Magic in the Making

I love reading musical theatre behind-the-scenes books and biographies. I'm in the middle of two really good books right now, Show Boat, Performing Race in an American Musical and Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City. I also love reading the novels that musicals are based on, to see how the adapters responded to the source material. I always want to better understand the great (even the merely good) works of our art form and also the influences that shape the artists whose work I love, how they work, what they value, because I think it gives me invaluable insight into their work.

Not long ago, I wrote a blog post listing ten really cool movie musicals I think everyone should see. I also wrote a post about how the movie musical has changed in recent years, in parallel to changes in the stage musical. Even though my first love is stage musicals, we can learn a lot -- and have a great time -- watching film musicals too.

So a fun idea occurred to me, to ask a few of the musical theatre artists I know what their favorite movie musicals are -- really with no idea if those picks would reveal anything of interest or just be fun to read. But even if only on a gut level, I figured I could learn something. And if nothing else, I'd have a great list of movies to watch for the next several weeks...

So anyway, here's what my quickie research turned up...

Damon Intrabartolo -- Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, West Side Story, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Little Shop of Horrors

Jason Robert Brown -- Singin' in the Rain, Silk Stockings, Top Hat, Swing Time, and Easter Parade

Andrew Lippa -- West Side Story, The Wizard of Oz, The Government Inspector, Chicago, and Beauty and the Beast

John McDaniel -- Chicago, Funny Girl, Moulin Rouge, The Sound of Music, and Little Shop of Horrors

Stephen Gregory Smith -- All That Jazz, Chicago, Reefer Madness, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Sweeney Todd

Jeff Calhoun -- Top Hat, The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, A Star Is Born, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Moulin Rouge

Michael Friedman -- Swing Time, Meet Me in St Louis, Nashville, French CanCan, and 8 Mile, with honorable mentions for the classics Love Me Tonight, The Bandwagon, The Merry Widow, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Kyle Jarrow -- The Sound of Music, Hole, Dancer in the Dark, The Happiness of the Katakuris, and Moulin Rouge

Read into all this what you will. I notice a lot more older movies than I expected. I also notice there's only one film that gets more than two votes from this group, which is Hedwig. I guess if I had to pick my own Top Five, they'd be Absolute Beginners, 1776, Grease, Rocky Horror, and Moulin Rouge, with honorable mentions for The Music Man, All That Jazz, Nine, and Robin and the 7 Hoods.

If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you already know that I'm incapable of making a Top Five list that includes only five items. If it were a Top Ten list, no doubt I'd list twelve.

Is there a point to all this? I think so. Long ago, I read an interview with Michael Bennett, and he was talking about how much he borrows from film techniques in his staging. That really struck me, and I've learned over time how to create effective stage versions of pans, close-ups, over-the-shoulder shots, dissolves, split-screens, focus-pulls, dolly zooms, etc. The stage is different from film in that the audience chooses where to look. But if the staging is good (and the lighting!), it will almost force the audience to look at a particular spot -- almost like film.

Once I learned that film techniques can be translated to the stage, I really started studying how my favorite filmmakers work, directors like Woody Allen, Federico Fellini, Robert Altman, Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, and more and more lately, David Lynch. I've learned so much from their work. And now I often find myself using cinematic terms when I'm blocking a show, telling the actors that we're doing a split-screen or a slow pan or a two shot.

There's so much I can learn as a director of stage musicals from films, from non-musical plays, and pretty much every other form of artistic expression. I'm in favor of musical theatre artists learning everything they can about our art form, about all the great works, about all the great artists, but we should never forget to explore outside our art form too. There's lots of treasure out there that will make our work better.

And though I do finally feel comfortable now as a stage director, I will never stop learning more. I hope.

Long Live the (Movie) Musical!
Scott

It's Turkey Lurkey Time

There was this thing my mother used to do. We don't let her do it anymore. I'm sure other mothers do it too.

Every year when we'd sit down for Thanksgiving Dinner, she'd suggest we go around the table and each say what we're thankful for. Usually the protests were loud enough to quash the idea, but some years enough of the family gave in and so we did it anyway. When pressed, I would give some cynical meta answer, like "I'm thankful we're almost done saying what we're thankful for." Smartass. And the years when we voted her down, my mother and aunt would both say what they were thankful for anyway. Same stuff every year. Yeah, we get it, you continue to be thankful for all the stuff you've been thankful for the last thirty years... Now will you pass the turkey?

But after years of hipster cynicism at the Thanksgiving table, I think I'm gonna betray my Ironic Age self, and think about what I'm thankful for.

In all serious, I frequently stop myself and take a moment to remember how lucky I am that I get to do exactly what I've always wanted to do, not just as my job, but for the majority of my waking hours. I still sometimes ponder why I love the musical theatre so deeply, but whatever the reason, it goes to the core of me. My love of musicals literally goes back to before my first memories. I cannot remember a time I wasn't crazy in love with musical theatre.

But the reason I get to do what I do is because a whole lot of people have stepped up to work with me, help me, support me, and encourage me. Literally, thousands of people over the years. I think part of the reason people are attracted to New Line is its unique artistic aesthetic and its collaborative work atmosphere. But I think the biggest part is that the thing I'm attracted to, the power and the joy of the musical theatre live in front of you, is something that a lot of theatre people are attracted to. It's not that they're following me; it's that I am able to lay a good road down in front of us, that we can all travel together, to really amazing destinations.

So I'm really thankful to all you people who've gone down this road with me... and there are a lot...

First on my list are the New Line actors -- talented, intelligent, imaginative, fearless theatre artists who follow me down whatever bizarre path I set out for us. I've spent my life thinking about musical theatre, writing about it, and making musicals (my first musical was Let George Do It in seventh grade), but none of my ideas, none of my experiments would be of any value whatsoever without artists onstage using my ideas and making our experiments succeed, show after show. Theatre is not a solo art, especially not musical theatre. I realized a while ago that I actually have very little control over a show -- the actors, designers, and musicians have to choose to follow my road, and the weirder the road, the more grateful I am for that agreement. Our actors trust me. And no matter how many times I test that trust, they keep trusting me. For a guy like me, that's the greatest gift anyone can give me.

Next on my list would be the New Line audiences. Just as I can't make theatre without actors, I also can't keep a theatre company in business without an audience. That's about ticket sales and donations, sure, but also that old but true theatre cliche that "without an audience, it's just a rehearsal." Art is about communicating. If nobody experiences that art, it's worthless. Hundreds and hundreds of people each season put down their hard-earned bucks because they think we'll have something of value to share with them. I have learned that audiences don't seek entertainment for escape, as conventional wisdom would have it; they seek connection. (People think love stories are escapist, but those are stories about human connection, which we all crave.) I'm so lucky that there are that many people in St. Louis who connect to the kind of storytelling I know how to do. My theatre friends in other cities are so jealous that we can do the work we do and find an enthusiastic, growing audience to share it with.

And for me personally, part of my audience is the people who read my books. As lucky as I am to get to run New Line, I'm even luckier that so many people want to read what I have to say about our art form. A couple of my books are in their seventh and eighth printings! Occasionally it hits me that tens of thousands of people have read what I think about musicals. And on top of that, over 100,000 people have read this blog. That's both wonderful and terrifying.

Next on the gratitude list are all the other artists and staff at New Line, our brilliant designers, all of whom are so easy to work with and deliver such thoughtful, intelligent, exciting work show after show; our brilliant choreographer Robin Berger; and our incredible musicians who tackle some of the most challenging music ever written for the stage and nail it every time (even when some of the orchestrations don't all arrive till opening night -- long story); and also our awesome staff who have mercifully taken a bunch of jobs off my hands.

And a special shout-out to Justin Smolik, our conductor and pianist. Since I did that job for years, I know how very difficult it is to do well, with not nearly enough rehearsal, often very difficult music, and because we do so many premieres, sometimes scores full of errors. And he has to hold the whole show together in performance. It is a godsend for me that I don't have to do it anymore, and it's a godsend for the actors and for New Line that Justin's as good at it as he is.

Also on my list is the amazing St. Louis press. Since our very first show, the local reviewers have treated us with such respect and have been so eager to do preview pieces and interviews. Our local reviewers write really thoughtful, intelligent reviews of our work, and that's so gratifying. I honestly believe that reviewers are part of the theatre community as much as the rest of us, and they have helped us so much over the years in finding and reaching our audience.

Last but not least are all my cyber friends, including all my new Facebook friends working in the theatre and our New York scout, Amy Francis Schott, who used to be our stage manager. And everybody across the country who has followed the New Line model, producing smart, interesting, original, adventurous, aggressive musical theatre. There is an audience out there for that. Believe me.

And that's what I'm grateful for. That was fun to write!

Finally, because I do it every year, I leave you with the greatest Thanksgiving song ever written, the amazing "Turkey Lurkey Time," sung and danced by Donna McKechnie, Baayork Lee, and the original cast of Promises, Promises, on the Tony Awards, with the original Michael Bennett choreography.

Long Live the Musical! And Happy Thanksgiving!
Scott

Ol' Man River

Sometimes first impressions are wrong. Especially when it comes to stage musicals. It's often hard to separate the strengths and weaknesses of the material from the production. Musicals are often very delicate creatures -- even the rowdy ones -- and one weak actor or a weak director can bring the whole show down. Very few shows are foolproof. But it's also hard sometimes when the most famous film version of a show really sucks...

I was watching Show Boat again the other night. Not that awful, maudlin, shitty 1950s MGM version, but the 1936 film. For anyone who thinks they hate Show Boat, it may be because most people do it very badly, usually because they're imitating the shallow, Technicolor 1951 Show Boat.

The 1936 film version (available on DVD at long last), features some of the original 1927 cast, some of the original London cast (including Paul Robeson, for whom the role of Joe was written), and a screenplay by Oscar Hammerstein, based on his own stage script. From everything I've read, I think this version is really close to what the original stage show was like. What sets this film apart from the MGM confection is honesty and balls. Like the stage show, the '36 film is about surviving the substantial obstacles life constantly throws at us, while the '51 film is about pretty costumes, lush orchestrations, and romantic widescreen close-ups. You can see the problem.

Sure, some of the acting in the older film is a bit excessive for modern tastes -- remember that in 1936 they weren't all that far away from the big miming style of the silent era -- but it's still a lot more honest than the glossy, icky acting in the later film. Also, the 50s version was much more skittish about the story's racial content, and that took most of the bite out of the story.

MGM even got the boat itself wrong. Show boats never traveled on their own power; there was always a smaller boat pushing the barge that held the show boat. The '36 movie got that right; the '51 didn't.

(BTW, I've been told for years that St. Louis' late, lamented Goldenrod Showboat was the actual boat Edna Ferber based her novel on; but I've recently been told by an historian that it's not true.)

What struck me most while watching the 1936 film again, was the character of Joe, the show's conscience, a kind of Greek chorus, a very zen-like everyman-philosopher. More than any Joe I've seen on stage, Robeson played him very happy, contented, easy-going. Not at all lazy or stupid, just very zen. Even when Queenie's bitching at him about chores and such, Joe always has this easy smile on his face. Perhaps because of his obvious outsider status, he understands Life in a more profound way than the other characters can. Joe is the Wise Wizard of Magnolia's hero myth, Show Boat's equivalent of Ben Kenobi, Glinda, and Linus. How striking it is for that period that a black man takes on that role!

The only time we see Joe's mood darken is when he sings, "Ol' Man River," which acts as a thematic spine for the entire show. But I realize now, that's not a song about the river just because they all live on the river. It's about the Mississippi River as the Tao.

According to Wikipedia:

Tao or Dao (/taʊ/, /daʊ/) is a Chinese word meaning 'way', 'path', 'route', or sometimes more loosely, 'doctrine' or 'principle'. Within the context of traditional Chinese philosophy and religion, Tao is a metaphysical concept originating with Laozi that gave rise to a religion and philosophy referred to in English with the single term Taoism. The concept of Tao was later adopted in Confucianism, Chán and Zen Buddhism and more broadly throughout East Asian philosophy and religion in general. Within these contexts Tao signifies the primordial essence or fundamental nature of the universe. In the foundational text of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching, Laozi explains that Tao is not a 'name' for a 'thing' but the underlying natural order of the universe whose ultimate essence is difficult to circumscribe. Tao is thus "eternally nameless” and to be distinguished from the countless 'named' things which are considered to be its manifestations. In Taoism, Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism, the object of spiritual practice is to 'become one with the tao' or to harmonize one's will with Nature in order to achieve 'effortless action.'

In all its uses, Tao is considered to have ineffable qualities that prevent it from being defined or expressed in words. It can, however, be known or experienced, and its principles (which can be discerned by observing Nature) can be followed or practiced. Much of East Asian philosophical writing focuses on the value of adhering to the principles of Tao and the various consequences of failing to do so. In Confucianism and religious forms of Taoism these are often explicitly moral/ethical arguments about proper behavior, while Buddhism and more philosophical forms of Taoism usually refer to the natural and mercurial outcomes of action (comparable to karma). Tao is intrinsically related to the concepts yin and yang, where every action creates counter-actions as unavoidable movements within manifestations of the Tao, and proper practice variously involves accepting, conforming to, or working with these natural developments. The concept of Tao differs from conventional (western) ontology : it is an active and holistic conception of Nature, rather than a static, atomistic one.

That's what "Ol Man River" is talking about. Joe would probably not understand the two paragraphs above, but he clearly understands the Tao.

I'll quote the first section of the song (forgive the semi-racist "dialect"):

Dere's an ol' man called de Mississippi,
Dat's de ol' man dat I'd like to be.
What does he care if de world's got troubles?
What does he care if de land ain't free?

Ol' man river, dat ol' man river,
He mus' know sumpin', but don't say nuthin'.
He jes' keeps rollin',
He keeps on rollin' along.

He don' plant taters, he don't plant cotton,
An' dem dat plants' em is soon forgotten.
But ol' man river,
He jes' keeps rollin' along.

You an' me, we sweat an' strain,
Body all achin' an' wracked wid pain;
Tote dat barge! Lif' dat bale!
Git a little drunk an' you lands in jail.

Ah gits weary an' sick of tryin';
Ah'm tired of livin' an' skeered of dyin'.
But ol' man river,
He jes' keeps rolling' along.

Just stay on the road, Joe is saying -- or it is the river saying it? Take whatever comes as it comes. The river -- life, fate, whatever -- plays no favorites and answers no prayers. Or as Spelling Bee puts it, "Life is random and unfair." The idea here is that we could all learn something from Ol' Man River, to be in harmony with the world instead of struggling against it, to go with the flow, accept the path as it is. This is a lesson Magnolia will learn the hard way as she navigates through the obstacles of her hero myth.

Joe has another song, written for the 1936 film, which goes even further in making him the story's zen master:

My point in all this?

I guess only that you can't always judge the older shows by the bland productions they're often given. Yes, many of the old shows are dusty and irrelevant today, but a few of them say something still worth saying. Is Show Boat one of those? Hard to say. Show Boat is still hopelessly old-fashioned, even if its commentary on race may still be relevant. Hal Prince's 1994 revival brought the show successfully into the modern era, but not without some cutting and reshaping.

I always hated Show Boat as a kid, but I think it was the third time I saw it at The Muny that changed my mind, that did the show justice with serious, subtle acting, great pacing, and less reverence. The revival at the Papermill Playhouse wasn't amazing, but it did reinforce my opinion that it's a strong show, only occasionally done well. Prince's revival was a rewrite, no question, but it left much of the show intact, and it really worked for me. And then I saw the 1936 film (at the time, still only on VHS), and got a glimpse into what this show was originally -- and I really like it.

I'm in the middle of Edna Ferber's original novel right now, which is really fun, and I've also started a great new book called Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical, by Washington University professor Todd Decker.

Whether or not it's a show you're dying to see (or see again), it's worth noting that there's a lot more there than many people might see. And that's worth pointing out. And if you're curious, check out the 1936 film. I think you'll be surprised by how much you like it.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

The New Movie Musical

Why did the movie musical pretty much die in the 1960s?

I think it's the same reason the Rodgers and Hammerstein model really only lasted a couple generations. The fallacy of naturalism.

The big, enduring flaw in the Rodgers and Hammerstein model of musical theatre -- the thing George M. Cohan and George Abbott knew -- is that there's just no escaping the fact that a musical isn't real, and there's no good reason to pretend that it is. R&H abandoned musical comedy and instead followed the model of the modern social realism play, counting on their audiences to "suspend disbelief" so completely that actors speaking naturalistic dialogue, in naturalistic costumes, in front of naturalistic sets, could suddenly break into song backed by a 24-piece orchestra, and nobody would flinch. But plays and musicals are so different in so many ways, and trying to bend the conventions of plays to accommodate the musical form created an uncomfortable hybrid.

To be fair, the R&H model was very successful for a couple decades, and audiences got used to its weird fake-naturalism. But rock and roll emerged, the teenage demographic appeared out of nowhere, and the R&H audience started getting older and older, without younger audiences to replace them. Now, as the New American Musical takes over the art form, young audiences are flocking back to the musical stage, but they just don't connect to the old-school musicals on a gut level. The pace of storytelling in those old R&H shows is much more leisurely than we're used to today, the morals and the music are old-fashioned, and so are the assumptions about audience expectations.

Movie musicals had the same problem. Movie musicals died at the same time that the R&H musical fell out of mainstream favor in the 60s. Sure, some movie musicals were made after that, but very few were successful. The movie musical was no longer the thriving film genre it had been. Mainstream audiences turned away.

The more films became naturalistic, the harder it was to make movie musicals work, especially if they were based on R&H-style stage musicals. By the late 1960s, musicals and contemporary filmmaking had mostly parted artistic ways, exactly as musicals and popular music had parted ways. Luckily, as the musical theatre dropped out of the mainstream, the art form had the space and freedom to evolve like mad over the next decade, in the hands of Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Michael Bennett, Fred Edd, John Kander, Bob Fosse, and others.

But all the reasons stage musicals didn't succeed at naturalism were amplified on the screen, where everything but the singing seemed completely real. Films were no longer overtly stylized, as it had bee in the 40s and 50s, but musicals still were. They couldn't help it. And nobody understood this problem. It's not that audiences were thinking "Wow, their singing is so un-naturalistic!" But movie musicals just didn't feel right or make sense in the world of the authenticity-centric 1960s.

Some movie musicals solved this problem, and got us back on track to where we are today, now with at least one major movie musical opening almost every year. These films accepted the conventions of the inherently artificial musical form as it is. Frank Oz created an entirely stylized world for Little Shop of Horrors, including the mystical Greek Chorus girls moving in and out of reality, taking the conventions of the MGM movie musical and adapting them for our Age of Irony, finding a style in which breaking out into song wasn't jarring. Rob Marshall set the numbers in Chicago as surreal production numbers swimming around inside Roxie's twisted, damaged, show-biz-infused mind. Nine worked essentially the same way. Marshall's approach is wonderfully in synch with the New American Musical onstage: Admit the artifice. Movies aren't reality.

Level with the audience. Respect their intelligence.

After all, when people say they don't like movie musicals, most of them mean they don't like faux-naturalistic movie musicals like Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music, films in which the style and acting are naturalistic -- except when the music starts. Most people who think they don't like movie musicals have probably never seen Shock Treatment, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Absolute Beginners, Colma, or Once.

In John Turturro's fascinating experiment Romance and Cigarettes, he fully embraces the conventions of old-school, faux-naturalistic movie musicals, but counts on his audience's cultural expectations to add an ironic, contemporary, meta-layer to every musical number, both expanding the emotional moment and also calling attention to its own inherent phoniness. Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You and Steve Martin's Pennies from Heaven work essentially the same way.

Another solution is the diegetic movie musical, in which the act of making music is part of the action of the story, rather than just the language of the storytelling. In Cabaret, Fosse turned all the songs into actual performances inside the story, so that the songs became both naturalistic and Brechtian. In Hedwig, all the songs are also performances.

And a few movie musicals, like Colma, Absolute Beginners, Repo, Across the Universe, and the recent short film Zombie Musical, have rejected almost all the other movie musical rules -- including the diegetic "work-around" -- and instead adapted the conventions of music videos into new rules for feature films. As today's stage musicals are doing, these film musicals don't try to find new approaches within the old rules, they create new rules.

It's ironic that so many music videos on MTV, particularly back at the beginning, borrowed a lot from the great MGM movie musicals, and now movie musicals are borrowing from MTV. I remember when the brilliant Moulin Rouge was released, it seemed to me like a musical Arthur Freed would have made at MGM in the 50s, if they'd had the tools we have now. But much of it also felt like really amazing, big-budget music videos. I think we'll see this MTV trend increase as the next generation starts making movie musicals, and as the ever decreasing cost of making films today democratizes filmmaking even further. And that's really exciting.

As we might expect to happen as the film musical evolves, the film Once combines forms. First, it is a diegetic movie musical, in which the act of singing and playing music is part of the action of the plot, so the film works in a kind of naturalism. But it's also an MTV movie musical, with many of its songs set to montages, a time-telescoping device taken from the non-musical romantic comedy. And like David Byrne's movie musical True Stories, the songs in Once never further the plot; instead they amplify or expand on the emotional or thematic content. Exactly, in fact, like Spring Awakening does, whose movie version is in the works. And also Stephen Sondheim's Company -- I would love to see Rob Marshall make Company into a film.

But no doubt about it, the movie musical is back. And, like its stage counterpart, it's more interesting, more adventurous, and more vigorous than ever before. Just think about all the cool movie musicals released in recent years -- Nine, Repo, Colma, Once, Fruit Fly, The Devil's Carnival, Across the Universe, Hairspray, Dreamgirls, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Chicago -- and we have to include High School Musical, which did a lot in bringing a young audience back to the musical theatre. And all these films are so different from each other! So much original work is going on. The movie musical as an art form is evolving and moving into the twenty-first century, and that's very cool.

Long Live the (Movie) Musical!
Scott

Musicals the GOP Needs to See

I offer the following as a public service...

Watching election night coverage, what struck me most profoundly is the massive demographic changes our country is undergoing, as we become a much more diverse nation than ever before, and also how completely the Republican party is on the wrong side of history. Obama won big among Latinos, African Americans, gays, women, and young people. And that does not portend well for the future of the GOP, which may soon stand only for "Grumpy Old People."

And so, as a public service, I offer the GOP the five musicals they should see before the next election, so they can learn a little about this country they want to lead, even if they're all a bit disappointed in the rest of us right now...

In the Heights   One of the few things Democrats and Republicans can agree on after the election is that Latinos made all the difference, with 71% of them voting for Obama. And as Latinos become a larger and larger share of our population and our electorate, the GOP has a serious problem. Despite a few high-profile Latinos in the Republican party (Marco Rubio, for instance), Republicans are on the wrong side of every issue important to this community. GOP pundits and strategists are concluding now that they just have to get their message out to this community more effectively, but they don't understand that the Latino community got their message loud and clear -- they just didn't like what they heard. Maybe if some Republicans could see In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda's authentic, insightful day-in-the-life snapshot of modern Latino life, they might start seeing these Americans as Americans and not "illegals." Musicals always reflect the culture and politics of their times -- Latinos demanded and took a place at the musical theatre table with In the Heights, and now they're doing the same thing in American politics.

Passing Strange   Likewise, the GOP also has a problem with African Americans, who were an even larger slice of the electorate this time than in 2008, and 96% of whom voted for Obama. Once again, Republicans think their problem is a communications issue, but it's really an issue issue. African American voters don't agree with Republicans on the issues -- economic fairness, education, housing, social justice, etc. And on top of that, the 2012 election was without question the most racist election in modern times, sometimes overtly racist, other times more dog whistle. Passing Strange is a show about how complex race has become in our modern society and how it's becoming more cultural than genetic, as we watch the Browning of America in real time, a demographic inevitability which terrifies many conservatives down to their little old pink toes. Maybe if Republicans could see this show, they'd stop thinking of black folks as lazy, criminal, welfare gobblers. Passing Strange only dabbles in explicit politics, but everything about this story is subliminally political -- since race itself is always inherently political today -- especially in an era of a mixed-race President. And let's be fair -- all conservatives are not racists, but almost all racists are conservatives, and the GOP has to grapple with that problem...

Urinetown   In recent times, it's usually conservatives who get over-energized by some fake or misleading movement, and they end up running right off the cliff of sanity and reason, just as they've done in 2012. But liberals have been known to do it too. Urinetown is a very dark, very cynical look at movement politics and how easily true believers will follow someone who looks like they know what they're talking about. Of course, too often the person at the head of the movement is some ass clown like Glenn Beck or Michele Bachmann. But the impulse is the same whatever the politics. Urinetown shows us what happens when passion overtakes reason in political movements, whether it's Creationism, climate change denial, trickle-down economics, or in the case of this brilliant musical satire, environmentalism. If ever there was a musical that embodies the "We Are the 99%" movement, it's this one, and it offers prescient insights into Occupy Wall Street and the other populist politics that have dominated 2012. But it's also a story about denying reality, a mindset that only works for so long before reality rears up and kicks you in the nuts. If Republicans continue to reflexively deny facts and truth, they will all end up like Bobby Strong. And the Republican Party will be sent off to Urinetown.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson   As I've been blogging about for the last few months, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is a show about the dangers and inherent weaknesses of populism, and how it often elects the wrong guy. This is a story about how eagerly Americans flock to celebrity, cockiness, swagger, and charisma. They did it with George W. Bush and with Obama. But BBAJ is also about one of the GOP's greatest weaknesses, the difference between campaigning and governing. Dubya was a great campaigner but a complete idiot when it came to governing, so he passed many of the most consequential decisions off to the Dark Lord of the Sith. And you see where that got us. This show brings to mind an argument Lawrence O'Donnell made after one of the 2012 debates -- that our Presidential campaigns don't really test any of the skills the candidates will actually need in office. Once they're elected, they'll never have to stand on a stage and come up with answers to complicated problems without smart people around them advising them. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson plays like a comedy, but it's really a very tragic story, one that Republicans and Democrats both would do well to heed.

Bat Boy   This is a show about how a society treats "the least of these" and about how un-Christian many Christians can be, when irrational fear and self-interest overpower compassion. Substitute "Muslim" or "Kenyan" for "bat child" in the show's dialogue, and you'll see how relevant this show still is. I've been pointing out on Facebook how much conservative positions and values contradict the values Jesus teaches in the Gospels, and Bat Boy speaks to that moral disconnect. For a party that claims Christianity for their own, they sure don't know much about the Bible. You may think this is a joke, but there is actually a conservative movement in America literally rewriting the Bible, so it better comports with their conservative political ideology. You read that right. Today's Democratic Party embodies many of the teachings of Christ, but the Republican Party is really only about stopping abortions (Can't find Jesus' quotes about that? Yeah, me neither.), lowering taxes on the rich, and the unfettered -- and amoral -- Free Market. But I've actually read the whole Bible, and I don't recall a single passage in which Jesus sings the praises of capitalism or lower marginal tax rates. Throughout Bat Boy, the bigoted citizenry yammer on and on about their "Christian Charity," while they practice the worst kind of scapegoating and Golden Rule busting. It's funny but it's not. Republicans need to see Bat Boy and understand how far they've strayed from actual Christian principles.

So there they are. There are other musicals conservatives should see too, but we'll start with these five. You can tell me I'm a brainwashed liberal all you want, but I voted for the guy that the majority of Americans voted for. So if I'm too liberal, so are the majority of Americans. And unlike many on the political Right today, at least we liberals still believe in reality.

But all that has very little to do with my point. Musicals are one of the ways we explore and pass down our history and culture, how we figure out who we are and what we value, and all these shows tell us some great truths about our nation and our times. Those who are on the wrong side of history -- I'm lookin' at you, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell -- would do well to learn from this truth-telling.

I'm just sayin'.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Wintergreen for President

In the wake of President Obama's decisive victory last night, my twin obsessions -- American politics and American musical theatre -- both beg so many questions. And so my last blog post now gets a companion.

It's been an amazing, crazy, infuriating, inspiring, complicated year. What have I learned about this election cycle -- and our collective selves -- from New Line's fall show, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, in terms of the power and pitfalls of American populism, and in terms of America's changing demographics, maybe as stark in 1828 as they are now? What have I learned from Jesus Christ Superstar about resistance to change from the political power structure? What have I learned from Passing Strange about the role of race in this election? What have I learned from Of Thee I Sing (a show I wish we could do) about how easily distracted the electorate can be and how trivialized an election can be? I could keep going...

And also, has this election proved me right, that contemporary musical theatre now regularly gets at some of the hardest, darkest truths of our socio-political life, more than ever before in the art form's history?

Why, yes it has.

My entire life is built on the idea that storytelling is one of the most important thing humans do, that we learn from it, that we connect to each other through it, that we grow from it, that we are challenged by it in all the right ways. And now looking at one of the most consequential moments in our history, I have to ask -- am I right?

For a political junkie like me, election day is like Christmas morning, and thanks to cable news, I had a three-day Christmas Eve over the weekend. As a civics geek who happily admits to watching C-Span, and as someone who loves our country really deeply -- its philosophy, its promise, its people, the genius of its founding documents, the energy of its culture -- it doesn't get much better than this. We are so lucky to live in a nation founded by some of the greatest minds of all time, who created the most amazing, most beautiful system of government the earth has ever known (someday, New Line will tackle 1776). As Franklin Roosevelt once said, "Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country." I believe in that. Politics is not a terrible, nasty thing -- it is the way we decide how to live together, what we value, what we believe as a nation. I have no patience for the apathetic or the nihilists who declare that all politicians are bought and sold -- they're not -- and that the people are powerless -- we are not.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson reminds us of that. But it also cautions us to be careful that our heroes are men of substance and conviction, and not just charisma.

I'm fascinated by the election as a storyteller. This election cycle was the first time I made the connection between political campaigns and storytelling, the first time I realized how fundamental narrative is to human communication, the first time I realized that almost every piece of information of value is passed along through our storytelling, even when we don't consciously register that's what it is. It was during this election season that I heard a pundit say the politician's number one job is to "tell the story." It was a smack-in-the-forehead moment for me -- how did I not understand that before now?

As a professional storyteller myself, that really struck me. I instantly saw the truth in it. And a candidate has to tell multiple stories -- the story of America through the lens of their philosophy and ideology, the story of the last four years, the story of the next four years, and in this election, the story of a clash of cultures and how that will or should play out over time. Also, this year, there is the story of America's demographic evolution, and the story of class and justice, and lest we forget, the story of race in America.

And I realize that over this extended campaign, New Line's shows have been remarkably relevant and timely. In summer 2011, as the candidates began campaigning for the Republican nomination, New Line produced the brilliant, powerful pop opera bare, about the failure of institutions in our culture, perhaps never so relevant as it is right now. (Unfortunately, the current New York revival has eviscerated the show in pointless, stupid rewrites, cutting more than half that beautiful score.) bare shows us what a conservative America looks like, rigidly, dogmatically bound to an archaic religious tradition, rejecting community and collective action for an every-man-for-himself view of the world, cold, distant, uncaring, fact-phobic. If ever there was a cautionary tale for our culture, bare is it.

In fall 2011, we produced Passing Strange, another story about the failure of institutions, about conformity,  and this time, also about race in America. Written long before Barack Obama was a candidate for President, it is still remarkable in its insightful, tough look at how we all -- white and black and brown -- think about and "perform" race. In a world of birthers and conspiracy theorists and Obama derangement syndrome (all conservatives are not racists, but almost all racists are conservatives), Passing Strange is a powerful and sometimes uncomfortable exploration of how we deal with race. I learned so much from this show, and I found its political subtext really powerful...

This past spring we brought back to life the hilarious and insightful Cry-Baby, a very political story about class and justice. Sitting here in 2012, one might think the show was inspired by the Occupy/99% movement or by Romney's "47%" video, but the show was written several years ago, and current events have just caught up with its piquant social commentary. It's hard to avoid seeing the parallels between the unjust arrest and imprisonment of Cry-Baby and his gang in the show, and the senseless mass incarceration of the poor and men of color in today's America. In the show, the charge is arson; in today's world, it's usually drugs, but the result is the same. Our War on Drugs has really only accomplished one thing well -- creating a permanent underclass in America. And that's what Cry-Baby is about. The show's fiercely ironic finale, dreaming of a perfect America in the future, is so unsettling because we know none of those utopian visions will come to pass. At least not yet...

This past summer we produced the superficially non-political show, High Fidelity. But though its story is primarily an intimate one, it did carry with it a metaphorical message for America in 2012 -- good things come only from focusing on others, not on yourself. In the show, Rob has to grow up and realize that he will be happier if he works to make Laura happy. It is a subliminal rejection of "rugged individualism" and an embrace of "it takes a village" -- on a personal level, sure, but it has more macro implications too. When everyone's out for themselves, we get the Bush years; when we focus on each other, we get the Obama years.

And this fall, we produced by far the most political show we've done since the last Presidential election. Back in 2008 we produced Hair, running right up to the weekend before the election. We also did Evita since then, but though it has a lot of political content, that show is really a personal story with a political backdrop. But Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson which we just closed a couple weeks ago, is entirely about politics. And though it's set in the 19th century, it's also entirely about the here and now. I've never worked on a show that had so much to say, so intelligently and insightfully, about American politics today.

There is a lot of received wisdom about how musicals are supposed to work, much of which has been discarded, mocked, or both, in recent years. One of those beliefs is that musicals have to be centered on a love story. Since music is inherently emotional, the argument goes, the story must be primarily an emotional one. I agree with that, but I reject the idea that only love stories are emotional stories. The emotion of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson comes from the passion Jackson has for politics and for "his people."

Politics is, after all, intensely human, intensely emotional, as we've seen over the past year...

We say on the New Line website that we believe live theatre is one of the most powerful tools we have for social and political change, and we believe we have an obligation to use that tool to make the world a better place, to engage the people of our region in a discussion about the issues of our times. Acting guru Stella Adler once famously said, "Unless you give the audience something that makes them bigger – better – do not act." We agree. Making theatre is such a difficult, expensive, labor-intensive enterprise -- why would anyone bother unless the end product was something of real value in our lives?

I'll repeat what I've said before, that people do not go to the theatre (or movies, or watch TV) for escape; they go for connection. Storytelling helps us navigate the crazy, craggy terrain of day-to-day life, and it preserves and transmits our culture and our history. There are few things more important than that...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

P.S. If you don't recognize this post's title, click here.

Another National Anthem

As I revel in the last few days of the 2012 election, political junkie that I am, I thought I would share with you my favorite political musicals. Almost all the shows New Line produces have some political content, or at least political context, but these ten shows I list below are more overtly about politics. And they're all really great shows. These are the shows I invoke when someone stupid says they think that musicals are all silly and empty, or worst of all, that musicals are not "real theatre." Yeah? Fuck you, dickhead.

Sure, some musicals have unmotivated singing and pointless tap dancing, though fewer and fewer these days, and lately, some musicals are built entirely on self-indulgent, Hipster Brechtian humor. Some musicals just have dumb, shallow stories. But there are shitty movies and books, too, yet that doesn't mean movies and books are all shitty. Most contemporary musicals being written today -- and in fact, most written in the last twenty years -- are very smart, very sophisticated, and far more likely to include political content or at least political subtext (like Lysistrata Jones and The Blue Flower).

So here they are, in no particular order, my Top Ten Favorite Political Musicals, from throughout the history of our art form. If you don't know any of these, I encourage you to get to know them. And if you do know them all, wouldn't this be a fun time to get reacquainted...?

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson  Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is one of those shows that I will always feel lucky to have worked on. Not only is it incredibly original, it's also one of the most entertaining and most intelligent shows I've ever encountered. Truly one of a kind, with penetrating insights into our culture and our politics, and into the peculiarly American swagger that Jackson embodied. Not just laugh-out-loud comic dialogue, but also heavy, emotional scenes, and piercing, gorgeous, powerful songs like "Second Nature," "The Saddest Song," and "The Great Compromise." I understand why it didn't last very long on Broadway, but it's a remarkable piece of writing and maybe the best look at our political process I've ever seen on stage.

Assassins  I've directed Assassins three times for New Line, and every time I found new wonderful and exciting things in it. It's one of the ballsiest musicals ever written, equalled perhaps only by Hair and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Like BBAJ, it's very entertaining, very emotional, and really, really smart. Like BBAJ, it reveals important things to us about our culture and our society, and forces us to think more honestly about difficult questions. It's the show that really freed me as a director, when I first worked on it in 1994, to stop worrying about convention and just go wherever the material took me. The fearlessness of the writing taught me how vitally important fearlessness is to making really great art. And like all great art, it's really about right here, right now. I think every high school in America should produce this show once every four years -- yes, fucks and all...

Hair  As radical as BBAJ and Assassins both were when they opened, Hair was even more radical, and it was decades earlier. I've also directed this show three times for New Line (another show that taught me so much), and even the last time we did it in 2008, I was repeatedly amazed at how experimental this piece of theatre still feels to modern audiences. There's so much in this complex script and score that a lot of directors miss, which is why I wrote a whole book just about Hair. The commercial theatre certainly learned from Hair and borrowed many of its devices, but the commercial theatre almost never reaches the level of Hair's true fearlessness. Listen to the original off Broadway cast album (the one with the Native Americans on the cover), and you'll see how unlike anything else (then or now) it still sounds. And by the way, the same thing is true of the original Broadway cast album of Grease, one of the shows that grew out of Hair's experiments.

Evita  I saw the original production of Evita on Broadway when I was in high school and it thrilled me. I know that cast album backwards and forwards. When I sing Peron's songs, I unconsciously imitate Bob Gunton. But I also found it kind of cold. Patti LuPone played Eva as the worst kind of ice bitch. When I finally got to work on this show, I found that LuPone and director Hal Prince were not really telling the story Tim Rice had written (and when I made this point in a blog post, Tim Rice himself commented on it!). Evita is a passionate double love story, between Eva and Juan, who love each other deeply, and also between Eva and her people, who also love each other deeply. Populism is both the story's context and one of its love stories. The more I read about the real Eva, the more I saw how much of that reality Tim Rice had woven into his storytelling. What finally made me want to produce the show was hearing the original studio recording for the first time. This was a rock and roll Evita, not a symphonic one like on Broadway. And it was rowdier and wilder and hotter. And the rock and roll vocabulary really underlined Rice's intended parallel between Eva's time and place, and our time and place -- exactly like Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.

Urinetown  I think I laughed more and harder seeing Urinetown on Broadway than at any other show I've ever seen. The whole audience was laughing that hard. It's a dark, nasty show that sort of shits on political populism, but holy fuck, it is funny. The show's hilarious twist at the end is so at odds with my own political idealism and optimism, but I also recognize the uncomfortable, undeniable truth in it. It reminds us that both good and bad people, liberal and conservative people can be wrong. And sometimes people can be most adamant when they're most wrong. Just when we think the roller coaster ride is over, this uber-Brechtian musical throws a wrench into the story at the end that would drive Brecht crazy. What's not to love? The only problem with Urinetown is that people producing the show often misunderstand it, trying to make it into a wacky musical comedy, when it's actually a dark, Brechtian satire. Just because something's funny doesn't mean it's silly.

The Cradle Will Rock  The Cradle Will Rock may be my favorite political musical of all time -- its creator Marc Blitzstein said his "labor musical" was "composed in a style that falls somewhere between realism, romance, vaudeville, comic strip, Gilbert & Sullivan, Brecht, and agitprop.” After seeing Tim Robbins' awesome movie about the show and its political context, and seeing Robbins' recreation of that historic opening night, I realized how much I wanted to work on this show. So New Line produced it, as it happened on that first night in 1937, with the cast playing the entire show out in the audience. And while we ran the show, HotHouse Theatre Company ran a play in rotating repertory with our show, called It's All True, about the creation of The Cradle Will Rock. Pretty cool, huh?

1776  I remember seeing this on TV the first time when I was around twelve or thirteen and it blew my mind. My mom was watching something else on the living room TV, but my brother Rick was upstairs watching 1776, so I joined him, not really knowing what it was. It turned out to be an awesome, original, funny, powerful musical, and I fell instantly in love with it. What I loved about it was its crazy mix -- vulgar humor, real rowdiness (I loved the stick fight!), moral complexity, and really serious political questions -- just like real life. I think I was exactly the right age to appreciate this musical, and its very existence opened up so many new possibilities to me. I only found out later that the film boasted much of the Broadway cast and the original stage director, so it's a pretty faithful record of the stage show. A few days after I first saw 1776, my brother bought the movie soundtrack, and I was playing it so much more than he was, that he finally gave it to me. And I wore that fucking LP out. Not only are the script and score exceptional, not only is it an amazing political thriller -- even though we all know how it ends -- but it also gives us the amazing gift of letting us get to know our Founders as real, flawed, damaged, contradictory, passionate people. More than any other single thing, this show made me fall in love with America. I think every high school in America should show this film once a year. Or produce the show.

Fiorello!  Okay, I've never seen this one, but I've read the script and I love the original cast recording. It's a very old-school musical comedy, but it's a very smart one, with a strong story about one man's political career, and a great score by Harnick and Bock (Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me, The Rothschilds), which contains one of my all-time favorite comedy numbers, "Politics and Poker." The show is a slightly fictionalized biography of one of New York's most beloved mayors, Fiorello LaGuardia, and it's a terrific, on-the-ground look at 20th century American populist politics, a very cool snapshot of a moment in time.

Of Thee I Sing  I first saw Of Thee I Sing when I was about ten, when my brother Rick played trumpet for Affton High School's production. And I loved it. Truly, I fell in love with it. Now, if you know this show -- a political satire operetta by the Gershwin brothers and Kaufman and Ryskind, about 1930s Presidential politics -- it's hardly the kind of musical a ten-year-old falls in love with, but this one did. I was not a normal ten-year-old. I have no idea if I fully registered all the political satire, but I thought it was hilarious, and I was singing much of the score for months afterward -- "She's the illegitimate daughter of an illegitimate son of an illegitimate nephew of Napoléon..." It wasn't until years later that I caught a lot of the subtle stuff, like how the words "of thee I sing" are taken from one of our most cherished national songs, "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and comically trivialized into a mindless love song -- "Of thee I sing, baby..." -- the song that literally defines the trivialization of politics at the heart of this sharp satire. I don't think this is a show New Line could produce, but if there's some way to shrink it sufficiently, I'd love to work on it. Zak Farmer has to play Vice President Throttlebottom.

Jesus Christ Superstar  Here’s the truth: Jesus Christ Superstar is about politics, not religion. It's about a political activist, not the Son of God. And it’s about the 1960s, not the Roman Empire. If Tim Rice’s searing, slangy lyrics and Tom O’Horgan’s trippy original production weren’t enough proof of that, just read the lyric of the title song – sung from the point of view of “today” and of “mass communication.” Rice wrote a show about an authoritarian government and institutionalized religion trying to snuff out the voices of enlightenment and of peace, paralleling the 1960s -- and that's the show New Line Theatre produced. But too often today, this amazing show is dumbed down, softened, robbed of the rowdy, rebellious, youthful arrogance that originally made music and theatre history, and instead marinated in a religious pomposity that Rice and Lloyd Webber never intended (notice that the show does not include the resurrection). Rice approached the story as political thriller instead of revealed scripture, and Jesus as radical political figure (mirroring the activists of the 60s) rather than as the Son of God (a label Jesus himself never used in the Bible to describe himself). This Jesus does not point the way to Heaven so much as he points the way toward social justice and to living a moral, engaged life. This Jesus was a community organizer.

Beyond these shows, there are lots of other musicals that are very political, but not really about politics -- like Bat Boy, Cabaret, bare, Cry-Baby, Hairspray, Camelot, Jacques Brel, Man of La Mancha, Pippin, Finian's Rainbow, Reefer Madness, Purlie, The Threepenny Opera, Passing Strange, Lysistrata Jones, The Blue Flower, Avenue X, Anyone Can Whistle, Pacific Overtures, Hallelujah, Baby!, Chicago, and my own Johnny Appleweed, to name just a couple handfuls.

I'll leave you with the words of President Obama, introducing a concert of theatre songs at the White House: "In many ways, the story of Broadway is intertwined with the story of America. Some of the greatest singers and songwriters Broadway has ever known came to this country on a boat with nothing more than an idea in their head and a song in their heart. And they succeeded the same way that so many immigrants have succeeded – through talent and hard work and sheer determination. Over the years, musicals have been at the forefront of our social consciousness, challenging stereotypes, shaping our opinions about race and religion, death and disease, power and politics."

These musicals are all very cool shows. If you don't know them, check 'em out.

And VOTE!

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

P.S. If you're into Top Ten lists, I've also written blog posts listing my Top Ten Desert Island Musical Theatre Books, Top Ten Really Cool Musicals You May Not Know, and Top Ten Cool Movie Musicals You Should Know.

Fame

And as for fortune, and as for Fame...

I watched Fame again a couple nights ago, for the first time in a very long time. I'm talking about the original, not that awful remake or the awful stage musical, which is sadder than a wagon full of wet kittens (to quote Cry-Baby).

And I realized there's so much more depth to this film than I ever noticed before. I'd like to believe that's because I've evolved as a human and as an artist, but it may be due largely to the shit I was smoking while I was watching it.

When I first saw Fame and All That Jazz, I had similar reactions. I thought to myself, If I can see these movies and still want to spend my life in the theatre, I must want it really bad. Which I did. It was the first time I understood that working in the theatre all my life would require sacrifice. If I had only known...

Fame is about how hard it is to devote your life to making art. There is great, transcendent joy and there is also great challenge and struggle. I guess everything in life has its yin and yang, but it seems to me living the life of an artist makes that opposition more stark. Most theatre artists work only sporadically and make very little money. Most have to have a day job. Most struggle just to get by. But they also get to experience joy like most people never know, when they're making great art with other great artists. And I think the point the movie is making is that you can't separate the suffering from the creation. One informs the other. Being an artist doesn't make life easy, but it helps us understand why it's hard.

There's a great sequence in the film where Doris, Ralph, and Monty, as an acting exercise, all reveal painful -- and transformational -- moments in their lives. And you realize, watching it, that going through that pain revealed something of importance to them. Doris realizes that she's trapped in conformity, being a person she doesn't particularly like. Monty realizes he's an outsider in the world -- as many artists are. Ralph taps into the deep, fundamental pain that he has had locked away behind his comedy, pain that informs his comedy. Ultimately, they all learn that fame and fortune are the wrong goals. Money and fans are false gods. Doing the best, most truthful work you can do is the right goal. Making art causes them pain, but their pain has given them the mental and emotional tools to make great art.

I realize now, watching the film again, that Doris, Ralph, Monty, and the dancer Leroy all four follow the classic hero myth. And at the end, just as the hero must return to his people with his newly gained wisdom, so these four share their new understanding in the finale, "I Sing the Body Electric."

The lyric of each verse relates to what that character learned through their struggle. The hero myth and its lessons are so powerful to us because each life lived is a hero myth unto itself. When we watch Star Wars or The Wizard of Oz or Bat Boy or High Fidelity, these heroes' journeys stand as metaphors for our lives, the struggles, the friends, the lessons, the obstacles, the acquired wisdom over a lifetime. That's why we respond so powerfully to these stories. We recognize, usually not consciously, that they are us.

On a more macro level, "I Sing the Body Electric" starts out in the classical music vocabulary, then transitions into rock and roll, and then combines the two. The entire song is one big summarizing metaphor -- a synthesis of musical languages, a synthesis of the various performing arts (music, dance, drama), and the synthesis of individual artistic talents that only the performing arts provides. And it all underlines the artist's great life quest, to synthesize art and life, to combine them to form something new, something illuminating.

I've always loved Fame but now I understand more deeply why I love it.

There is nothing -- and I mean, nothing -- like a great piece of art. It nourishes the soul. And in this crazy, complicated world we live in, our souls need all the nourishing they can get. I sing the body electric every time I make a piece of theatre...

I sing the body electric,
I glory in the glow of rebirth,
Creating my own tomorrow
When I shall embody the earth.

And I'll serenade Venus,
I'll serenade Mars,
And I'll burn with the fire of ten million stars.
And in time,
And in time,
We will all be stars.

Not "stars" as in famous people, but as in eternal points of light that illuminate our way in the darkest night. That's what art is.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott