Just in Case You Hadn't Heard...

I am often reminded of how incredibly lucky I am, to have this job, and to be able to do it in a community like this one. All my life, back to my earliest memories as a kid, all I ever wanted to do was make musicals (aside from a slight detour in second grade when I announced to my parents and teacher that I wanted to be a mad scientist). And now I get to do that, alongside some of the most talented, most original, most generous theatre artists I've ever met.

I had been wanting to work on I Love My Wife for a really long time. I think it's such a smart, truthful show and it reveals so much about that tumultuous time in American culture. But not only did I get to work on it, I got to do it with one of those New Line All-Star casts. I can't imagine any other actors in these roles now. As I've said in this blog before, over the last several years I have realized that I absolutely love good actors. I love watching them create, I love the surprises they bring to the process, I love the magic they make on stage every night, and I love watching over a four-week run as the characters get deeper and more real every night, and as little moments get sharpened and tuned.

So let me brag on this cast for a minute...

Todd Schaefer is one of the true Renaissance Men of the theatre. He designs and builds sets, he designs costumes, he writes, he's an incredible scenic painter, and he's one of the best singing actors I've ever worked with. For I Love My Wife, Todd designed our very cool, transforming set and he played the lead -- right after taking on both those jobs in Evita this summer. And he teaches full-time and takes on other projects along the way. I'm not sure when he sleeps. He's brilliant at comedy, he's a great singer, he has this incredible warmth onstage, and audiences absolutely fall in love with him. I'll never pass up an opportunity to work with Todd.

The same is true for Jeff Wright. Not only is he the nicest guy on the planet, but he's also one of the hardest working, most focused actors I've ever met. And he's utterly fearless. He is always ready to try anything I ask of him, no matter how crazy it might be, no matter how far outside his comfort zone it takes him. He really trusts me as a director, and there's no greater gift an actor can give me. And like Todd, it's so much fun to watch him every night make the audience fall in love with him. We realized in rehearsal that Jeff often ends up playing dickheads onstage (even more often than Jeff himself realized), and I admire him so much for taking on those darker roles time after time. But he never steps back from those dark, complex characters the way lesser actors do; he embraces them and fully inhabits them. With every show, he stretches himself, he challenges himself, and he always rises to whatever challenge he faces. There's no other actor I know who puts so much effort into continually learning and improving and growing as an artist. I have so much respect for him.

I've only worked with Sarah Armstrong a few times before (Kiss of the Spider Woman, JC Superstar, and the first reading of Johnny Appleweed), but I sooooo love working with her. She's the consummate professional in every regard. She's utterly fearless and she has the most wonderful, quirky sense of comedy -- yet it's never about getting a laugh, but instead about revealing truth. She achieves an authenticity onstage that is remarkable and that really contributed to the emotional impact of I Love My Wife.

Emily Berry joined us last year for the first time, as Logainne in Spelling Bee, and every night she walked out on stage and the entire audience fell in love with her. She was hilarious as hell but at the same time, it broke our hearts every night when she missed her word and had to leave the stage. It's not easy to do both those things at once. Emily went on to play the adorable Mae in The Wild Party, and she and Zak stopped the show every night with their vaudeville turn, "Two of a Kind." There aren't many comedians as masterful as Emily.

All four of the leads were absolutely perfect for their roles (they say 90% of a show's success comes from casting, and they're right), and all four were so wonderful to work with. I'm always very aware that my ideas and concepts are worth nothing without smart, talented artists onstage making those ideas come alive. These guys are the best! We laughed so much in rehearsal, and that makes the time fly by.

And then there's our Greek Chorus -- three of my all-time favorite guys. Zak Farmer is the Mighty Putty of New Line. We can use him for anything! He can do wacky comedy, intense drama, and everything in between. (He's also been known to fix leaks and repair mugs.) He has a chameleon-like voice that can handle any kind of music, and no matter what a show's style may be, he has an unerring instinct for finding exactly the right tone, style, and size of his performance. He was recently named the best actor in a musical for Love Kills by the RFT's Best of St. Louis issue. He'll be the lead in New Line's Two Gentlemen of Verona in the spring.

Joel Hackbarth is our anchor. He's so utterly dependable both musically and dramatically. And like Jeff, Joel is continually stretching himself and exploring new territory. In The Wild Party, as one of the two incestuous gay brothers (along with the awesome Mike Dowdy), Joel really went outside his own personal comfort zone to play this very flamboyant character (nothing like Joel himself), and proved himself both a strong actor and an amazing comedy partner in his moments with Dowdy. Joel just gets better and more fearless with every show he does. And no one will ever forget Joel in "Everybody Today is Turning On." I start laughing just thinking about it. What a comedy home-run!

And then there's Troy Turnipseed. What a powerful presence this guy has onstage! As hilarious as Troy is in real life, he's totally serious in rehearsal. He works really hard and always delivers a charming, funny, interesting performance. I don't think he knows how great he is or what amazing stage presence he has. And just as Joel and Dowdy were a brilliant comedy duo in Wild Party, Joel and Troy were just as brilliant in I Love My Wife. Their schtick in the song "A Mover's Life" cracked me up every night. And even though Troy has never smoked pot (poor thing!), he was absolutely hilarious being stoned in "Everybody Today is Turning On." There is such joy in this guy and it's such fun to be around that. He never fails to make me laugh, onstage or off. And he's the nicest guy you'll ever meet.

Add to that wonderful cast a kick-ass band playing the cool jazz music of Cy Coleman, led by our new pianist and bandleader Justin Smolik, along with Michael Stewart's brilliant, acrobatic, sexy lyrics. What more could a musical theatre freak like me ever want? There are a few shows that I've been deeply in love with for many years, and when I finally get the chance to work on them, they bring me unparalleled joy. The Robber Bridegroom and The Fantasticks were both like that; and so was I Love My Wife.

I'm very lucky -- not only do I get to work on thrilling material like this, but I get to do it with amazing artists for enthusiastic audiences. Not only do I get to run a musical theatre company, but I get to be as adventurous as I want, and the actors, musicians, designers, and audiences are happy to come along for the adventure.

We knew this show would not sell out every night. We knew some people might not love it -- it's a very odd show about a topic many people probably find uncomfortable. But the real magic of New Line is that we get to produce totally non-commercial shows like this anyway! It's the most wonderful kind of freedom. And I got a dream cast to do it. Take any one of those seven actors out of the mix and the show would have suffered for it. They each brought such energy and humor and joy to our story. And that last necessary ingredient -- the audience -- had such fun with us and gave such joy back to the actors. I could see every night how it energized the cast once they got that first laugh. Many thanks to everyone who came to see us!

So now I get two months off. And Jesus, do I need it. But I won't be too bored. During that time, I'm going to New York to see some shows (and I'll be blogging about them!), then we have the New Line Holiday Dinner on December 7, celebrating our 20th season, and then we start rehearsals again in early January. We've assembled yet another New Line All-Star cast for Two Gentlemen of Verona. I'll blog about that soon...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Hey, Remember When...

I've been thinking about something Judy Newmark wrote in her review of I Love My Wife in the Post-Dispatch: “New Line has done well with Hair, which it has mounted several times. It’s also staged strong productions of Grease and Chicago, the beat musical The Nervous Set, the slacker musical High Fidelity and Return to the Forbidden Planet, set either in the 1950s or the future, maybe both. Put them all together, and it's an era-by-era look at changing American mores. Miller’s anthropological twist on musical theater gives New Line a distinctive point of view, brainy and bold. I Love My Wife is an apt addition to that repertoire.”

As you can imagine, I love that.

And it got me thinking. I really am fascinated personally by 20th century American political and cultural history. I absolutely love America, in a serious, clear-eyed way Sarah Palin and her ilk could never understand. I love its messiness and rowdinesws, its heroes and villains, its hangups and its balls, its triumphs and misstpes and the slow but continal stumbling ever forward. As gloomy and doomy as everyone seems to be these days, I see nothing but an admittedly rocky transition into an amazing, new, interconnected world that this country of ours will come out on top of. We've never been stymied by change -- we use it. All the rules are changing and that scares everybody, but that's been happening to our country for our entire history -- you can see it in the stories we tell at New Line -- and we always weather the storm. Maybe that's why The Times don't scare me. I know, from the stories we've been telling all these years, that America is always going through these wrenching changes in one way or another. Every bit as much right now as in 1977 when I Love My Wife is set.

And that change is inherently dramatic.

It wasn't until recently that I realized how much all that is part of New Line's identity. Judy's right. We are telling the story of America in the 20th century, literally the good, the bad, and the ugly. We got a socio-political overview from Assassins, which covers more than a century of American history (and which we've produced three times). But there are so many other shows that tell our story. In a few cases, they explore America through metaphor, as with Cabaret, Man of La Mancha, and Pippin.

1920s – Chicago, Floyd Collins, The Wild Party
1930s – The Cradle Will Rock
1940s – Reefer Madness
1950s – The Nervous Set, Love Kills, Forbidden Planet, Grease
1960s – Anyone Can Whistle, Hair, Cabaret, Man of La Mancha
1970s – Company, Pippin, Rocky Horror, Best Little Whorehouse, I Love My Wife
1980s – High Fidelity, The Ballad of Little Mikey
1990s – Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Songs for a New World
2000s – bare

And we've even explored our nation's psycho-sexual roots in the 1790s, with The Robber Bridegroom...

Very cool. I love our company.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Make Me Feel I'm Glad I Came

More reviews have come in -- some of them real raves...

“New Line, the little cutting-edge theater that could, is opening its 20th season with I Love My Wife. . . Leave it to Miller to rediscover this little gem. I Love My Wife turns out to be a clever, musically sophisticated and ultimately sweet show, intimate in every sense of the word. . . New Line has done well with Hair, which it has mounted several times. It’s also staged strong productions of Grease and Chicago, the beat musical The Nervous Set, the slacker musical High Fidelity and Return to the Forbidden Planet, set either in the 1950s or the future, maybe both. Put them all together, and it's an era-by-era look at changing American mores. Miller’s anthropological twist on musical theater gives New Line a distinctive point of view, brainy and bold. I Love My Wife is an apt addition to that repertoire.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“The swingin’ 70s were a nonstop, hedonistic thrill ride. Marriages were open, key parties were de rigueur, love was American Style – everybody got laid all the time and twice on Sunday. But all revolutions come to an end, especially sexual ones. The Michael Stewart and Cy Coleman musical I Love My Wife takes you back to the final spurts of the musky 70s with a jazzy tale of wife-swapping, sex and romance, and explores how maybe all that free love came with a hidden cost – and we ain’t talkin’ about herpes.” – Paul Friswold, The Riverfront Times

“This is a production that nobody who cares about musical theatre should miss, because if there ever is another local production, the passionate advocacy of the current production will be hard to match.” – Gerry Kowarsky, Two on the Aisle

“With their funky and fun production of I Love My Wife, New Line Theatre begins their 20th season with a trip back to the swinging seventies, when the last dying embers of the sexual revolution were still smoldering in the suburbs. It was a time when collars were broad, chests were hairy, and polyester was the fabric of choice. And though the obvious reference point for some might be Paul Mazursky's 1969 film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, the two are actually quite dissimilar, except for the fact that two couples wind up sharing the same bed. But, I Love My Wife is more concerned with friendships and making connections. New Line's presentation of this perfectly charming adult comedy is superbly cast and directed, and well worth your time and attention.” – Chris Gibson, BroadwayWorld.com

“New Line Theatre jazzes up I Love My Wife. . . Having showcased their badness with Love Kills and The Wild Party, Scott Miller and his New Line Theatre, self-christened the Bad Boy of Musical Theatre, have decided to back off and just be a little naughty with their current offering.” – Bob Wilcox, KDHX

A couple of the reviews have criticized the show for being too tame. Wilcox said it "registers low on the racy scale." Gerry Kowarsky said it "stops short" of fully exploring its topic. I've seen similar criticisms in reviews of other productions. And while I think it's true, I also think it's the whole point of the show! After all, the four central characters also stop short of fully exploring their "multiple love experience."

It's kinda like criticizing Urinetown for being too sarcastic.

There's a line in the Act II opener that always struck me: "Though it's sexy, it's a family show." That's a joke, but it's almost true. We realized as we worked on this show that it contains only one "dirty" word (titties), and not a single shit or fuck. What some reviewers don't understand is that this story isn't really about sex or the Sexual Revolution. It uses the Sexual Revolution as context and uses this sexual encounter as a plot device, but it's really about the world outside the Sexual Revolution, a world of relative normalcy, in which most people will never be sexually adventurous and don't want to be. The Rocky Horror Show is about sex; I Love My Wife is about how life isn't about sex.

As we well know at New Line, when sex is the topic of a story, everyone expects that sexual/moral transgression is the agenda, as it is with Rocky Horror, Hedwig, Wild Party, etc. But here is the rare story in which the characters try to make sex the topic but realize that's a mistake. It took us a while to realize that the opening song has literally nothing at all to do with sex, and the finale only marginally has to do with sex, and that's when we understood that this isn't a show about sex. Judy Newmark and Chris Gibson both understood this in their reviews.

This also explains one of my favorite lines, when Alvin and Cleo are arguing about whether to get a man or women to join them, and he blurts out, "Sex has nothing to do with it!" Again, it's a joke, but the show is telling us outright that this is a show not about sexual intercourse, but about relationships being tested by massive cultural change -- almost exactly the central theme of Fiddler on the Roof...

I just got this image in my head of Tevye, Golde, Lazar Wolf, and Yente all trying to follow a diagram in The Joy of Sex. I'll never be able to watch Fiddler on the Roof again...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Diverse Dividends

Well, we got through Hell Week and got our show opened. There were various challenges and hiccups along the way, as there often are, but we conquered them all.

Sometimes, we don't really need all our run-throughs to fix all the problems. Other times, we need every second we have to get the work done. With this show, we needed the time. It's a very tricky show and finding exactly the right tone and style took some time. We found that even a small letdown in energy really deflates the show. It's a very high energy, perpetual motion machine, and that's exhausting for the actors.

We had a slightly shaky preview on Thursday -- no real problems but the show was still finding its footing and the audience was small-ish and very quiet. They were laughing, but not like we had expected. Then on opening night, we had this incredible audience and the show just exploded with energy. The pacing was amazing, the audience was totally tuned in to the characters and story, and everybody had a blast. We had a party afterward to celebrate the start of our 20th season, which was really fun -- a lot of the New Liners came that night.

Then Saturday, the audience was quiet again, which I think made the actors doubt themselves. Plus, I think they were all exhausted. The show still went okay, but I could tell the confidence level wasn't quite the same. But we're getting some great reviews, so I think we'll get bigger crowds now and bigger crowds always laugh more. This is a show that really needs that back-and-forth with the audience.

Look at the nice things the critics have said so far...

“New Line Theater bows I Love My Wife, an often hilarious musical spoof of the so-called ‘free love’ era and how two married couples discover the truth about ‘four play.’ New Line Theatre always does great work. When they perform, you’re always up close and personal. Sometimes the performers are only three to four feet from where you’re sitting, so you really get involved in the show. I Love My Wife also happens to be a very funny show. . . enjoyable and a nice start to New Line’s 20th season.” – Harry Hamm, KMOX

“Those who lived through the 1970s will nod familiarly at most of the lines and lyrics in I Love My Wife. Those too young to remember will understand why certain styles, certain moments, certain memories will bring goofy looks to their parents’ faces. . . but it's an accurate view – and spoof – of an era that generated a movie called Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, that still was enjoying the drug culture and sexual freedom that started in the 1960s. . . The tale of a husband’s desire to join the sexual revolution he fears has begun without him, using his friend’s wife to help him get up to date, is bright and tuneful, well-paced under Scott Miller’s on-point direction. . . It’s powerful, and it’s fun.” – Joe Pollack, St. Louis Eats and Drinks

“Top-notch performances highlight this New Line production . . . I Love My Wife is a nifty little musical that is given a first-rate production by the folks at New Line Theatre. Because of the subject matter, I would consider it Adults Only but you’ll have a lot of fun and a lot of laughs at this one.” – Steve Allen, Java Journal

“Interesting and hilarious. Now, it's not as though there's a detailed plot for this show, but under Scott Miller and Alison Helmer’s direction, watching it all unfold and seeing how these individuals respond to the opportunity is an entertaining ride, well worth the price of admission. This show may be set in the 70's, but the themes are still relevant.” – Andrea Torrence, St. Louis Theatre Snob

Not bad, huh?

Long Live the Musical!
Scott