I Went Where the Music Took Me

We've closed High Fidelity and said goodbye to Rob and his friends at Championship Vinyl. I will miss this show so much. It's a remarkable piece of writing, so honest, so funny, so powerfully emotional. One of the reasons the show is so personally powerful to me is that I see Championship Vinyl as an only thinly veiled stand-in for New Line Theatre. I know that's not what David, Amanda, and Tom were thinking when they wrote the show, but they still got it exactly right.

But that's not the only reason I think the show is brilliant and will someday be recognized as one of the greatest works of the American musical theatre in this new millennium. The other reason -- maybe the main reason -- is that the High Fidelity writing team understood that storytelling comes before everything else. You want to connect with me? Tell me a great story. I think there is no more profound human development than storytelling -- it's how we try to understand ourselves and our world, how we record our history, how we grapple with the toughest issues of our times, how we examine what's good and not so good about our culture, how we impart important lessons about life and about living together in a civilized society.

As I have said in this forum before, we storytellers are the tribe shamans, the intermediaries between the natural and spiritual worlds. That's a powerful responsibility.

I was watching Meet the Press last week and realized something really interesting. For those of you who don't know me well, I'm a total political junkie. I watch at least a couple hours a day of cable news political shows (more when I have the time). Strangely enough, I'm an odd mix of cynic and dreamer, so the more I watch C-Span (and I watch it a lot), the more I love our country and our form of government. People think our government can't work anymore, but the truth is we have a really complex and really big and really varied country, so it's always going to be difficult to run it. Right now our country is irreconcilably split, so it follows logically that our representative Congress is too.

And still, I'm continually impressed at how seriously (most of) our elected officials take their jobs and how seriously they try to make our country a better place, even if I may disagree with them on how to do that. (Sure, some in Congress are opportunists and con artists -- I'm lookin' at you, Darrell Issa -- but really very few.) I think the biggest part of why I love politics is that I love people. I love watching the continuous creation and recreation of our civilization and culture, especially from inside this greatest of all human experiments, American democracy. We are an astonishing species.

But I digress.

So I'm watching Meet the Press and the host David Gregory asks the pundits what President Obama has to do to win the Presidential race. And several of them said, Tell the story. In terms of the economy, for example, make it clear what happened, what we're doing about it, and what we need to do going forward. In other words, give us a beginning, middle, and end, such that we will understand something we didn't before. Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said that people need a story to understand complicated issues.

And that hit me like a lightning bolt -- that's why theatre has always been fundamental to human culture, why all storytelling is. It's how we humans best take in information because we use multiple parts of our brain in processing the story -- especially if it involves music, because music is an abstract language which conveys emotion far more powerfully than words can, and that emotional power can make quite an unforgettable imprint on an audience. Also, because of the different functions of the left and right brain, most people find it easier to remember things if they're set to music. It's why Schoolhouse Rock works and commercial jingles. It's why we remember so many song lyrics. Historically, most storytelling included music. Only in the last couple hundred years was theatre ever divorced from music. Musical theatre is the theatre's natural state; theatre that lacks music is the anomaly.

But I digress again. Shit. Sorry.

So this need for storytelling, for context, is why we pass down important information in the form of fables and fairy tales and Bible stories, novels and films, plays and musicals. It's why Jesus taught his disciples through the use of parables.

Just tell the story.

There's a great scene in Tim Robbins' film Cradle Will Rock (if you haven't seen it, put it in your Netflix queue now!), in which the staff of the Federal Theatre Project debates the power and perceived danger of art, and they point out that most of what we know of English history, we know from Shakespeare. Except a lot of that is wrong. Shakespeare wasn't trying to get at historical authenticity; he was working toward emotional and psychological authenticity. Facts and truth aren't always the same thing. But today, most of us only know Shakespeare's versions of these events. No wonder the people in power are always afraid of the artists. Especially the fearless artists. We have Power. New Line Theatre has the dubious honor of having had opening night of our 2007 show Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll shut down by a court injunction requested by the Archbishop of St. Louis! They feared us and our art! Pretty fucking cool, no...?

And all this is why audience responded so powerfully to High Fidelity. This is a story that delves into some of the darker corners of human emotion and relationships, a corner where most people try never to go. But everyone who saw Hi-Fi recognized quickly the profound truthfulness in Rob's story. People hurt each other. And most of us never really understand why. High Fidelity tries to get at that why. Late in Act I, before Rob tells us the story of why Laura left him, he makes a request of the audience...

I bet you’re wondering why I’m an asshole. Well, you wouldn’t be the first. I suspect that Laura finally broke down and told Liz what happened. It was inevitable, I guess.
      (sighs – this is hard)
Okay, before we do this, I need you to do me a favor. Just take a minute and think about the top five worst things that you have done to your partner.
      (he waits)
Don't dress things up or try to explain them, just live with them for a moment.
      (beat)
Especially if your partner doesn't know about them.
      (beat)
Got ‘em? Good. Now remember that, and try not to judge me too harshly.

It's a brilliant moment for two reasons. First, it pulls the audience so directly, actively into the moment, in a way that theatre only rarely does. But second, everyone in the audience realizes in this moment that as much as we think Rob is a big dick, we're all Rob now and then. All of us have had to learn how to see beyond ourselves, to be aware of the consequences of our actions (the point of Stephen Sondheim's "No One is Alone"), to think about other people's feelings, not just our own. Some of us learn that as teenagers, most as young adults, some much later, a few never... Late in Act II, Rob tells us, "I've started to make a tape in my head for Laura. Full of stuff she’d like. Full of stuff that’d make her happy. For the first time, I can sorta see how that’s done." In the dialogue I quoted above from Act I, Rob forces self-awareness onto the audience, as he stumbles and struggles to find his way to his own self-awareness. And that act pulls the audience much more powerfully into his journey of self-discovery, because now the audience sees that it's everybody's journey of self-discovery, including their own.

Sure, the songs in High Fidelity are amazing and the dialogue is brilliant, but it's the storytelling that raises it above most other musicals. The original novelist Nick Hornby gets some of that credit, but the show's writing team created a new animal when they adapted this story. I don't know how much was calculation and how much was instinct, but the end product is a real masterpiece of the new rock musical.

It was an incredible honor for us to be the people who brought the show back to life in 2008, but it has been one of the greatest thrills of my life to return to it this season. Honest to god. I think Hi-Fi has replaced both Hair and Bat Boy as my all-time favorite show. It's really that good.

I want to thank everyone who came to see us and share this beautiful story with us over the last four weeks, this cast full of amazing actors with killer voices, our outstanding band, and our smart, insightful designers. What a trip it's been. There are some awesome projects ahead for us -- Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Next to Normal, Bukowsical, and others even farther out in the future -- but I'm going to miss Hi-Fi for a long time. A very long time.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Gonna Take Control and Rock Your Soul

It's been so amazing working on High Fidelity again, and seeing again up-clsoe the depth of artistry and seriousness of craft beneath what the original Broadway production team thought was just a standard musical comedy. And it's got me thinking again about the rock musical and the way our art form is changing.

I think about this stuff a lot. Page back through my blog and you'll see what I mean...

Nine years ago, when we were working on Bat Boy the first time, composer Larry O'Keefe (Bat Boy, Legally Blonde, Bring It On) told me that he sees all rock musicals fitting into two categories. With some of them, the rock and roll is the point. With others, the rock and roll just happens to be the language of the storytelling. I had never thought about it that way before, but I found that distinction really interesting and really meaningful. I realized that most early rock musicals were the former, and most recent rock musicals are the latter. Although it's not really that simple. Some are both. And as the rock musical becomes the dominant form in the musical theatre (at last!), the rock musical will expand and evolve and will no doubt inspire surprising and wonderful offspring that will take our art form even further.

We're already on a dual path – the Rodgers & Hammerstein model has evolved into the serious rock musical (often rock opera), like Next to Normal and Rent. The George M. Cohan/George Abbott/Jerry Herman model of classic musical comedy has evolved into the neo-musical comedy (which is not always a rock musical but it usually is), shows like Bat Boy, Cry-Baby, and Lysistrata Jones. And then there are hybrids, that borrow from both models, like Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and High Fidelity.

So really, rock musicals can be divided up into two categories, in two different directions. For instance, Bat Boy is a neo-musical comedy that uses rock as its musical language, but it's not the point of the story; while Cry-Baby is a neo-musical comedy in which rock is the central point of the story, both a plot device and the central metaphor for the clash of cultures and moralities at the center of the story.

Likewise, Next to Normal and Rent are both serious rock musicals, using many of the Rodgers & Hammerstein narrative devices, and both shows use rock as the language of storytelling because that's the music of these characters' lives. The rock doesn't mean anything; it's just an authentic voice for these people. On the other hand, Jesus Christ Superstar also follows the basic rules of the Rodgers & Hammerstein model, but Superstar uses rock as its essential point, to bring the events of 2,000 years ago into the political and social consciousness of modern America. The show tells a political story, not a religious one, so it uses the music of rebellion to give voice to the subversive political rebel Jesus of Nazareth.

With Superstar, the fact that the story is being told in contemporary musical language, in conscious rejection of the archaic language of the Bible, is the whole reason the show exists. Although, let's be clear – we're talking about both the music and lyrics as rock and roll. Just retelling this story in a conventional, straight-forward manner would have never garnered the superstardom – or the outrage, and therefore, the press coverage – that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice found themselves in the center of. Rock and roll is the sound of rebellion, and it absolutely defined the energy and attitude of the show, implicitly making Jesus and his crew political rebels merely because they sounded like the political rebels of late 60s and early 70s. The very idea of setting this most revered Bible story to rock and roll was itself an act of rebellion, perhaps in a way we don't really understand today...

Evita was a similar case, in which the score had to be rock because Tim Rice reimagined Eva Peron as a rock star. The rock music and his subversive, smartass lyrics constructed his metaphor for him.

There's actually one more category of rock musicals, but it hardly exists anymore. It's the rock concept musical – shows like Hair and The Rocky Horror Show and Grease, in which narrative is less important than the ideas at the center of the show. (You might argue that American Idiot belongs in this group.) With Rocky Horror, the rock and roll gives the subliminally sexual 1950s horror movie style an overt sexuality and an irony that defines the show's oddball sensibility, and it underlines the story's implicit satire of America's Sexual Revolution. Like Hedwig, the genre of rock in Rocky Horror – early punk and glam – defines the story, conjuring the only time in popular music when gender was fluid...

Where Jesus Christ Superstar was primarily a political story, Grease was only subtextually political. But here, rather than rebellion being the point, in Grease rock and roll itself is the central character. It both defines period and tapped into the still new conversation in 1972 about the effects of rock and roll on America, on American sexuality, on American teenagers and their culture, etc. Grease is a show about how rock and roll changed sex in America. More songs in the show were about rock and roll (both literally and as a metaphor for sex) than were about Danny and Sandy, who only seem to be the central characters. In the clumsy movie version of Grease, the love story might have been the point, but on stage that romance is just a device for making a larger, more interesting point. And significantly, only five of the twenty songs in the show are about Danny and Sandy. No other musical would ignore the "central couple" that much. But how many of Grease's songs are explicitly about rock and roll? The "Alma Mater Parody", "Those Magic Changes," "Shakin' at the High School Hop," "Born to Hand Jive," "Rock and Roll Party Queen," and arguably "All Choked Up" (see my analysis essay for more on this). And the rest are about sex.

Return to the Forbidden Planet almost deserves its own category, as a Shakespearean, science fiction, rock and roll musical. Certainly rock is a fundamental part of the concept of the show, the wacky mashup of classic rock songs, with 1950s style science fiction and one of Shakespeare's greatest works; but at the same time you could argue that these people sing rock and roll because though they may live in the future, it's a future from the point of view of the 1950s. The period rock and roll makes clear the subtle joke of this being the scientifically naive, fantasy future that 1950s culture so fetishized. The show's rock score adds a very funny layer of irony on top of the stone cold seriousness of the actual 1950s movie Forbidden Planet (which is actually pretty great).

And really, High Fidelity gets its own category too. What makes this show special was the one thing its Broadway production team seemed to miss entirely. This is a genuinely alternative show, one that avoids “show tunes,” linear storytelling, and the fourth wall, one peppered liberally with the word fuck, and one that offers up only the most tentative of happy endings. (You have to wonder why they didn't open it off Broadway first – it might have fared better.)

High Fidelity follows Stephen Sondheim’s prime directive that Content Dictates Form, a lesson the show’s Broadway director and design team apparently have not learned. These characters are people who live outside the confines of mainstream American life, outside (mostly) the mainstream economic system, outside the mainstream culture. And so the creators of High Fidelity wrote a show that lives outside the conventions of mainstream musical theatre, a show that uses rock music as more than accompaniment, a show that plays around with structure in the way many recent American indie films have, a show that grapples head-on with real human pain. Everyone in this story is damaged. And though Rob is our hero, he’s also a real jackass. Many musicals today can claim that they reject the Rodgers & Hammerstein model, but only a few can claim that they use music and lyrics in genuinely new ways.

High Fidelity can.

Composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Amanda Green haven’t just imitated Aretha Franklin in the song “She Goes;” instead they’ve actually written a new Aretha Franklin song, a song Franklin might actually sing. It’s not a Broadway version of Franklin’s style or a parody; it is that style. Likewise, they don’t just imitate Al Green and Percy Sledge with the finale, “Turn the World Off;” they’ve actually written a new R&B anthem worthy of Green or Sledge. In a review of the first regional production of the show at New Line in 2008, Paul Friswold wrote in The Riverfront Times, “The music’s homage to real-world rock songs achieves perfect pitch when Bruce Springsteen arrives to provide Rob guidance in the greatest Springsteen song Springsteen never wrote.”

Instead of just writing a score that references lots of pop/rock songs and artists for comic effect – or worse yet, as a commercial gimmick upon which the whole show has to stand or fall – we just hear Rob's world through Rob’s ears. We get inside Rob’s brain and think about how this rock music snob hears the world around him. The musical choices Kitt makes are dramatic choices, not entertainment choices. Just as Rob does in his conscious life, in his subconscious life (i.e., the show we're watching) he uses rock music to try to figure out the people and events around him. Music is how he makes sense of his world, although he eventually learns that his music can fail him, that it doesn’t hold all the answers. For that, he has to dig down into his own heart.

Ultimately, High Fidelity is about a relationship, but not between Rob and Laura (as it would be if it were a musical comedy) -- it's about the relationship between Rob and his music, an intimate but immature relationship that has to change and mature before Rob can live his life as an adult. Maybe more than any other rock musical (with the possible exception of bio-musicals like Jersey Boys), this is a rock musical about rock music.

To make this point as clearly as we can in New Line's production, Mike Dowdy (who plays Dick in our show), had the idea to create a "Now Playing" rack on our store counter so that the audience could see the musical influences on Rob's story -- what we New Liners call "the source rock." So when Liz is singing "She Goes," an Aretha Franklin album is in the "Now Playing" rack. When Laura sings "Number 5 with a Bullet," there's a Pat Benatar album in the rack. You get the idea. When Judy Newmark reviewed our show for the Post-Dispatch this time, she ended her review with this – "If you go, be sure to notice the record jackets displayed on the shop’s check-out counter. Without any fanfare, they keep changing, a subtle graph of Rob’s state of mind. New Line specializes in those thoughtful little touches, perfect for a thoughtful little show like High Fidelity.” What I love about Mike's idea is that it so reinforces everything I've been talking about here.

It's all about the rock.

Long Live the (Rock) Musical!
Scott

Infinity and Happiness

We have opened High Fidelity and we've gotten six out of six total fucking rave reviews! There's not a single negative comment in any one of them. Mark Bretz at the Ladue News, said that our 2008 production of High Fidelity was "a glorious triumph" and "the best production of the year," and that this production is even better! Judy Newmark at the Post-Dispatch called our show "inspired."

Holy shit. We always get really enthusiastic reviews because we always do really strong work, but these reviews are even more enthusiastic than usual...

First off, though, here's a cool preview piece about our show, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, including an interview with lyricist Amanda Green. And she throws a big compliment at Jeff Wright (in the picture above), having seen him in the show in 2008...

And here's what the critics think of our show...

“The Number One reason to see this revival production of High Fidelity: IT ABSOLUTELY ROCKS!” – Chris Gibson, BroadwayWorld
Read the whole review here.

“Earlier this season, New Line Theatre staged two regional premieres: the wry, insightful Passing Strange and the raucous, insightful Cry-Baby. High Fidelity – by turns wry and raucous, and maybe the most insightful of all – makes an inspired conclusion. . . When New Line artistic director Scott Miller first staged High Fidelity on the heels of its Broadway failure, he rescued it from obscurity; it’s gone on to a number of successful productions at colleges and small theaters around the country. This production, also directed by Miller, is a kind of victory lap: a showcase for the musical’s clever songs, endearing characters and above all for the New Line gang. A talented bunch both onstage and behind the scenes, with High Fidelity they once again welcome theater-goers into their smart inner circle.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Read the whole review here.

“New Line Theatre artistic director Scott Miller saw the beauty and buoyancy behind the weak Broadway effort that introduced High Fidelity as a rock musical in a disappointing effort that folded after just 14 performances on Broadway in late 2006. Miller’s New Line Theatre mounted the first regional presentation in 2008, a glorious triumph that Ladue News cited as the best production of the year. . . Now, New Line has brought High Fidelity back to its greatest success in a presentation that, if anything, is stronger and more engaging than its 2008 predecessor. . . If you love rock music and feel-good stories, High Fidelity should top your charts.” – Mark Bretz, Ladue News
Read the whole review here.

“After four years, and rave reviews from critics, High Fidelity has returned to St. Louis. . . What stands out most about this production of High Fidelity is the passion that went into it. You can tell that these actors are singing and dancing their hearts out; you can feel the raw energy and emotion that they radiate with their performances. I listened to the original cast recording of the show, and I can honestly say that some of the recorded numbers couldn’t hold a candle to the New Line versions. . . High Fidelity is a fantastic show, filled with pure rock energy and a myriad of memorable songs. It would truly have been a tragedy if it wasn’t revived after being left for dead on Broadway. Instead of just taking the movie and slapping some songs into it, the cast and creatives really make it their own. With great performances and powerful rock music that is fondly familiar, it is a must see show that you don’t want to miss.” – Kevin Brackett, ReviewSTL
Read the whole review here.

“As always, Scott Miller’s direction is right on the money. He has found the secret of making this Broadway disappointment into a vehicle for fun and frenzy that you just wish wouldn’t end. . . If you’re ready for flat-out fun, don’t miss this terrific show. It bubbles with personality and just makes you feel good all over. Outstanding performances lead the way and the almost lost score with music by Tom Kitt and lyrics by Amanda Green along with the book by David Lindsay Abaire show that there’s life in any musical as long as it has heart, desire and a little help from Scott Miller.” – Steve Allen, Stage Door St. Louis.
Read the whole review here.

“In true New Line fashion, director Scott Miller pared the show down to what was necessary: the tale of a commitment-shy Gen-Xer struggling, buoyed by his love of music, to grow up and become a human – and by focusing on that, he made the show a hit of the 2008 season. Not resting on his laurels, though, in this production Miller opens up the space a little, allowing musical numbers to joyously jump out at you. . . The newly revived show has lost none of its original verve – in fact you could say this show is ‘re-mastered’ – in its new space, it takes the already clean master material and polishes it further, opening up the stage to let the ‘confessional booth’ tone of this charged rock musical spill out into the laps of the audience and make us question our own behaviors in our relationships, and explore how to forgive and be forgiven. . . So if rockin’ music with a good story is your idea of great entertainment, plan on seeing New Line’s High Fidelity.” – Robert Mitchell, KDHX-FM
Read the whole review here.

And though ticket sales were decent last week, they've really picked up this week, so I think we're gonna have great houses for the rest of the run. I don't know if I've ever been this happy about returning to a show.  I watch the show and am overwhelmed at the talent and power onstage, at the incredible vocals, the comic brilliance, the genuinely powerful, complicated emotions. Jeff Wright gets a big piece of the credit for our success, but I think this is truly the best ensemble we've ever had in a show -- and we're well-known for the quality of our ensembles... But this time, everyone in the ensemble usually plays leads for us, so there is a ton of fire power there...

Come see us and prepare to have your mind blown...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott