No Need to Look So Quizzical

We had a really good, solid rehearsal tonight! It's really a show now (we open next week!), so we can see what we've got and start polishing, finding those amazing little moments that make characters real and a story compelling, and getting rid of anything that doesn't contribute to character or story.

There are so many wonderful moments already -- funny, sweet, sad, bizarre, vulgar, silly -- we access just about every emotion and every tone you could imagine in this show. It's a real beast to put together in a lot of ways -- partly, I think, because this story takes us through very genuine emotions but also a pretty outrageous story, and that's a tough balancing act -- but it really has come together. Everyone is working really hard. Everyone in the cast has something real and unique and fun that they're adding to the show -- there's so much life on stage!

This is my favorite part of the process, and I think it's one of the hardest parts on the actors. They've got everything memorized now, they've got their blocking, they have a pretty solid understanding of character and relationships, but now we work on small, subtle stuff -- whether a line is delivered to the audience or another actor, how much to bring out the subtext of a song, how to balance the ebb and flow of the show's energy, when to charge ahead wildly and when to take a breath and let the audience digest what they've just heard for a moment. So many moments change now, sometimes in very small ways, and things that felt so solid to the actors now feel new and unsure... They're constantly having to readjust. Constantly.

In one scene tonight, an actor wanted to cross on a particular line and it really didn't feel right to me. But if I was gonna stand my ground, I knew I had to help the actor understand why it wasn't the right time; otherwise the scene would feel wrong to him and that's never good. An actor has to feel comfortable every moment to do his best work. I had been taught years ago that the best time to move onstage is at a change in topic or a change in motivation. When the inner world changes, the outer world changes to reflect that, and it really helps the audience tune in to and follow that inner life. When I offered that explanation tonight, that was all the actor needed. He understood and he no longer felt like he was tugging against the staging. After thirty years of directing musicals, I know the director's most important job is to make the actors feel as safe as possible. Sometimes, the show itself is so difficult or intense or weird that that kind of safety is tough to get to. But I have to do my best.

I love actors. I love watching them work. I love watching them create so full a character that it continues to evolve throughout the run in very subtle ways. Sometimes I know I have to insist on my idea, fully aware that the actors won't like it, but hoping that once we're running they'll see that it works. With our weirder shows, sometimes I'm the only one who really knows what it's going to look like on opening night, how it moves, etc., so the cast just has to trust me until it comes together -- sometimes until we put it front of an audience (Hair was like that the first time).

But whenever possible I try to make sure the actors understand everything I understand about the show. We always have a "resource box" full of videos, books, and other material to help the actors with background, period, style, etc. I know some people think actors should just say the lines and be done with it (David Mamet is a big proponent of this philosophy), but I really believe the more the actors really intimately know this world, the more easily they will create wonderful, complex, interesting characters, partly through conscious choices and partly through largely unconscious instincts.

Big Picture, I believe my job is to set us all on the same road, make sure everyone knows why this is the road we're on, then let them find their way, let them explore side streets and by-ways for a while, steer them back on the road when necessary, and then finally edit their work to get everyone in tune with each other. I'm pretty good at finding the tiny tears in the fabric of a show and stitching them up, one by one, till we've got a gorgeous, amazing tapestry of storytelling.

Here's another story that illustrates my point. There are several instances in the show where characters sing little fragments of songs a cappella, and one of those fragments has been troublesome. We couldn't figure out how to stage it, and though it quotes a previous melody, it starts in the middle of that melody, so it's been hard for the actor to find it without accompaniment. So last week we decided we'd just cut a few lines and avoid the hassle. That's almost always the wrong solution. Tonight we discovered the lines we cut held important information that the audience has to get to move the story forward. So after a long discussion, we finally figured out how to deliver it and how to stage it. It took us a little while, but we got there...

So much of creating theatre is really just problem solving.

People who don't do musicals don't understand how incredibly complex musical theatre is. It's got all the challenges and obstacles of non-musical theatre, but to that it adds singing, dancing, musicians, etc. And lots of entrances and exits, costume changes, all kinds of things have to be exactly timed to the music. And though there are some plays that require major physical exertion, there are very few that require the stamina and energy of a great musical, especially a rock musical.

All theatre used to have music. It's only been since the mid-1800s that music was divorced from theatre. In other words, theatre is inherently musical in its natural state. Plays that lack music are an aberrtion in theatre history. Why has music always been so integral to theatre? Because the abstract language of music (like great stage lighting) can express emotion far better than words ever can.

Sometimes it's frustrating to me that so many theatre people still look down their noses at musicals. Several theatre people in town have told me directly that muscials "aren't real theatre." But whenever that happens I just imagine the naysayers trying to produce Hair or The Wild Party or Bat Boy, and I have to laugh at how clueless they would be. So many great actors have totally tanked in musicals! So many skilled directors think doing a musical is a vacation and they end up making shitty musicals. It's a lot harder than it looks. It is a different art form with different rules and conventions.

There was a company in town (who shall remain nameless) who decided to produce a musical back in the 1990s because they saw our sold-out houses and assumed all musicals sell out. The end product was bland and low energy and superficial, and it didn't sell very well. They thought that because they make theatre they can make musicals, and so the theatre gods humbled them for their arrogance.

As it should be.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Life is Passion

Just to catch you up on our progress...

We've finished staging the show and have had one full run-through, which went great. The leads were 85% off script (which is pretty good for the first run-thru), and the show was already really funny and high energy. It's always so nice to get to see the whole thing put together -- even in its unpolished state -- so we can get a glimpse of what the end product will be.

The cast is just terrific. Everyone's working really hard, getting the choreography down, memorizing, finding cool, new, little moments all through the show. And the four lovers are really finding the emotional content of this story. Though most of the show is pretty wacky, there are some serious, very emotional moments, and we have to make sure we set those up right so they pay off at the end.

We also got the set up over the weekend and painted a base coat on everything. Todd has come up with one of his trademark jungle gym sets for this show. So many places to play, to hide, to hang out (throughout a lot of the show, the ensemble watches from the sidelines). The floor of the stage is going to be a wild, psychedelic swirl of purple, pink, red, and cream. There's fake stonework here and there, plus some cool backdrops, lots of twinkle lights, and much more. This is going to be a more involved set than most of our shows have.

Last night, we had a kind of rehearsal we usually never have time for. Even though we lost two nights to the snowstorm, somehow I managed to squeeze out some time. All we did last night was place the four dance numbers on the set and then run them; then we had a microphone run-through. As we've done before with period rock shows (Hair, Forbidden Planet, Grease), we're using hand mics. There's something about holding a mic that both helps establish the period and also makes it feel a little bit like a rock concert, which is a great kind of energy for this show to have. The actors hated using the mics at first, but they've gotten used to them. Same thing every show...

So tonight is our first run-through on the set and with most of the props. Last night's work will make tonight so much easier! And from here on out, all we do is run the show and polish it. Since we only get one preview, we've learned over time to schedule a lot of run-throughs, so the show is really clean by the time we open it. We usually have nine full run-throughs before we put it in front of an audience. All that time is a real luxury and we love it.

The work -- and the fun -- continue...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Boom-Chicka-Chicka-Chicka

Here's a glimpse inside the haze-filled labyrinth I call a mind. In case you get lost while we're in here, just remember, head for the nearest musical...

Since we started work on Two Gents, I realize I've been reconnecting with old-school musical comedy. Part of the reason is that I started collecting Broadway poster images I found on the internet, and a lot of them were pre-1940 (here's one example), a few of which I had never even heard of. Another part of it is that I've been watching some really early movie musicals, which had that same manic, wacky energy as the stage musicals of the time. A couple nights ago I watched a documentary about the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy, the partly fictionalized biography of George M. Cohan. I hope to watch Yankee Doodle Dandy tonight. I haven't seen it since I was a kid. (And we all know how long ago that was.)

Cohan is, as far as I'm concerned, the creator of the American musical. His shows were so utterly unlike anything else that had come before. They weren't an evolution of earlier forms; they were their own new form: American musical comedy. They were loud, rowdy, rude, wacky, sexy, culturally insightful, and often sentimental. In fact, they were exactly the kind of show we like to produce at New Line, with one big difference: Cohan's shows were about young lovers and misunderstandings. There was very little substance there, but there was something important -- an American voice, an American musical sound, an American point of view, and above all, an elusive quality I call "muscle."

The night before that, I watched my video of Little Johnny Jones, a 1904 Cohan musical, one of his earliest hits, in a production mounted at the Goodspeed Opera House in the early 1980s. It's an incredible production that really tries to reproduce the original as closely as possible (although they cut the original's almost unconnected third act). As silly as it is, it's relentlessly entertaining and fun and intense and so ridiculously American -- not in a faux patriotic way, but in its psyche. The emotions are very big, but very honest. The relationships are drawn in broad brushstrokes, but you believe them. And the values are pure idealized America.

So for the past few days I've been thinking about all this. I remember the last season I worked with CenterStage, in 1991, I directed No! No! Nanette! and I seriously researched the period and the performance style so we could get a real sense of what the show felt like in 1925. I unearthed a lot of information and I think we really found that authentic 1925 musical comedy feel (which is a lot like vaudeville). I'm glad I had that experience (and eight seasons as an usher at The Muny, watching great old shows like High Button Shoes up close) because I really do understand old-school musical comedy deep in my bones.

And I realize now that much of what New Line does is something I'm gonna call "neo musical comedy" (even though at this point it's not entirely "new") -- shows like Bat Boy, Urinetown, Spelling Bee, A New Brain, even some older shows like Anyone Can Whistle and The Cradle Will Rock. These are shows that feel like old-fashioned musical comedy, fast, loud, crazy, wacky, but they have a more complex, often darker agenda. The tools that had been used (overly?) sincerely in most 20th century musical theatre are now being used more ironically. There is a revolution afoot. Kander and Ebb are the kings of this kind of show. A lot of their work is a hybrid of the Sondheim concept musical and the neo musical comedy, shows like Chicago, Cabaret, and their recent masterpiece, The Scottsboro Boys.

I think musical theatre writers have finally gotten past the bombast of European pop opera, and are returning home to musical comedy, but all while using the tools and intelligence and ambiguity of very serious, very intense musical drama as well as those of George M. Cohan.

All of this to say that I'm coming back to my roots. I grew up seeing shows at The Muny. Musical comedy was my first love -- The Music Man (I knew the entire "Trouble" monologue by age nine), Hello, Dolly!, Guys and Dolls, Gypsy, Mame, Off Thee I Sing. After I consumed American musical comedy in great giant gulps, I moved on to the Rodgers and Hammerstein era, then in college on to the concept musicals.

Over the years, my taste has gotten darker and more complex; the dark side is just more interesting. But thanks to some of my favorite writers, I can now merge my adult tastes with my earliest loves. Two Gentlemen of Verona is a perfect example. It's got all the wackiness and high energy of a Cohan musical comedy, inculding young lovers and misunderstandings, alongside the distinctive artistry of Shakespeare and the very dark, ambiguous emotional terrain he's exploring here. (As I type this, I realize a lot of early musical comedies used a lot of Shakespeare's own comic devices.)

Shakespeare was about the same age as Valentine and Proteus when he wrote Two Gents. Shakespeare had not long before come to London from Stratford and was just figuring out his career path. He was these two guys. And he was honest enough to show us the ugly side of young love and infatuation, while being able to step back from it and see how ridiculous love almost always is. We're lucky that someone that young, with that level of artistry and intellect, understood why he should explore that cultural moment. The same could be said about Jonathan Larson and Rent. Both shows are unpolished, a bit awkward, a bit messy, but really honest and really interesting. And we New Liners learned long ago that polish and slickness is one of the least important elements we look at when choosing shows.

Sometimes, polish just hides shallowness. And quite often, the most ambitious, most interesting shows are also the messiest and most flawed. The shows that reach for greatness and fall a little short are always cooler than the shows that reach only for mainstream commercial success. We leave those shows to the theatres with big budgets and thousands of seats to fill.

And we'll keep bringing you the coolest and most fascinating work we can find. We're just about done staging the show, and now is when the real fun starts for me.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Milan, I'll Lick You Yet

You really can't take Shakespeare too seriously.

You can't get too caught up in the language. Is that heresy? So sue me. Will wasn't writing greeting cards; he was writing theatre. He was a storyteller, a tribe shaman. He was writing characters and plot. Not just pretty metaphors.

Every time I talk to someone who works on Shakespeare --actors, directors, dramaturgs -- I ask them about iambic pentameter. Some of them think you have to follow its rhythm slavishly; others say they ignore it completely. But a few have said something that makes a lot of sense to me, that it's like music theory: you don't have to pay attention to it unless you need it, and then it will be there to help. These folks say that if a line is tough to understand or to figure out where the stress is, then go to the iambic pentameter and it will point you in the right direction.

The other thing I've been telling our actors is to make sure they really underline the subject and verb of each sentence. There's often so much ornamentation that we need to help the audience focus on what's important. Though we attempt a kind of naturalism with our performances, they still require that exaggeration to make this complex language easier to grasp on only one hearing. Luckily for us, that exaggerated style is not all that different from the bolder-than-life style of Bat Boy, Urinetown, or Spelling Bee which we know so well.

But technical considerations aside, I find the biggest hurdle in doing Shakespeare is Shakespeare. Too many people, particularly those who don't know his work well, see him only as the greatest writer of the English theatre. They try to give him import, majesty, reverence, respect. They see the plays as Masterpieces. They try to raise the characters to mythical figures.

But that's not what Shakespeare wrote. He wrote comedies and romances and thrillers and tragedies, not Masterpieces. He wrote for the uneducated groundlings as much as for his middle class patrons. His plays were rowdy and vulgar and outrageous and violent. They were extreme. They weren't reverent or self-important.

The hardest part for many actors is taking the Shakespeare out of Shakespeare. You have to get rid of him. You have to meet the play and its characters on their own terms, get inside the world, and bring it to life. Shakespeare didn't want actors or audiences thinking about how great the playwright is! He wanted them submersed in the considerable psychological reality of his characters. His gorgeous language isn't why we still perform his plays. It's his characters: Iago, Polonius, Richard III, Lady Macbeth, Coriolanus, Shylock, Henry V, Prospero, the "shrew" Katharina. Imagine a character as complex and inscrutable and fully human as Hamlet onstage in 1600! Modern audiences are impressed with the psychological complexity and realism of O'Neill, Albee, Miller, and Williams, but Shakespeare was doing work just as remarkable more than three centuries earlier.

And even in his very early Two Gentlemen of Verona (particularly in this fixed up form), Proteus is an extremely complex character. He is both a sweet, charming guy and a complete dickhead. He is intelligent and literate but also childish and selfish. He's incredibly passionate and romantic but also freakishly unfaithful. Why is he such a mess of contradictions? Because that's real life. I know people like Proteus, people with big, open hearts who are also emotionally retarded, don't you?

I guess, in short, what I'm circling around is the idea that you don't really treat Shakespeare any differently than any other writer. Yes, there is the technical aspect of understanding the sometimes archaic language, but once you know what it means, it's exactly like working on The Wild Party or Love Kills. Exactly. It's all about telling a great story.

So come join us in March -- we'll tell you a great story and we'll send you out of the theatre singing. I promise. You won't be able to help yourself.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott