interesting than the style. What New Line gives us is an Evita where the incrusted style has been stripped away and the politics have been beefed up. . . I really admire what Scott Miller and New Line found in Evita, and I’m afraid the standard version is going to disappoint me even more when I see it next.” – Gerry Kowarsky, Two on the Aisle

“Having neither the space nor the quantity of musicians to present the full orchestration of Lloyd Webber's music, New Line Theatre artistic director Scott Miller wisely focuses instead on a sextet of players who provide passionate, intense support for the performers on stage. Aided by the delicious support of choreographer Robin Michelle Berger, who accentuates the array of musical motifs with an eclectic mix of terpsichorean moves, the result is an engaging and absorbing account of not only one man’s (lyricist Rice) interpretation of a time and place but a riveting theatrical experience. . . Miller’s Evita is visceral, raucous and always entertaining, bringing out the best in Lloyd Webber’s complex and diverse score and underscoring Rice’s sophisticated and compelling lyrics in clever fashion. A 4.5 on a scale of 1-to-5.” – Mark Bretz, Ladue News


“New Line Theatre, a company that regularly turns its shoestring budget into vivid ribbons of musical theater art, is probably best known for offbeat, counter-cultural work. Shows like Bat Boy, Love Kills and Return to the Forbidden Planet seem to define the distinctive New Line brand, partly because they suit artistic director Scott Miller’s sensibilities and partly because New Line is the only place in town you’re apt to see them. But there's another important thread that runs through New Line's history: stripped-down performances of big-name musicals. In seasons past, New Line has produced shows like Camelot, Man of La Mancha, and Cabaret – shows that we associate with lush productions at the Muny, the Fox or Stages St. Louis. Evita, the latest New Line production, belongs to this adventurous tradition.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

And ticket sales are really strong, so if you haven't seen the show yet, you better get your tickets now. We expect quite a few sellouts...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Understand What I Have Done

Well, we've opened and soon the reviews will start coming in. I have to admit that I did not know exactly what our Evita was going to look like when it was finished. In many ways, it has been a wonderful surprise. Part of me worries about that -- shouldn't I know exactly what our destination is when we take these artistic journeys? Now, I think the answer is Not Necessarily.

And I don't think that's the answer I would have given you six months ago.

Here's what I learned about myself as a theatre artist while we worked on Evita. I've been directing so long now, almost 25 years -- goddamn I am so old -- that I've stopped worrying about whether I can pull it off each time. I'm becoming more and more Zen about it all as I get older. I know now that as long as I find us the right path and make sure we stay on it, the end product is going to be something interesting and honest and, mostly just because its our taste, really aggressive. I think people are often surprised at the incredible energy coming across the footlights. We don't do calm theatre you can watch passively. We don't do safe theatre. We take chances. We challenge our audience. And people LOVE that.

With Evita, I've been thinking about our approach for more than a year, ever since we first started considering it. I hadn't worked out every detail before we went into rehearsal, but it had been swimming around in my head for a long time. So I've been pretty damn sure we were on the right path from the get-go. I knew from interviews I'd read that Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber meant this show to be a chamber rock opera, not a massive political polemic. We knew from the original 1976 studio recording that the score is ten times cooler when it's allowed to be real rock and roll. I knew from reading interviews with Rice that he did not intend Eva to be a one-dimensional bitch. Taking all that together, we knew we were definitely on the right path.

Once we established our framing device of this rural movie theatre, the rules for everything else seemed pretty obvious. And that led logically to the same bare bones, intense style that we've used and loved in Bat Boy, Urinetown, High Fidelity, Assassins, The Wild Party, Love Kills, and many other New Line Theatre shows.

And it was really easy to keep us on that path. This is not just a wildly talented cast; they're also totally invested in the show and really easy to direct. No matter what odd thing I asked, they all were happy to comply. Even when I restaged "The Money Kept Rolling In" three times...

And on the topic of my wonderful cast, I've been reading this very cool book, A Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the Art of Directing, by William Ball, and I believe this paragraph so strongly I have to quote it here:

"An actor is a hero. All acting is praiseworthy if for no other reason than that the actor has the courage to walk from the wings to the center of the stage. For his entrance alone, he should be praised. Speaking takes more courage; and speaking in the person of another individual, with a commitment to a belief in that individual's emotional life, is not only praiseworthy; it is awesome. Those of us who have the opportunity to assist the actor, by making his path more smooth, are honored to aid him; and we are grateful for the great gifts he bestows upon us -- his creativity, his wit, his humanity, his suffering, his imagination, his energy, and his complete and perfect self."

And so, even though I didn't have the end product in my head the whole time, I think this process has been just as valid as a more fully pre-planned process would be. Maybe it's that I've worked so hard on developing my own process for creating a show, over so many years, that now I can really trust that process. I know it works. It never lets me down. My only agenda is to tell the story as clearly and honestly as we possily can, and let the rest take care of itself. And that trust in my process allows me to stop worrying about where we'll end up. Wherever it is, it's gonna be somewhere cool. And if the past is any indication, it's gonna be somewhere that a whole lot of other people are going to enjoy sharing with us.

The response to our Evita so far has been so much stronger than I expected. People really love it. They're deeply moved by it. Every night, a few people in the house are crying by the end. I think that emotional heft is a surprise to them because it starts out being such a cynical story. But just as Eva goes from ambitious cynic to humanitarian, so too the show itself goes from coolly cynical to intensely emotional. I think the emotion kinda sneaks up on the audience...

This show has turned out so cool and so unlike anything else we've done. I'm really proud of it, of our amazing cast, our rocking band, and our brilliant design and tech staff. What a great way to start a run!

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Every Word is True

Watching the show tonight, I realized something about our production that maybe should have been obvious to me before now. What separates our Evita from most other Evitas is that ours does not impose a director's judgment on Eva Peron. We let her tell her story, and we let Che have his counter-argument. We portray Juan Peron and the people of Argentina as honestly as we possibly can, and we let the story speak for itself.

We're not starting from a point where we presuppose that Eva was a nasty bitch and paid for her sins by dying young. As much as I loved the original Broadway production, that's what it said to its audience. Che was the truth teller. Eva was not to be trusted and she got what she deserved.

That's not nearly as interesting as leaving those judgments to the audience. Let everyone take from it what they will. It may depend on what political biases they have, where they've lived, what kind of childhood they had... who knows how many things will influence how we perceive Eva? I think she will be a Rorschach test of sorts. And that's what's cool about this show. It doesn't tell us what to think -- it just holds a mirror up to our times and lets us see what we see.

On a totally different topic... you have to hear this fucking band of ours! I was so relieved tonight because I know for sure now that this will indeed be what I've promised everyone it will be, a more rock and roll Evita. It really is! This music is sooooo much cooler played without strings and french horns and harp. There always was a rock score hidden inside trying to get out.

And we have freed it. Just call us Abraham Lincoln.

We've still got some work to do, but the show really looks good. Thommy Crain's costumes are great, Todd's set is great, the cast sounds great. I'm very pumped.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott