All is Well in the City

I almost can't believe it. We opened Promenade last week. Holy shit.

I was a freshman in college when I first discovered the cast album for Promenade. It baffled me and thrilled me. This was not the kind of musical I was used to, but there was something about it I absolutely loved. I listened to it obsessively for several weeks before I moved on to other thrilling discoveries, like The Robber Bridegroom and Little Shop of Horrors and March of the Falsettos and King of Hearts.

At the time, I didn't know the Promenade cast album contains only about two-thirds of the score, because the record label was too cheap to produce a two-record set.

But Promenade always stayed with me. I finally found the script in a collection called Great Rock Musicals, although I can't imagine anyone thinking Promenade is a rock musical. It's more of a show-tune-vaudeville-jazz-blues-folk-waltz-Gilbert-and-Sullivan-operetta-pop musical. This script collection also included Hair, Tommy, Grease, The Wiz, and JC Superstar, among others. I don't know how Promenade got in there, but I'm glad it did,or we might not be doing it right now.

So I read the script and it made absolutely no sense to me. I had yet to encounter much non-mainstream theatre, and it didn't even occur to me that making sense wasn't really the show's priority, that in fact, sense-making was the target of much of its satire. I had no idea what it was -- at the same time, much of it was very funny, and all of it was really interesting. Even just reading it, it was a genuine page-turner. I could tell that there was a lot beneath the surface that I wasn't fully getting. Now I know the obvious -- it wasn't meant to be read; it was meant to be experienced. Exactly like Shakespeare's plays.

On the 1969 poster, under the title, it said, "A Musical Entertainment." This show wasn't about its text, but about the experience of the performance. But when would any of us ever get to experience Promenade?

In a 1965 interview with Richard Shepard in The New York Times, Promenade's bookwriter and lyricist María Irene Fornés said, “Playwriting has less to do with language than novel writing does. It’s language in a very special way. Language is like the motor that starts a machine. How the machine performs, what dynamics it creates, that’s what counts.” Specifically about Promenade, Fornés said, “My script was not delightful, it was just a possible setup for something delightful.”

When I was in college, that idea would have terrified me. Now it delights me. Now that we've opened the show, I understand that quote even better.

Despite my mixed reactions, I've always wanted to do Promenade. But the New Line board members (quite rightly) always steered me away from it, season after season. Until now. I was adamant this time. Promenade is from 1969, but it's about our culture right now in 2026, in so many weirdly specific ways. It speaks unmistakably to this current zeitgeist.

We started rehearsals in early January, and our entire creative process has seemed sort of unreal to me. I feel like I'm rebelling against the Matrix by producing this show we "shouldn't" produce, this show that nobody produces, this show that breaks every rule.

But I learned a fundamental lesson about directing unusual shows when I worked on Hair the first time, in 2000 -- if a script or score doesn't make sense to me, it's probably my fault, not the show's. It's probably just that I haven't figured it out yet. So much about Hair didn't make any sense at first, but when we figured it out, we found that it's an intricately constructed, brilliant, masterpiece of musical theatre. I was so amazed at how much my understanding of the show changed as I learned more and more about the show and its creators' intentions -- and the culture that gave it birth -- so I wrote a whole book about everything I had learned, Let the Sun Shine In.

That same lesson has served me well with Promenade. I knew from reviews and other documents that this show is extraordinary. I knew I just had to trust it, trust Fornés and composer Al Carmines, trust the show's original director Lawrence Kornfeld, who helped shape it, trust all those reviewers who saw such brilliance in it.

It's easier for me to do this now, to just surrender myself to the material. It always works, and it has worked again with Promenade. Watching the last few rehearsals before opening was so much fun, because I'm sure we've gotten it right. Our production is what this show is supposed to be.

So we've actually opened Promenade, and my decades-long desire to share it is finally coming true. The best feeling in the world is watching the audience come out into the lobby after a performance -- some are delighted, some are gobsmacked, some are still thinking about it, some are wiping away tears because the show's emotions were just so overwhelming -- knowing that a whole bunch of them now love the show as much as I do.

I am the Johnny Appleweed of the musical theatre.

Part of my astonishment at our unlikely feat comes from the incredibly talented people who signed on for this whack adventure and worked really hard to bring this show back to life. The cast has found the multiple styles and tones at play, the goofy humor and the subliminal humor, and they're having huge fun doing the show. Thank the gods, they are all fully up to the considerable demands of this eclectic score.

New Line's resident music director Jason Eschhofen reconstructed and arranged the score for us (the music they sent us with a MESS), and he leads our 7-piece New Line Band, playing this wonderful, catchy, tricky, oddball score. There's so much underscoring beneath dialogue that the band almost never stops playing all evening.

I've gotten such terrific reactions from our audiences after performances. One patron said to me, "I'm not sure what that was, but it was mesmerizing!" True to our intentionally checkered past, we've had a few people walk out at intermission. And that's okay. Despite its age, this is not your grandfather's musical. Not everybody will love it.

Most people have come out smiling or laughing. Quite a few have thanked me for bringing this almost-never-produced, historically important, and relentlessly entertaining musical to St. Louis.

This show totally fits the New Line test: If not us, who?

It is a particular joy for me to see for the first time this musical I've always loved only from afar -- and finally to hear the entire score! But it is an even greater joy to share it with hundreds of people. Love it or not, you'll never forget it. It will stay with you a long time. In a good way.

And now I finally have people to talk about Promenade with!

Don't worry -- this show is not "abstract" or "avant-garde;" but it does ignore most the rules of storytelling and of theatre that we've all grown up with, rules we take for granted, rules most of us probably never even consciously noticed. So Promenade won't tell you a story; it'll simply present reality for your examination -- not the surface of reality, but its essence. To re-quote my favorite new quote, the theatre isn't a mirror; it's magnifying glass.

Promenade is a giant cultural magnifying glass, and it's looking at 1969, but it's also looking at 2026. And at us. And yet we keep laughing. What else can we do?

It's such a cool show! We run through March 28. Don't miss this genuine once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see this fascinating piece of history!

The adventure continues...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

P.S. To get your tickets for Promenade, click here.

P.P.S. To check out my newest musical theatre books, click here.

P.P.P.S. To donate to New Line Theatre, click here.