Almost as quickly as the Into The Woods trailer appeared, my social media feeds were filled with an anguished refrain: where are the songs? Yes, the core audience felt betrayed, even though I suspect every person who was moved to write already knows the score by heart.
What those of us who love theatre in general, musicals in particular, and Sondheim most of all have to remember is that, sadly, we are not representative of the majority of moviegoers, and movie marketers have to throw a wide net. Those of us who flock to watch the trailer of Into The Woods are already committed to seeing it, no matter how much we may want to grouse about it. The film studios are trying to reach a much wider crowd, for whom the sight of stars singing may be off-putting, strange as such a thought may be to those of us who are ready to belt out a show tune at the slighted prompting. It’s also possible that we’ll get a more representative trailer as the film draws closer.
Minimizing the musical theatre connection has certainly been true for movie musicals for some time. It’s almost as though marketers are trying to slip the fact that people sing past potential audiences. Unlike Into The Woods, which does seem more like a moody tour of the film’s production design than anything, music is prominently featured in countless trailers, even for non-musical films, and sometimes with music that isn’t ever heard in the film. But when it comes to seeing people sing, let’s keep that quiet, shall we? We can hear singing in trailers, and see people moving their lips, but not in sync. Take a look at the trailer for Hairspray as an example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ53mRO80c0
Dancing, apparently, isn’t so problematic. The Dancing with the Stars effect has probably only increased its appeal. Another example is Mamma Mia! which looked as if it was a romantic comedy with a bunch of Abba songs on the soundtrack, rather than a story told using Abba songs. One can understand why they wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see and hear Pierce Brosnan warbling, but the sight of master thespian Meryl Streep going to town on some Swedish pop might have added some appeal in its very incongruity.
Maybe Paramount knew the theatre purists were already on edge when they cut the trailer for Sweeney Todd, given the relative musical inexperience of the main cast (which many feel lived down to their expectations), which keeps vocals to a minimum. Despite that, more than most musical trailers, Sweeney actually gave us a real look at a bit of a song, “Epiphany,” spoke-sung by Johnny Depp (although we were halfway through the trailer before it was deployed). However that could easily be recognized as a fantasy sequence and seemingly not the style of the whole film. Overall the trailer hewed closer to the Hammer Films homage that director Tim Burton had appropriated for the Grand Guignol tale, and maybe a few Fangoria devotees were lured into a musical they’d have avoided otherwise.
It’s not that we don’t get a few glimpses of people singing in some trailers, but in the quick-cut style that brings them flash and energy, there is a certain “blink or you’ll miss it” quality, even when the making of music is central to the plot, as in the Dreamgirls trailer, where one would think performance footage of a superstar like Beyoncé would actually be a plus.
The incongruity of Eddie Murphy singing may be why we saw a bit of exactly that in Dreamgirls, and the same rationale may have applied to Depp in Sweeney, as well as Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellwger as the merry murderesses in the trailer of Chicago. For Zellweger, the singing was new; for Zeta-Jones it was part of her professional background, but before she became a star. Perhaps singing from people we least expect to sing has marketing value.
Mind you, this fear extends to movies that aren’t musicals but tell musical stories and in which the main characters are known to us precisely because they’re singers. The flash of the trailer for the just-released Get On Up, about James Brown, gives us glimpses of his energetic performances and we hear his music along with narration and dialogue, but lips actually moving along with the songs go largely unseen. Of course, given the subterfuge with which actual musicals are being marketed, I can’t help but wonder whether some audiences see this and think, “Uh, I dunno. I think they’re trying to slip one of those durned musicals by us.”
As much as we purists might be desperate to see musical scenes as quickly as possible, we can be fairly sure that the film itself will be a musical, even if it has been adapted and altered from its stage version. The example of Irma la Douce, one of the very few musicals to be adapted for the screen without the songs, is unlikely to recur.
So what about original musicals for the screen? To be fair, original live action film tuners are scarce, except for animation, where, since Disney’s The Little Mermaid, a mini-song score seems de rigeur. But is that a selling point? On the basis of the trailer for Frozen, which ultimately drilled Idinia Menzel’s “Let It Go” into the brains of millions of kids and their parents worldwide, even Disney wasn’t sure that the massively successful score was going to bring in the crowd. The film seemed to be the story of one girl, one boy and one talking snowman. However, to be fair, even though they hid it, the word got out about the exceptional songs.
The trailer for Les Miserables did show us Anne Hathaway as the doomed Fantine singing “I Dreamed A Dream,” in fact it’s all we hear as we watch that trailer – all of the other visuals that are laid over it could easily come from a non-musical. No warbling Wolverine here. Perhaps, to the handful of people in the world who have managed to escape any knowledge of the stage musical, this one song could be an isolated case. But this trailer more than any demonstrates the marketing tactic that prevails: don’t make it look too much like a musical in the hope of capturing some people who may not like musicals, and as for the core audience, we’ll throw ‘em a bone.
I wish I could recall which Twitter wit I read who compared movie trailers without songs to foreign film trailers without dialogue, since I would like to credit them for that very astute observation. But it’s worth noting that foreign films are financed and produced abroad, then picked up for distribution over here; the Hollywood studios shoulder vastly greater risk when they release musicals. While I’m fairly grouchy about the studios these days, with the endless remakes, sequels and films from dystopian young adult novels (thanks Mark Harris for that), I really am willing to give them a lot of leeway on musicals, to a degree on how they adapt them, but certainly on how they sell them. For perspective: if a musical sells 600,000 tickets in a year, it’s a smash; if a movie musical sells 600,000 tickets in its first week, it’s a disappointment. And after all, if a trailer whets our appetite for a movie musical, we can always fire up the iPod, or our Sondheim channel, and listen and sing along to our heart’s content until the movie comes out. After all, haven’t we been doing that already?
Incidentally, we’re getting two musicals this Christmas. In addition to Into The Woods, everybody’s favorite orphan is back, and on the basis of the trailer, while it’s hard to know what’s been done with the story and most of the score, at least we know it will still be a hard knock life tomorrow, though we may not be entirely sure of who’s singing.
When Randy Newman’s Faust receives a one-night concert presentation this week as part of City Center’s Encores! Off Center series, its NYC debut could be the end of the road or a new beginning for this two decade old musical conceived by the prolific songwriter, whose early 70s songwriting fame has been eclipsed in many peoples’ minds by his popular film scores. Having started as a 1993 concept album featuring Newman, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Elton John and others, the show, co-written by David Mamet, made it to the stage of the La Jolla Playhouse in 1995 and then to Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 1996, under the direction of Michael Greif, in the same period that saw the launch of the Greif-directed Rent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1OPPi9e6LU
Over the years, there have been countless musicals created by or utilizing the music of rock and pop stars, from Paul Simon and Trey Anastasio to Abba and Elton John. But a handful of projects tied to popular recording artists have been launched around the U.S. and in England that, like Faust, never made it to New York. Here’s a quick rundown of some you may not know about.
The Education of Randy Newman/Harps & Angels
The lure of Randy Newman’s music has tempted many to want to bring it to the stage, and there have been two other efforts that didn’t get to NYC. The Education of Randy Newman played at South Coast Rep in 2000 and resurfaced at ACT in Seattle in 2002. Harps and Angels played at the Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum in 2010. The first show was an attempt to tell the story of Newman’s musical family, conceived by Michael Roth, Jerry Patch and Newman. At South Coast, it was directed by Myron Johnson and the cast included Alison Smith, Scott Waara, Jennifer Leigh Warren; in Seattle it was directed by Gordon Edelstein and Johnson and the cast included Daniel Jenkins and William Katt. Harps & Angels was conceived by Jack Viertel and directed by Jerry Zaks; the cast included Storm Large, Michael McKean and Katey Sagal.
What’s most surprising about these two attempts at a Newman revue is that there had already been a moderately successful one that did play New York long before either of the others were developed, back in 1982. First seen in NYC at the Astor Place Theatre, Maybe I’m Doing It Wrong was conceived and directed by Joan Micklin Silver, and the cast included Mark Linn-Baker and Deborah Rush. It was subsequently produced at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1984 in a revised production that featured Melanie Chartoff, Dann Florek, Dee Hoty and Paul McCrane under the direction of Susan Cox.
Zapata
For roughly a decade from the mid-60s to mid-70s, Harry Nilsson was at the top of his game as a singer songwriter, with multiple hit albums and chart-topping songs both for himself and other artists. He even created a made for television children’s cartoon, The Point, with a musical score that is indelibly remembered by those watching TV in the early 70s and now licensed for stage production. He also wrote the charming songs for the otherwise problematic Popeye movie with Robin Williams. But as chronicled in the recent documentary Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talking About Him)?, he was also an alcoholic who sabotaged his voice, his career and his health. His one stage effort, Zapata, about the famed Mexican revolutionary, never made it past a tryout run at the Goodspeed Opera House in 1980. Of course, part of the problem may have been Nilsson and his friend Ringo Starr spending more time at the Gelston House bar next door to Goodspeed than in the theatre itself. And in one of its more incongruous quirks, Zapata had its genesis in an idea from musical comedy star and game show host Bert Convy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cbm4w5IsGE
80 Days
A jukebox musical about the early days of The Kinks, Sunny Afternoon, is headed into the West End after a successful run at the Hampstead Theatre in London, but it’s not the first musical to feature songs by Ray Davies. 80 Days, an adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around The World In 80 Days by Davies and playwright Snoo Wilson (who replaced Barrie Keeffe) was offered up by the La Jolla Playhouse back in 1988; it trod a path forged decades earlier by no less than Orson Welles and Cole Porter, whose Broadway Around The World managed 75 performances in 1946. In La Jolla, 80 Days featured Timothy Landfield and Stephen Bogardus under Des McAnuff’s direction.
Our House
Among the leading lights of ska music for decades, the band Madness’s catalogue of hits were the basis for the musical Our House, an Ayckbournian musical that showed how one man’s life could go in two very different directions (long before If/Then). With a book by Tim Firth and directed by Matthew Warchus, the show was the surprise winner of the Olivier Award for Best Musical in 2003, beating out Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bombay Dreams and Taboo. It wasn’t a long-running West End smash, but it has proven popular enough that its tenth anniversary was marked by a West End concert that reunited many of the original cast members and also featured Madness frontman Suggs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndnxGlGVxZM
We Will Rock You
We Will Rock You may well be the most successful rock musical to never play New York. Despite being critically reviled, it chalked up an 11-year West End run based on the popularity of the Queen catalogue, despite Ben Elton’s outlandish sci-fi storyline. It’s worth noting that the show has also toured the U.S. and played an extended run in Las Vegas, so New York may be one of the only major U.S. cities to have not been rocked by the show. Presumably it will also never see the sequel, which is reportedly in the works.
Yentl
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s cross-dressing heroine may have been heard by her Poppa over 30 years ago on film, but just last year she sang on stage at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Florida using a score by Jill Sobule, of “I Kissed A Girl Fame.” No word on whether there’s any future life for the project, which used Leah Napolin’s non-musical play for its book and was directed by Gordon Greenberg.
Girlfriend
You might want to say I’m cheating because it did make it to Joe’s Pub, but Todd Almond’s reworking of Matthew Sweet songs into a coming of age romance hasn’t had a major outing in NYC on a legit stage. First seen at Berkeley Rep in 2012 and then in 2013 at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Almond took Sweet’s rocking and plaintive songs of alternately angry and mournful romance (the album included a love song to Winona Ryder) and made it a two-character musical for two young men.
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
This column would have been vastly briefer if it hadn’t been for the La Jolla Playhouse, which could lay claim to being the American theatre that sits most squarely and the intersection of musical theatre and popular music (let’s not forget two of their successes, including Jersey Boys and Tommy). Former artistic director Des McAnuff collaborated with Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne on this futuristic tale using songs by the Lips; the theatre’s website synopsized the show thusly: “Yoshimi must choose between two boyfriends, but first she’s got to take down an army of pink robots. This magical tale of love and the struggle for survival is a poignant and humanistic story.” No word on whether our robot overlords will reach Manhattan.
The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County
The idea of Stephen King and John Mellencamp collaborating on a musical sounded pretty exciting when it was first announced, but after their show debuted at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater Company in 2012, many people realized that a musical created by people who had no experience writing a musical, or for that matter, for the stage, might be somewhat problematic. The following year, the show went out of tour in a pared down concert version, reversing the route of shows that showcase their wares in concerts before moving to full production. It suggests that the Ghost Brothers will be confined in little pink houses under a dome for the foreseeable future.
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I have no doubt that this rundown is incomplete. By all means, add other examples, including video links whenever possible, in the comments section below.
Hands on a Hardbody at Houston’s Theatre Under The Stars
This statement came up not once but twice in my conversation with Bruce Lumpkin, artistic director of Houston’s Theatre Under The Stars and director of their current production of the musical Hands on a Hardbody. The comment arose when I asked Lumpkin specific questions about my communications with Hardbody creators Amanda Green and Doug Wright. Green, who attended the show’s opening at TUTS, detailed a fairly extensive list of alterations to the musical, none of which had been discussed with the authors or their licensing house prior to production.
[I should note from the outset that I was first made aware of the authors’ concerns by Bruce Lazarus, executive director of Samuel French, which licenses the show. He reached out to me because of my prior writing on the subject of authors’ rights and because we know each other from my one-year tenure in 2012-13 on the Samuel French advisory committee (two meetings; $500 total honorarium). I say this by way of full disclosure.]
Having attended the opening night of Hardbody at Lumpkin’s invitation, Green described to me her experience in watching the show. “They started the opening number and I noticed that some people were singing solos other than what we’d assigned. As we neared the middle of the opening number, I thought, ‘what happened to the middle section?’” She said that musical material for Norma, the religious woman in the story, “was gone.”
When the second song began, Green recalls being surprised, saying, “I thought, ‘so we did put this number second after all’ before realizing that we hadn’t done that.” As the act continued, Green said, “I kept waiting for ‘If I Had A Truck’ and it didn’t come.” She went on to detail a litany of ways in which the show in Houston differed from the final Broadway show, including reassigning vocal material to different characters within songs, and especially the shifting of songs from one act to another, which had the effect of removing some characters from the story earlier than before. She also said that interstitial music between scenes had been removed and replaced with new material. Having heard Green’s point by point recounting of act one changes, I suggested we could dispense with the same for act two.
Hands on a Hardbody on Broadway
When I asked Lumpkin about the nature of changes to the show. His response was, “I didn’t change lyrics, I didn’t change songs, I didn’t change dialogue. I only changed their order.” In response to my query as to why he felt he could make such shifts, Lumpkin cited having seen the show twice on Broadway and having seen the running order of songs as printed in the program each time differing, in addition to yet other song rundowns on inserts to the program.
“I thought that perhaps maybe I could put together a different order thinking that perhaps if they don’t like it I’ll put it back,” said Lumpkin. “There was no new vision for the show. It was just a matter of the order of the songs in the show. I knew there was a possibility they wouldn’t like it. I was totally upfront.”
Had he notified the authors or the licensing house in advance? “I guess I didn’t. I didn’t think changing the order with them coming [to the opening]. It wasn’t like cutting a number.” He continued, “I’ve done a lot of this before. I did this with Stephen Schwartz and Charles Strouse on Rags and they worked with me. But in that case it was about cutting some subplots and characters. When we did Godspell, I told Stephen Schwartz that the song order was kind of arbitrary and he let me work with it.”
I asked Lumpkin whether he would have made any changes to Hardbody, which he said he did over three days only after rehearsals had begun, if none of the authors had accepted his invitation to the opening. “Probably not,” he replied. “I wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. The only struggle they had was the order.” When I asked how he knew of the author’s “struggle,” he once again cited the various song lists he’d seen when attending the show on Broadway.
Lumpkin also suggested that there was some discrepancy between the score and the text he received, saying such things were common with licensed works. When I asked, “Did you ask for clarification from the source?” he responded, “No, I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I take their source material and we figure it out on our own.”
Hands on a Hardbody at Houston’s Theatre Under The Stars
Noting that I was asking a pointed question, I inquired, “Having signed a license agreement for the show, did you believe you had the legal and ethical right to make the changes you did?” Lumpkin declined to answer. But as we concluded our talk, he said that he knows how the authors feel, saying that he too had done original shows.
“I didn’t think that moving four numbers was a big deal. We’ve changed it back and I don’t think anyone in the audience knows the difference. Except me.”
However, Green had pointed out that opening night was also a press night. “He can say it can be turned back,” observed Green, “but it was already being reviewed that night.” And she clearly differs as to the extent of the changes.
Describing her post-show conversation with Lumpkin in Houston, Green says, “When it was over, I was flabbergasted. I had been planning to go to the cast party, but I couldn’t. Bruce came over to me and said, ‘I know you’re mad and I know you hate it, but you know it works better’.” Green continued: “He was pressuring me to make a decision and say I liked it. So I left.”
Green says she asked why Lumpkin hadn’t asked for permission and described his reply as, “He said he wanted to surprise us. He said the show wasn’t working at all.”
Describing her conversation with Doug Wright and their collaborator Trey Anastasio subsequent to seeing the show, Green said, “We wanted to have our show as written. We’d spent years building and honing it and had very specific character-driven moments. People didn’t just say things. We carefully crafted the show. We were taken aback and dismayed by his [Lumpkin’s] lack of respect and regard for copyright laws and our material.”
In response to a series of e-mailed questions about the changes as reported by Green, Doug Wright wrote, “I was stunned, especially because the changes were so egregious.” But because he hadn’t seen them firsthand, I asked him what he hoped directors and artistic directors might learn from the liberties taken with Hardbody at the outset of the short (June 12 to 22) TUTS run.
“Most playwrights welcome the rigorous, insightful interpretive choices that good directors routinely bring to their work,” Wright responded. “But authorial choices are ours, and ours alone. When I write for the movies, I do it with the knowledge that my words may be rearranged, changed, or even stricken; the studio pays me a small fortune, and in exchange, they hold the copyright to my work. In the theater, I’m paid next to nothing for a play…but I get something even more philosophically and artistically valuable: ownership of my own writing. I live with the assurance that my scripts won’t be altered in any way without my blessing. That’s the one reward the theater can truly offer writers. It should never be taken away.”
As it happens, TUTS is doing another Samuel French property later this summer, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. When I asked Lumpkin about a change that French’s Lazarus said had been proposed to the licensed script, he responded, “When they did the second national company [of Whorehouse], they put in the song “Lonely at the Top” which isn’t in the script now, but which was also added to the first national tour. It wasn’t a change. I talked to Pete Masterson about putting it back in the show and he said it was a great idea. I called Carol Hall and she said, ‘that’s a terrible idea’ and so we aren’t doing it.”
Hall’s account, via e-mail, differs significantly from Lumpkin’s matter-of-fact version.
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on Broadway
“‘Lonely At the Top’ was a song inserted into the show, written especially for a much beloved TV star (Larry Hovis) who was from Houston and was playing Melvin P. Thorpe in the Houston company. It was never in the Broadway production and was not meant for any other, only the one with Larry Hovis.
“In a telephone conversation a number of months ago, on another matter, Bruce Lumpkin asked how I would feel if the song were used in the up-coming TUTS production of the show. I told him I had never liked the song particularly, since it was never really necessary, and had only been put into the show because the authors had at the time wanted to accommodate Hovis, who had a large TV fan base. I told him I did not want the song to be in the show.
“Recently I heard a rumor that the song, in fact, was going to be in his production, so I called him to remind him he didn’t have permission to use it. Literally, in the first five minutes of the phone call, he became very upset, began to shout and claimed that I had told him he could “do whatever [he] wanted” with it. He was extremely arrogant and disrespectful and reasonable conversation was impossible, so much so that I eventually just hung up, something I’ve never done in any professional situation before.”
* * *
Having not seen the production of Hands on a Hardbody in Houston, let alone having watched it with script and score in hand, I can’t adjudicate independently how the show there on opening night differed from the written version. When I asked Lumpkin why he thought the authors were asserting that sweeping changes had been made, he simply said it hadn’t happened. But there’s no question in any account that the show was altered by Lumpkin without any permission given by the authors, or even sought by TUTS. Despite his repeated statements to me about how wonderful the show is and how well it’s playing with his audiences, to my mind, protestations that reordering a musical does not rise to the level of “changes” strike me as semantic disingenuousness.
Given my prior writing, I won’t restate my conviction about authors’ rights, which align very closely with those expressed by Wright. While I have been challenged by theatre artists from other countries over my fealty to the concept of authorial primacy in many types of theatre, while artists in this country have suggested that I am hiding behind unfairly restrictive copyright law, I have been trained from the beginning of my career to honor and respect authors’ words (and music), and I remain unswayed by other arguments.
I also do not believe it should be incumbent upon authors and their representatives to endlessly travel the country insuring that their works have not been altered without authorization; it is impractical if not impossible. In fairness to Lumpkin, he wasn’t exactly trying to slip his changes by with the hope that no one would notice; he wouldn’t have invited the authors if that was the case. But even if his goals were as well-meaning and admiring as he claims, he didn’t take any initiative to confer with the authors about his intent, and showed his revision to audiences and the press before the authors could even consider his take on their show. That the author of another show asserts Lumpkin’s aggressive stance on a requested and denied change starts to suggest a troubling pattern at TUTS. It will certainly bring the company under greater scrutiny, but it should also serve as notice to other theatres and other directors that authors don’t take changes to their work lying down and that their rights will be asserted.
I have to ask: why risk conflict, why face extra expense, when communication and collaboration might yield the desired result? And let’s face it: I was able to get in touch with Green and Wright within three hours time. A professional theatre company is certainly capable of doing the same.
* * *
Addendum: June 20, 12:15 pm Subsequent to this post being published at approximately 10:30 am, the Dramatists Guild issued a statement (read it in its entirety on the Guild site) recounting accepted professional practices regarding scripts, saying that the statement would be sent directly to Bruce Lumpkin at TUTS. It reads, in part:
Fortunately, most professional theaters respect authorship and the standards of the theater industry (and their own contractual obligations) by either asking for permission to make changes upfront or staging the work as written. They don’t want to run afoul of the licensing agents, nor do they want to bear the extra financial burden of having to stop performances and restage a production, or to endure the costs of litigation. Nor, we imagine, do they want to earn the enmity of playwrights everywhere, who have made ownership and control of their work the core value of their professional lives.
But there are some theaters that take a different tack in this regard. Those theaters engage in the practice of rewriting shows they present without authorial approval, in direct violation of the theater’s contractual obligations and industry standards. The Dramatists Guild of America, a national association representing the interests of over 7000 playwrights, composers and lyricists worldwide, vehemently and unequivocally objects to such illegal practices.
When we become aware of such a theater, we keep apprised of the theater’s ongoing activities and report on it to our membership and their representatives. We hope that writers, agents and publishers will consider this information when deciding whether or not to issue licenses for any works they represent.
Addendum: June 20, 3:15 pm The Dramatists Guild provided me with a copy of a letter they have sent to Theatre Under The Stars, detailing the unapproved changes made to Hands on a Hardbody. Following the listing of infractions, the letter, signed by Ralph Sevush, Executive Director, Business Affairs, continues:
When caught in blatant breach of this contract, it has been reported that you still have only partially restored the play for its few final performances, with the cast having little time to rehearse the changes, and are still including some unauthorized alterations.
And you have done all this begrudgingly and unapologetically, with a history of having done so before…
Addendum: June 20, 3:35 pm: Samuel French Inc. has now sent a cease and desist letter to Theatre Under The Stars. In the letter, Lori Thimsen, Director of Licensing Compliance at French, states:
As a result of your breach of contract, Samuel French hereby revokes Theatre Under The Stars’ license to produce Hands on a Hardbody. Accordingly, demand is made that you immediately cease and desist from the advertising, promotion, presentation and performance of any production of Hands on a Hardbody, cancel all remaining performances and confirm your compliance with this demand in writing to the undersigned no later than close of business today, Friday, June 20, 2014.
Four performances remain in the scheduled 10 performance run, one tonight, two on Saturday and one on Sunday.
TUTS has found itself in a last minute contractual dispute that prevents the continued performances of HANDS ON A HARDBODY. We regret this unexpected occurrence and we thank you for your support of TUTS and our Underground series.
Based on the commentary I was seeing in online articles and social media comments yesterday, someone had just painted a mustache on the Mona Lisa. No one seemed to care that Da Vinci had decided to it himself.
I’m referring to the outpouring of dismay over the news that some changes had been made to the storyline and score of Disney’s upcoming film of Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods. Mind you, no one has seen the film as of yet; the response resulted from a New Yorker “Talk of the Town” piece in which Sondheim spoke of the changes, and more to the point, from online articles based on that story which extracted out the specifics of the pending changes without the full context of the original report, which regrettably is behind The New Yorker’s paywall. Therefore it’s the secondhand reportage which seems to have reached the widest audience and sparked a healthy flurry of unhappiness.
I for one would like to state that I’m shocked – shocked, I say – to find that the creative and commercial forces behind the film adaptation of a stage work have mandated changes in the original material (for those immune to written sarcasm, I mean to say that I’m not remotely shocked). The litany of stage material (or for that matter books, true life stories and even prior films) that has been slightly altered or radically reworked for movie consumption is endless. But even minor changes become the fodder for endless online investigation, interpretation and instantaneous outrage, the currency of so much digital derision by the faithful. And it’s not even an online phenomenon – I remember the furor that arose when Tim Burton had the temerity to cast Michael Keaton as Batman in the 80s, even for what was a major reworking of material that had been reduced to camp 20 years earlier on television.
That Disney might want to homogenize some of the spikier elements of Into The Woods should have come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the company’s brand, which has a long history of altering fairytale stories, from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty to Once Upon A Time and Maleficent. Yes, I am one of the many who revere Sondheim’s work, and the man, but just as the removal of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” from that film adaptation didn’t ruin the story on screen, I’m at least willing to wait to see Into The Woods before I critique its choices, whatever the rationale. And let’s face it, after almost 30 years, it’s not as if film companies were fighting for the right to bring the material to the screen.
What frustrates me much more in this scenario is the way in which the details of changes have been excised from their context in The New Yorker. Sondheim’s revelation came out of a conversation with high school teachers which touched upon some of the problems they face in trying to produce challenging work at their schools, by Sondheim and others. While reporter Larissa MacFarquhar is glib about opposition to Sweeney Todd (“the teachers were smut and gore idealists”), she does report on the portion of the conversation specific to Into The Woods. In particular, she relates how the teachers told stories of opposition to elements of infidelity and sexuality in the Sondheim-Lapine piece, and how Sondheim compared the attitudes of school administrators to those of Disney executives. (I asked the organization that arranged the conversation, the Academy for Teachers, whether a recording of the full session had been created, but founder Sam Swope said they had none, that the New Yorker account was accurate and that the censorship discussion was only a small part of a wider-ranging talk.)
When a teacher explains that she must always present bowdlerized versions of musicals (please look up that odd word if you don’t know it), the article reports:
“Can you let them read the original and then discuss why, say, Rapunzel is not allowed to die in the adulterated version?” Sondheim asked.
“We do that, but they just get angry. They feel censored–they don’t feel trusted.”
“And they’re right,” Sondheim said. “But you have to explain to them that censorship is part of our puritanical ethics, and it’s something that they’re going to have to deal with. There has to be a point at which you don’t compromise anymore, but that may mean you won’t get anyone to sell your painting or perform your musical. You have to deal with reality.”
Now I’m not entirely comfortable with Sondheim’s conflation of censorship with marketplace realities, since censorship is performed unilaterally by people in power against those without influence, whereas creative alteration in a commercial setting results from negotiation – and money is at the root of the decisions on all sides. Into The Woods wasn’t taken unwillingly from Sondheim – he sold it. I trust that he has safeguarded the essence of the show. But I agree that the impulse to homogenize for the marketplace does indeed come from a puritan ethic, as does school censorship, both cases where adults take a patronizing view of what young people can handle – though in the case of a Disney film, they’re trying to reach audiences much younger than the participants in high school theatre programs in a big tent effort.
It is the stage alteration in schools that perpetually worries me. In cases when creators or rights holders have authorized “junior”or “school” versions of stage works, they are active participants in the excision of “challenging” material,” and while perhaps that’s also a market-driven decision, I like to think that it also occurs in the best interests of allowing to students to take on work which would otherwise be wholly off-limits in a school setting. Regardless, I worry about the academic gatekeepers who mandate these changes, which may vary from school to school or state to state, and in far too many cases are done at the school level without any approval from the licensing house or creator. That’s where censorship is truly taking place and insidious. It’s where the idea that anyone can alter a stage text at will is born, much to the consternation of authors, and their representatives at the Dramatists Guild, in the U.S.
As Sondheim notes in the New Yorker piece, “If you look at most plays, it’s like the sonata form in music–if you screw around with that, you’re taking your life in your hands.”
It is clear in the article that Sondheim is an active participant in the film of Into The Woods, whether his resulting choices are grudgingly mercenary or willingly collaborative is hard to assess. Regarding the removal of the Baker’s Wife’s liaison and the song “Any Moment,” the article reports one educator’s distress and Sondheim’s acquiescence.
“Stick up for that song!” a teacher called out.
“I did, I did,” Sondheim said. “But Disney said, we don’t want Rapunzel to die, so we replotted it. I won’t tell you what happens now, but we wrote a new song to cover it.”
As with any adaptation of a prior work, changes are inevitable. Fortunately, the new version doesn’t change the source, and in the case of Into The Woods, Disney’s film won’t yield a whole new stage text. I do worry that schools will interpret the screen revisions as permission to alter their own productions, which is in fact illegal; I’ve been struck by how often opposition to Sweeney Todd has arisen from the film’s gouts of bloods, which suggest that gore is essential to the show, when even John Doyle’s Broadway revival dispensed with obvious blood-letting, so the films do suggest a template to the public. What is very likely to occur from the Into The Woods film is that people beyond the core fan base for musicals will be introduced to the genius of Sondheim and, perhaps, that even more schools will do the show – according to the approved text.
It may be fun join in online outrage, but it’s an impotent act in a case like this. The film will be what Disney wants it to be. Why not put those efforts to better use, and direct them to supporting live theatre and making sure that the teachers whose genuine concerns sparked this kerfuffle have the opportunity to tackle brilliant and challenging work with their students, their schools and their communities. That’s where your voice can make a difference, in advancing the cause of arts education and in the battle against true censorship whenever it arises.
Addendum, June 23, 2014: One week after The New Yorker article came out and five days after the online furor began, Stephen Sondheim released the following statement about changes to Into The Woods, which largely negates the cuts he said would be happening. It reads:
An article in The New Yorker misreporting my “Master Class” conversation about censorship in our schools with seventeen teachers from the Academy for Teachers a couple of weeks ago has created some false impressions about my collaboration with the Disney Studio on the film version of Into the Woods. The fact is that James (Lapine, who wrote both the show and the movie) and I worked out every change from stage to screen with the producers and with Rob Marshall, the director. Despite what the New Yorker article may convey, the collaboration was genuinely collaborative and always productive.
When the conversation with the teachers occurred, I had not yet seen a full rough cut of the movie. Coincidentally, I saw it immediately after leaving the meeting and, having now seen it a couple of times, I can happily report that it is not only a faithful adaptation of the show, it is a first-rate movie.
And for those who care, as the teachers did, the Prince’s dalliance is still in the movie, and so is “Any Moment.”
Nineteen sixty-two was too late for vaudeville, and surely the Roman comedies of Plautus were known only by Latin academics. But with the debut of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, these two great comedy epochs were inextricably linked right from the first notes of “Comedy Tonight,” one of the great opening numbers of any musical.
Instead of introducing us to the characters or putting the plot in motion, it seeks only to tell the audience what kind of show they’re about to see. The song is a litany of quick, descriptive rhymes (erratic/dramatic, convulsive/repulsive, surprises/disguises) that set only mood, a lightning bolt of perfection instigated by choreographer and show doctor Jerome Robbins after two prior songs had been discarded out of town.
It’s ironic that Forum delivered such a show-stopping standard in the first five minutes, since it has been confirmed by composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim that his show’s songs were meant to give audiences a respite from laughing, as had songs in the theatre of Plautus. While Sondheim is repeatedly critical of Forum’s score in his book of annotated lyrics, Finishing the Hat, it has considerable charm, most notably “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid,” a paean to feminine domestic help, replete with built-in encores.
When first I saw the film version directed by Richard Lester, I got a taste of what the whole show might be. But I’ll admit to some disappointment, generated perhaps because I was watching alone, perhaps because film is the enemy of spontaneity, perhaps because the fully realistic design was fighting the complete artificiality that is farce. It did, however, blend Broadway originals Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford with Michaels Hordern and Crawford.
It was only when I was at university, and cast in the supporting role of henpecked, randy husband Senex in a dramatic society production, that I came to know Forum fully – and to realise that bookwriters Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart were the true masterminds, even though by then I had completely fallen for Sondheim via Sweeney Todd.
Forum’s criss-crossing plots – the slave Pseudolus’s desire to be a free man, the Roman boy Hero’s search for love, the virgin Philia’s resignation to a life bound to a man by contract, Hysterium’s impotent efforts to keep order, Erronius’s search for his lost children – built one upon the other. This carefully wrought framework made room for leggy chorus girls, repeatedly mistaken identities, well-honed schtick and some wonderfully low puns. Whatever the merits of that college production, the show’s brilliant construction ensured that we were met by gales of laughter each night.
Convulsed audiences seem almost guaranteed in Forum – theatre history bears out its Broadway success originally with Mostel and a decade later in revival with Phil Silvers, then two decades after that with Nathan Lane, followed by Whoopi Goldberg. Frankie Howerd launched the show in London in 1963 and now another British comic favourite, James Corden is rumoured for the forthcoming Broadway revival. The talk of Corden seems both genius and a no-brainer, since One Man, Two Guvnors‘ Francis Henshall is a direct spiritual descendent of Pseudolus in his appetites, his self-made muddles and his manipulative ingenuity under pressure.
There is perhaps something perverse in championing Forum, since it flouts so much of what we’re told a musical should do. The songs say little about the characters, and don’t advance the story. It requires choreography, but demands little true dancing. In its emphasis on plotting, it does away with music altogether in the latter half of the second act (as does another favourite, plot-heavy musical, 1776). But Forum, a couple of millennia after Plautus and more than a half-century since its debut, is a marvel of gleefully saucy yet wholly innocent vintage and modern farce that wants nothing more than to leave you spent from laughter, humming a catchy tune. What’s not to love about that?
Note: I fear the headline that ran with this piece was misleading, since the column focused more on how companies not known for traditional musical theatre were making it a part of their producing mix. That said, if the resources expended on opera were allocated to new musicals then, well, wouldn’t it be loverly?
Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson in Sweeney Todd. Nathan Lane reprising his career-making role in Guys and Dolls. Film actor Billy Zane and musical veteran Jenn Gambatese in The Sound of Music. Three intriguing stage productions with one common thread: none was produced by a theatre company.
Respectively, they were mounted by the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall and Chicago Lyric Opera. They drew upon Broadway artists, but none were on Broadway.
It seems that when non-theatre companies want a sure thing they turn to musicals. While theatre companies, subsidized and commercial alike, seek to sustain audiences amid an array of entertainment options and ever-escalating price barriers, musicals are offered as budget balancers by symphonies and opera companies, with ever greater frequency. That’s on top of theatre companies which were once devoted solely to dramatic works having made an annual musical de rigeur. And when it comes to the big halls, it’s big names, both for titles and performers.
These events owe a great deal to the Encores! series at City Center, which has proven the significant audience for limited run versions of great musicals, some rarely seen. But they also attest to the broad appeal of musicals when companies step outside their own repertoire.
Thirty years ago, it was considered startling when the late New York City Opera embraced Sweeney Todd. Theatre only seems to attempt opera perhaps once every decade or so, notably with Baz Luhrman’s La Bohème and Peter Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen. It seems that when it comes to producing across disciplines, for theatres it’s primarily a one-way street.
With the English National Opera’s announcement of plans to produce commercial musicals, it’s not quite the “unique” venture cited in their announcement. In their efforts to “embrace the new climate where audiences seem to enjoy the blurring of boundaries between opera, theatre and musicals,” one cannot help but wonder how the balance will play out if a West End berth, as stated, is a goal for these projects. Several years ago, the Metropolitan Opera announced a joint venture with its neighbor Lincoln Center Theater to develop works along such lines, but it has yielded little.
Given the budgets for major operas, or the musical richness of a full symphony, it’s easy to see why musical theatre artists would be eager to work outside their usual sphere. But so long as musicals are viewed as cash cows, economic pressure will dictate reliance on the tried and true, with the same repertoire being repeatedly mined by ever more groups. What musical theatre really needs is more resources and new models for sustaining new works beyond the hit or flop reality of Broadway and the West End. If only the symphonies and opera companies could help out there.
Sesame Street music director Bill Sherman with Elmo and Zoe on the set. Sherman won a Tony Award for In the Heights in 2008 and has recruited Broadway peers to compose for the children’s show. (Photo: Howard Sherman)
You know how to get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. But do you know how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?
Turns out there’s a shortcut from New York’s theater district — and it’s landed a number of Broadway’s top songwriting talents on the venerable children’s program.
The man to see is Bill Sherman, a 2008 Tony Award winner for his work on orchestrations for Inthe Heights. Sherman is in his fifth season as music director for Sesame Street. Back when he started the job, Broadway’s songwriters were an obvious go-to.
“I knew them,” he shrugs. “It was easy access. I was trusting songwriters I knew and loved.”
He’s since discovered that no matter whom he calls, Sesame Street meets with universal enthusiasm. “Everybody will stop some really important thing they should be doing and really focus on this.”
From A College Buddy To Strangers In The Biz
Sherman’s first call, five seasons back, was to Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer and lyricist of In the Heights. “Lin has been my best friend for 10 years,” Sherman says. “We went to college together, so asking him to write a song was very easy.”
Miranda was followed by other Heights alumni, Alex Lacamoire and Chris Jackson, and by composers Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Last Five Years), Justin Paul (A Christmas Story) and Tom Kitt (Next To Normal). And while some of these artists typically write both music and lyrics, Sesame Street primarily taps into their composing skills.
“So much of what we do is curriculum-based that it has to go through many levels of approval,” Sherman explains. “So most of the lyrics come from the [Sesame Street] scriptwriters.”
Miranda, an adept lyricist, says being forced to focus solely on the music was “enormous fun.”
“It’s easier than usual, since lyrics take longer,” he says — though he’s quick to note that he confers with the show’s wordsmiths.
“The writer will say, ‘It’s very Harry Belafonte; it’s Ravel’s Bolero; it will build and build.’ You get a sense of what they were thinking, of the rhythm that’s in their heads.”
With “Elmo the Musical,” More Shots At The Spotlight
Sesame Street‘s musical universe expanded further when the show introduced its “Elmo the Musical” segments — stand-alone bits, eight to 10 minutes long, that take place entirely in the imagination of the childlike red fuzzball.
The Elmo the Musical segments are through-composed — musicalized from start to finish — “so each composer had their chance to really sink their teeth into the music,” Sherman says. “It became their episode, their thing. We tried to figure out a way to use the composers’ strengths for whatever particular episode it was.”
An installment called “Detective,” for instance, “asked for this complex, jazzy [sound], and Jason Robert Brown is known for that.”
Like all the composers, Brown — who’s never met Sherman — jumped at the opportunity.
“I had a 2-year-old who stared at Elmo all day long,” Brown says. “So there was nothing better than that.”
Then came the kicker: That episode’s script was to be written by John Weidman, a Sesame Street veteran and co-creator, with Stephen Sondheim, of iconic musicals like Assassins and Pacific Overtures.
“I called him and said, ‘So we’re finally writing a show together, only it’s for a furry red puppet,’ ” Brown says. “When I got the recording of Elmo, I could not have been more excited if it had been Frank Sinatra, if it had been Joni Mitchell.”
This fall, as puppeteer David Rudman laid down Cookie Monster’s vocal track on Tom Kitt’s “If Me Had a Magic Wand,” Kitt described the song using an old-school musical-theater term. It’s “a soaring, emotional ‘I want’ moment,” he said, a readily identifiable, recognizably Broadway kind of sound.
But as Sherman is quick to point out, the “Broadway sound” is very much in flux.
“I’ve been part of musical-theater situations that pushed boundaries, that brought new sounds to Broadway. Taking this job, like [working on] In the Heights, was an opportunity to put new sounds in kids’ ears. People assume musical theater is vaudevillian, epic ballads and tap-dance numbers. So to turn that on its head and bring in audiences that don’t go to Broadway shows is important to me.”
Is it a challenge for these sophisticated writers to gear their work for toddlers? “Sometimes,” says Sherman, “composers think that because it’s Sesame Street, they have to dumb it down. … [But] these days children have unbelievably sophisticated ears. I think dumbing it down is disrespectful to kids.”
“That’s Not What Cookie Monster Sounds Like”
When composers have kids of their own, they’ve got an in-house test panel. Brown did demos, complete with character voices, for his daughter.
“Her response was, ‘That’s not what Cookie Monster sounds like,’ ” he reports.
Sherman has met with greater success at home.
“If my 3-year-old hears something, and 15 to 20 minutes later she’s still singing it, then I know I did the right thing,” he says. “If the 1-year-old dances to it, then I know that it sounds right.”
There might well be more musical theater in Sesame Street‘s future; Sherman admits he’d like to work with Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin) and Marc Shaiman (Hairspray).
And there’s one more big fish he’d like to land — the whale of the business, really.
“We toyed a bit with going after Sondheim,” he said. “We haven’t gone that route yet, but to call up Stephen and see if he was down [for it], that’d be funny. Why not?”
During the 2012/13 Broadway season, a total of nine new musicals appeared on Broadway (hitting the average annual level of recent years). Of those nine, only four are still running. As I write, there are seven new musicals playing Off-Broadway, with an eighth due in a few weeks; there may well be others. What does it tell us when 12 months of Broadway yields just about as much new musical material as we find Off-Broadway in only a couple of months?
To be fair, many of the Off-Broadway musicals are limited runs in the seasons of subsidised companies, and two are commercial transfers from such companies from earlier this year. Only one will play in a theatre which is comparable in size to Broadway venues, and in that case it’s under the auspices of Shakespeare in the Park; most are in spaces where one week of performances equals the capacity of one Broadway performance. A transferred Off-Broadway hit can easily become a Broadway casualty given the commercial demands of larger theatres and higher costs.
Certainly, hit Off-Broadway musicals are hardly new; one need only look to The Fantasticks, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, Godspell and Little Shop of Horrors for precursors, and it’s unlikely the current new shows will ever attain the longevity of those icons. But in recent years, the standard model has tended much more towards the Off-Broadway to Broadway transfer for success, as evidenced by shows ranging from Rent to Avenue Q to The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Even shows that began in rudimentary stagings at the New York International Fringe Festival and the New York Musical Theatre Festival have fought their way to Broadway, including Urinetown and Next to Normal.
Surveying the variety of material, it would appear that the modest scale of Off-Broadway allows for a greater range of topics and styles than the Great White Way, from the sung through pop opera of Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (based on a portion of War and Peace, and performed in a tent) to David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s Imelda Marcos disco bio Here Lies Love. There’s one musical that is drawn from a film (Far From Heaven) and two with their roots in Shakespeare (Venice, after Othello, and Love’s Labour’s Lost). Several adopt variations on an environmental, break-the-proscenium approach (Here Lies Love, Murder Ballad and Great Comet). None model themselves on the formula of the classic American musical.
I suspect that no one is getting rich off of these productions, while the backers of Kinky Boots, Matilda and Motown on Broadway will surely do quite well over time. For these Off- Broadway musicals to become true earners for all involved, they will either have to manage sustained runs under a commercial model, on Broadway or Off, or spawn productions across the country and abroad. But even if that doesn’t come to pass, what they are doing is providing a superb showcase for predominantly new talent and unexpected subjects; they are bolstering the musical repertory at a pace at least equal to Broadway and building the reputations of artists.
This shouldn’t suggest that musical success Off-Broadway is a breeze, and it’s worth noting that many of these shows are only mounted with significant donor underwriting or “enhancement” from producers who hope the property will turn out to be Broadway-worthy. But with different scale and different expectations, Off-Broadway musicals may well be supplanting Broadway in advancing the form.
Hindsight doesn’t benefit anyone, but it is hard to resist wondering whether the short-lived Hands on a Hardbody might have fared better at director Neil Pepe’s Atlantic Theatre Company instead of in a Broadway theatre. Ironically, that was the birthplace of Spring Awakening, a musical that had struggled through a number of developmental productions over the years only to find praise, first Off- Broadway, then on.
There’s an old saying that one can’t make a living on Broadway, but can make a killing. It’s not easy to make a living off of Off-Broadway musicals either, but you can build a career.
There is one strong theme that emerges in these plays, which is that the authors see theatre as purer than Hollywood, and indeed that the film industry is a corrupting influence on artists. Although some of the works show great affection for film genres, the actual process by which movies get made gets low marks from playwrights, and it’s up to the viewers or historians to determine whether that perception comes from experience, jealousy or sheer invention. But overall, playwrights don’t seem to regard the business of moviemaking as representative of or conducive to the creation of art (and producers take a particular hit). Hollywood is not much good for your moral fiber either.
There are many shows that are parodies of or homages to particular films or film genres; one need only look to the work of Charles Ludlam and Charles Busch to find countless examples. But they are about the product of Hollywood, rather than moviemaking itself, so save for a handful of broadly encompassing examples, curtain-to-curtain parodies of genre films do not appear on this list.
This list also highlights the fluidity of stories between film and theatre, as once again there are entries that appeared on the earlier lists, having either begun life as a play and then become a movie, or vice versa, as well as plays that present theatre and film in counterpoint to one another within the same script. It’s also worth noting how often the names of George S. Kaufman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green appear in the list; clearly they had a lot to say on the subject of movies.
Please note that I have defined my territory as plays about the movies, not the entire entertainment industry of Hollywood. Consequently, with a few exceptions, plays about the music industry (Buh-bye, Dreamgirls!) and in particular television (Sorry, The Ruby Sunrise! Apologies, The Farnsworth Invention!) don’t appear. Screen adaptations of plays, and vice versa, would be another blog altogether, and that’s been written about plenty of times anyway.
As always, I don’t pretend that this list is so exhaustively researched as to be definitive. Instead, I hope it’s merely the jumping off point for readers to add their own knowledge to the piece by listing other examples in the comments section.
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ADULT EDUCATION by Elaine May It’s by pure alphabetical accident, but how fitting that a singular screenwriter and one-time improv comedy darling chose the stage to send up the porn film industry and landed first on this list. May’s comedy imagines the scenario if a bunch of adult film stars and their director developed artistic pretensions and attempted to make a film of insight and value. Compared to many of the plays discussed below, May’s comedy takes an affectionate view of her characters, rather than simply hitting the fairly easy target that is XXX-filmmaking.
AMAZONS AND THEIR MEN by Jordan Harrison As “Hitler’s filmmaker,” Leni Riefenstahl has been admired for her technical skills and reviled for her collaboration with the Nazi regime, as well as her subsequent disavowals of any political aims of her own. So, referred to only as The Frau, she gets her comeuppance in this imagining of a true-life event, in which she attempts and fails to make a movie about Achilles’ battle with the Amazons, as did Riefenstahl as World War II was breaking out.
ANGEL CITY by Sam Shepard Based on Shepard’s own experiences working on the screenplay of Zabriskie Point for Michelangelo Antonioni, this early work portrays a trio of unlikely screenwriters summoned by reprehensible producers to help salvage a film in a nightmare vision of Hollywood that leads to its destruction.
THE BIG KNIFE by Clifford Odets A film producer blackmails a star, threatening to reveal his role in a drunk driving accident that killed a child, in a drama drawn both from the life of Odets, who had an unhappy screenwriting career, and that of his original leading man and muse, John Garfield. It marked Odets’ return to Broadway after a six-year hiatus; his subsequent work, The Country Girl, was the greater success.
THE BIOGRAPH GIRL book by Warner Brown, music by David Heneker, lyrics by Brown and Heneker The intertwined fortunes of Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, Adolph Zukor and D.W. Griffith form the core of this British musical that charts the rise and fall of silent films. Though praised for charm and wit, the show doesn’t fail to attend to the racial issues provoked by Griffith’s Birth of a Nation and the financial impact of the movies’ skyrocketing popularity.
BOY MEETS GIRL by Bella and Sam Spewack A madcap farce about two Hollywood screenwriters (possibly modeled on Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur) who are looking to put a new twist into the old formula that gives the show its name, but the most available “girl” is a widow whose bigamist husband has left her with their infant son, Happy, who becomes a major film star.
BRECHT IN HOLLYWOOD devised by Goran Stefanovski Although it promises the story of Brecht’s sojourn in California, that goes unremarked upon in this loose assemblage of Brecht’s work that may be most notable for featuring, in its London premiere production, Vanessa Redgrave in tap shoes.
BRECHT IN L.A. by Rick Mitchell The clash between Brecht’s personal philosophies about life and theatre and the materialistic, populist mindset of the film community form the core of the drama about the noted playwright’s life in California, during which he had trouble finding work, collaborated with Charles Laughton on a stage production of Galileo, and was ultimately called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
The CHARLIE CHAPLIN Shows (Chaplin with book, music and lyrics by Anthony Newley; Chaplin with book by Ernest Kinoy, music by Roger Anderson and lyrics by Lee Goldsmith; Charlie Chaplin Goes to War (aka Chaplin) by Simon Bradbury and Dan Kamin; Limelight aka Behind the Limelight, book by Thomas Meehan, music and lyrics by Christopher Curtis) Certain figures in Hollywood seem to provide endless source material for dramatists and musical writers alike. Charlie Chaplin, perhaps because his movie ouevre is silent while his personal life spoke volumes, has been the subject of numerous stage portrayals. What is remarkable is that with many efforts, only a handful of which are listed, none has become a major success. Perhaps silence is golden.
CITY OF ANGELS book by Larry Gelbart, Music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by David Zippel This structurally ingenious musical toggles between the film noir story of tough guy gumshoe Stone and the Hollywood travails of his creator, screenwriter Stine, battling the usual studio meddling with his work, even as he lives out his fantasy life through the story of Stone.
COMPLETELY HOLLYWOOD (ABRIDGED) by the Reduced Shakespeare Company While parodies of films abound and are largely absent from this list, I would be remiss (and berated by the playwrights) if I did not make mention of this break-neck, ingenious compendium of filmmaking’s 100-plus-year history through condensations 186 great films, ranging alphabetically from Airplane! to The Wrong Man (what, no Zardoz?).
THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN by Martin McDonagh Rooted in the true-life making of Robert Flaherty’s quasi-documentary Man of Aran, set on the poverty stricken Islands off the coast of Ireland, McDonagh’s protagonist in “Cripple Billy” Clavan, who sees the arrival of a film crew in his otherwise stultifying community as a way up and perhaps out.
A DAY IN HOLLYWOOD/A NIGHT IN THE UKRAINE book by Dick Vosburgh, music by Frank Lazarus, lyrics by Vosburgh I certainly can’t skip this light-hearted entertainment romanticizing Hollywood films, which is really two unrelated one-acts, or more accurately, a first-act revue mixing new and classic songs, and a second act Marx Brothers-styled comedy (adapted from Chekhov’s The Bear, no less) with an original score. Tommy Tune’s Broadway staging lifted some ideas he had previously used in the musical DOUBLE FEATURE by Jeffrey Moss, which he had co-directed at the Long Wharf Theatre; that show contrasted the relationships of two present-day couples with the great romances of the silver screen.
THE DISENCHANTED by Budd Schulberg and Harvey Breit Although it has much more on its mind than just Hollywood, this little-remembered Tony-nominee for Best Play in the early 60s, drawn from Schulberg’s novel, won Jason Robards Jr. a Tony for his portrayal of a dissipated novelist at the end of his failed career in Hollywood, assigned to research a frothy entertainment by observing a college winter carnival, chaperoned by an aspiring screenwriter. Substitute F. Scott Fitzgerald and Schulberg himself for the play’s lead characters and you have a quasi-fictional account of an actual trip the two men took as “research” at the behest of movie execs in Fitzgerald’s final days.
EPIC PROPORTIONS by Larry Coen and David Crane Seen Off-Broadway in 1986 and then again on Broadway in 1999 (with co-writer Crane creating a sitcom you may have heard of called Friends in the interim), this comedy, despite the claim of its title, is an intimate behind the scenes look at the making of a Cecil B. DeMille-type biblical epic devoid of DeMille’s talent or budget.
FADE OUT, FADE IN book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Comden and Green A chorus girl is accidently chosen to star in a film, which inexplicably gets made before anyone discovers the mistake, at which point the movie is shelved. But when the film is let out of the can for a sneak preview, both it and its unlikely star become successes. This little seen musical ran on the strength of its star, Carol Burnett, although at one point she attempted to depart the production and was forced back in due to her contractual commitment.
FILM IS EVIL, RADIO IS GOOD by Richard Foreman Lest we neglect the avant-garde, theatrical innovator and enigma-generator Foreman lays out his thesis in his title and proceeds with an elliptical debate on the subject, punctuating it in the original production with, paradoxically, a very good film, and letting the audience draw his take on the theatre from the play they’re watching that juxtaposes the other mediums.
FLIGHT Conceived by Steve Pearson, text by Robyn Hunt Drawn from a true story from 100 years ago, the multifaceted story of two young French actresses who take a break from a production of The Seagull (note metaphor) to serve as a flight team in the early days of aviation. Movies enter the picture as Alisse, a documentary filmmaker, chronicles the endeavor.
FORBIDDEN HOLLYWOOD by Gerard Alessandrini Much like his series of Forbidden Broadway shows, Alessandrini’s Hollywood foray was a send up of both movies themselves as well as the business and gossip behind them, using tunes from classic movie musicals.
FOUR DOGS AND A BONE by John Patrick Shanley Moral bankruptcy abounds in Shanley’s satire of filmmaking as two actresses attempt to manipulate a screenwriter for larger roles in a low-budget film, while a take-no-prisoners producer pursues his own agenda. This 1993 comedy follows Shanley’s Oscar-winning hit Moonstruck and his less-successful directing debut with Joe Vs. The Volcano, but predates Congo, which became his last screenplay credit for 13 years.
GENIUSES by Jonathan Reynolds A biting look at Hollywood in general and the runaway production history of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now in particular, Reynolds’ characters belie the play’s title at every turn, from the sadomasochistic art director to the Hemingway-emulating make-up man, to the jaded screenwriter; the only smart person in evidence is the bimbo (and director’s mistress) brought in to doff her clothes gratuitously at one point in the film. Given the enduring legacy of the Coppola film (itself the subject of a documentary by Coppola’s wife, Hearts of Darkness), it’s surprising no one has revived this comedy for a new generation.
GOLDILOCKS book by Walter and Jean Kerr, music by Leroy Anderson, lyrics by Joan Ford and The Kerrs A sharp tongued actress who’s about to forsake the stage for marriage to a fat cat and an egomaniacal producer who latches onto her as his next big screen star battle their way to romance in this little-remembered Broadway musical that featured no less than Elaine Stritch and Don Ameche in the pre-sound era. Just imagine: Elaine Stritch, but no sound…
A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FILM by Christopher Durang, music by Mel Marvin, lyrics by Durang A mad dash through some 40 years of movie genres, as five classic character types journey through plotlines reminiscent of film staples. At once an homage to and comment on the content of Hollywood product, the show achieved a remarkable “hat trick” premiere, opening in entirely separate productions at Hartford Stage, Arena Stage and the Mark Taper Forum only a few weeks apart from each other.
HOLLYWOOD EXPOSED by Michael Tester Another spoof of Hollywood genres, featuring Friday the 13th, The Ballet; Maria von Trapp endorsing Valium; Elmer Fudd appearing in Singin’ in the Wayne and selections from Dirty Harry Dancing and A Very Brady Exorcist.
HOLLYWOOD PINAFORE, OR THE LAD WHO LOVED A SALARY book and lyrics by George S. Kaufman, music by Sir Arthur Sullivan Debuting on Broadway only a week after Memphis Bound took the same source material, Gilbert and Sullivan’sH.M.S. Pinafore, on a trip to the American south, Kaufman’s version used it as the framework for a Hollywood satire in which a young starlet is promised in marriage to a studio head by her ambitious director father, while she really loves a disgraced screenwriter. It managed on 52 performances in 1945 (16 better than Bound).
HURLYBURLY by David Rabe Think that Hollywood is filled with narcissistic, substance-abusing, morally bankrupt low-lifes focused on their own gratification? Then this is the play for you.
I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES by Neil Simon Listed more for its title than its topic, Simon’s 18th play focused more much on the rapprochement behind a father and his estranged daughter, but it has its share of Hollywood humor thanks to the father’s formerly successful, now blocked, career as a screenwriter.
KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN In the darkest of circumstances, a filthy jail in a Latin American country, two political prisoners sustain themselves by escaping from hellish reality into fantasies of the motion pictures, one of the few examples on this list where the movies are lifelines. Available in both play (by original novelist Manuel Puig) and musical (by John Kander, Fred Ebb and Terrence McNally) versions.
LIKE TOTALLY WEIRD by William Mastrosimone Two teenaged delinquents break into the home of a schlock action film producer and proceed to terrorize the man and his girlfriend by recreating scenes from the producer’s own films. A seemingly exploitative play that examines the responsibility of those who create senseless violence for public consumption.
THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED by Douglas Carter Beane A scathing and hilarious look at Hollywood mores and double-standards, Beane’s sharp comedy about a fast-talking, amoral agent who’s trying, by any means necessary, to keep her young star client from coming out of the closet manages to have its cake and eat it too, because the crass, soulless agent is also the most perceptive and funniest person on the stage.
LOOPED by Matthew Lombardo Although Tallulah Bankhead was better known for her stage work and for her flamboyant and risque public persona, this recent Broadway outing chose to focus on the star as she struggles to re-record a single line of dialogue for an undistinguished film thriller, earning it a place on this list. Bankhead has proven a favorite of stage writers and stars, generating numerous shows about her life, includingTallulah, book by William F. Brown, lyrics by Mae Richard, Music by Ted Simon; Tallulah by Sandra Ryan Howard; Tallulah Who? with book by William Rushton, music and lyrics by Suzi Quatro and Shirlie Roden; Tallulah, A Memory by Eugenie Rawls; and Tallulah Hallelujah! By Larry Amoros, Tovah Feldshuh and Linda Selman.
MACK AND MABEL book by Michael Stewart , music and lyrics by Jerry Herman The intertwined professional and personal lives of early filmmaker Mack Sennett and his leading lady Mabel Normand are the basis for this much-tinkered-with musical about their romance. A favorite of musical theatre buffs, it has a hard time reconciling the darker aspects of the true-life tale to the musical comedy conventions that were still in place when it was created, resulting in numerous attempts to “fix” the show in the more than 35 years since its short-lived Broadway premiere.
A MAP OF THE WORLD by David Hare An extremely complex play which takes place in Bombay at a 1978 UNESCO conference on poverty, as well as at a contemporary British film studio where a movie is being made about the conference’s behind-the-scenes events, based upon a novel about the conference. Needless to say, the film of the novel of the conference is highly reductive, highlighting the failure of moviemaking to do justice to either the novel or its factual basis.
MARILYN: AN AMERICAN FABLE book by Patricia Michaels; music and lyrics by many collaborators Though inevitably any retelling of the short, tragic life of Marilyn Monroe would at face value be bound to be an indictment of Hollywood, this musical treatment focused more on her men than her movies. But hers was a Hollywood life after all, so this merits inclusion, despite the Broadway production being, you should pardon the expression, a candle in the wind.
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG book by George Furth, music and lyrics by Stephen SondheimWhile the anti-hero of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s original play was a theatrical success, Furth and Sondheim begin their backward-moving musical with their compromised writer having sold out to Hollywood after having begun in the theatre. Sharp barbs are tossed at movie society in the earlier parts of the show, before we move backwards to a time of more integrity and before that, aspiration.
MERTON OF THE MOVIES by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly A bad actor becomes a comedy star when producer realize his incompetence in drama results in successful comedy. Quite remarkably, the play debuted in 1922, based on a 1919 book, making it one of the earliest stage satires of Hollywood and finding success while the silent film era was still in full swing.
MINNIE’S BOYS book by Arthur Marx and Robert Fisher, music by Larry Grossman, lyrics by Hal Hackady This is included only to point out why it doesn’t belong here. The story of the Marx Brothers and their mom (a regular Mama Rose was she), focuses entirely on their vaudeville days and ends with their discovering their trademark personas, which were honed on stage before being transferred to Hollywood.
MIZLANSKY/ZILINSKY, OR SCHMUCKS by Jon Robin Baitz Schlock producer Davis Mizlansky has the I.R.S. breathing down his neck as he works to convince his partner Sam Zilinsky to embrace the idea of celebrity retellings of Bible stories for children, such as “Sodom and Gomorrah: The True Story,” even though the backer for the project may also be a Nazi sympathizer.
MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS by Ron Hutchinson Focused on the five days in which producer David O. Selznick, writer Ben Hecht and Victor Fleming rewrote the screenplay of Gone With the Wind, this true-life tale chooses to play artistic desperation and potential financial ruin for laughs. Of course, we know the resulting film was a big hit, so there’s little need for reverence or any genuine suspense.
MY FAVORITE YEAR book by Joseph Dougherty, music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens Although it’s one of the many fictionalized dramatizations of life behind the scenes at Sid Caesar’s television hit Your Show of Shows, MFY belongs on this list because of its portrayal of Alan Swann, a dissipated one-time swashbuckling star, now reduced to a guest shot on the new medium known as television, and the idealized Hollywood dreams of our protagonist, young Benjy Stone, that, as a result of Swann’s personal failings, are forced to fall by the wayside. Life is not like the movies at all.
NINE book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston Fellini’s film 8 1/2 is the basis for this highly stylized musical about film director Guido Contini and the many women in his life. While the backdrop is moviemaking (although in this case Cinecitta rather than Warner Brothers), it’s the relationships that form the backbone of the episodic story.
ONCE IN A LIFETIME by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman A light-hearted satire of three out of work actors who head west to find work in the new field of talking pictures, convinced that their stage training will give them an edge over the once-silent stars of the era, this was first written by Hart and subsequently polished in partnership with Kaufman in the first of their eight collaborations. The show was promised several years ago as a musical, GOING HOLLYWOOD, by David Zippel, Jonathan Sheffer and Joe Leonardo, but it has yet to materialize.
PASSIONELLA from The Apple Tree, book by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, music by Bock and lyrics by Harnick The final chapter of Bock and Harnick’s tripartite chamber musical is drawn from Jules Feiffer‘s illustrated subversion of the Cinderella tale, in which a chimney sweeping drudge is transformed into a glamorous movie star. For the trivia minded, this was the second effort to bring Passionella to the musical stage; the earlier failed version was by Feiffer and some guy named Sondheim.
POPCORN by Ben Elton Stop me if you’ve heard this one: two killers on a serial murder spree hole up at the home of the schlock action film producer whose movies have inspired them and, knowing they’re likely to be caught soon, force the producer to accept the responsibility for their own depraved behavior. Adapted from Elton’s own 1996 novel of the same name.
ROAD TO NIRVANA (aka BONE-THE-FISH) by Arthur Kopit A conflation of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow and its original much-hyped Broadway production starring Madonna, this structurally and dramatically similar play expresses its own contempt for the state of modern Hollywood but seems to have contempt for Mr. Mamet’s tale as well, in this case telling the story of a rock star who attempts to pass off Moby Dick as her autobiography, with her in the place of Ahab, and the competitive producers vying to one-up each other.
THE ROYAL FAMILY by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman Yes, yes, I know it’s primarily focused on its two leading ladies, stage doyennes Fanny and Julie Cavendish, and modeled on The Barrymores, but there are more than a few poisoned arrows pointed at Hollywood via the character of Tony Cavendish, who has forsaken the stage for the louche and lucrative world of the screen.
SEARCH AND DESTROY by Howard Korder A morally bankrupt young man on the lam from the I.R.S. takes refuge where only such an empty vessel can succeed: Hollywood, where he embarks on a series of misadventures including drug abuse and murder in preparation for producing his first movie, Dead World.
SHAKESPEARE IN HOLLYWOOD by Ken Ludwig Based in the true-life making of the classic film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by recent refugee Max Reinhardt, the farceur Ludwig ups the ante by having the “real” Oberon and Puck materialize on the film set to complicate the production.
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN book adapted by Betty Comden and Adolph Green from their screenplay, with pre-existing songs Amidst so many dark visions, Singin’ in the Rain is a ray of sunshine of stage shows about the movies, admittedly a straightforward adaptation of the utterly delightful love letter to Hollywood that is the original film, turning on the transition from silent films to talkies. One of the early cases of an original film musical subsequently being turned into a stage vehicle, the stage Singin’ marked the Broadway debut of Twyla Tharp as director and choreographer.
SLASHER by Allison Moore If the making of porn can be the subject of a stage play about movies, then the slasher genre should get a shot (or cleaver, or buzzsaw) too. Moore’s play portrays Sheena, a Texas waitress who secures a role in a low-budget horror film shooting nearby in order to make ends meet, the prospect of which causes her wheelchair-bound mother to go…CRAZY! A simultaneous spoof of horror films and feminist commentary on their objectification of women.
SPEED-THE-PLOW by David Mamet A crass, driven Hollywood big shot comes to question his profession and his purpose when he has to choose between making a sure-hit blockbuster and an esoteric film championed by his temp assistant. Like so many plays of Mamet, an accomplished screenwriter and film director, the story particulars are less important than the gender politics and macho battles that erupt within it.
STONES IN HIS POCKETS by Marie Jones Not unlike The Cripple of Inishmaan, Stones portrays the effects of a film crew’s arrival on a small Irish village, once the location for filming of The Quiet Man, although in this case the film is big budget Hollywood epic and the entire village is portrayed by only two men. While it has its share of standard Hollywood satirical jokes, Stones manages to retain a vision of Hollywood as a dream factory and America as a land paved with gold, even as it shares some darker stories of the filming, including the one that gives the play its name.
SUNSET BOULEVARD book by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Black and Hampton The classic film noir by Billy Wilder, of a forgotten silent screen siren who dreams of a comeback and her ill-fated dalliance with a down on his luck screenwriter, is transferred to the stage with a good bit of its tawdriness intact. The deluded, pathetic, grasping Norma Desmond and her kept man Joe Gillis encapsulate everything that’s was wrong with Hollywood for two different generations.
THEDA BARA AND THE FRONTIER RABBI book by Jeff Hochhauser, music by Bob Johnston, lyrics by Hochhauser and Johnston A young rabbi’s forbidden attraction to the films of silver screen siren Theda Bara, Bara’s true identity as Theodosia Goodman (who just wants to find a nice Jewish boy to settle down with), and the efforts of one Selwyn Farp to have the rabbi lead a movie industry watchdog group form the basis of this musical romantic comedy that manages to mix religious issues into the standard tale of Hollywood allure and true life values.
THE VAMP book by John LaTouche and Sam Locke, music by James Mundy, lyrics by LaTouche Created as a vehicle for Carol Channing, this musical take-off on the silent screen career of – here she is again – Theda Bara proved one of Channing’s rare flops (60 performances), of which she later wrote that she should have simply walked out while it was out-of-town in Washington.
TRUE WEST by Sam Shepard Though it’s the sibling rivalry that most recall about this Shepard comedy, one shouldn’t forget that at the start, brother Austin is at work on a screenplay, one of the four characters is an unctuous film producer, and the filmic metaphor of what the west really represents gets trashed as the brothers metamorphose as a result of their dangerous proximity.
TWENTIETH CENTURY by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur/ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Comden & Green Although the main focus is on theatre in both the play and musical version of a down on his luck theatrical producer who works to woo his one-time protégée back to the stage and into his arms, there are zingers aplenty for Hollywood as producer Oscar Jaffe works to win a contract out of screen siren Lily Garland (nee Mildred Plotka).
WHAT A GLORIOUS FEELING by Jay Berkow with pre-existing songs Belonging to the “let’s look behind the scenes of a movie we all know well,” this play with songs focuses on the romantic triangle between Singin’ in the Rain‘s co-directors Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen and the film’s dance captain and Donen’s ex-wife Jeanne Coyne. Portrayals of producer Arthur Freed and leading lady Debbie Reynolds round out the cast. And for those who shout “jukebox musical,” just remember that the originalSingin’ didn’t have original songs either; they were drawn from a back catalogue of 20 to 30 years vintage.
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While I began with a disclaimer regarding the completeness of the list you’ve just read, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that a new addition will be making its debut very shortly: BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK by Lynn Nottage. Because the play has not yet had its world premiere — it begins previews in April at New York’s Second Stage) — I will borrow a synopsis from that theatre’s marketing copy: “the life of Vera Stark, a headstrong African-American maid and budding actress, and her tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star desperately grasping to hold on to her career. When circumstances collide and both women land roles in the same Southern epic, the story behind the cameras leaves Vera with a surprising and controversial legacy.” And thus another play about the movies is born.
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I would like to thank the many folks who helped me to build this list, even those whose suggestions may not have made the cut as a result of my arbitrary and mercurial nature and guidelines. Via Twitter, I give my appreciation to: @awkwarddanny, @bengougeon, @charlenevsmith, @danaboll, @devonvsmith,
Via Facebook and e-mail, I am indebted to Casey Childs, Roger Danforth, Michael Dove, Jane Lipka Helfgott, Larry Hirschhorn, Dawson Howard, Ben Pesner, Heather Randall, Scott Rice, Ellen Richard, Eric Savitz, Susan L. Schulman, Ed Windels, and Randall Wreghitt. MVP goes to Bert Fink.
