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.
The issue, to me, is not whether Peter Pan is played by a man or a woman. The issue is whether Peter Pan has to be white.
Perhaps I should back up.
Mary Martin as Peter Pan
On Sunday afternoon, via tweets (and later articles) resulting from the semi-annual Television Critics Association press conferences in Los Angeles, NBC announced that the follow-up to their ratings hit The Sound of Music Live would be Peter Pan Live, utilizing the stage musical from the 50s which had already been performed live on NBC a half-century ago, in 1955, 1956 and 1960. As it had on stage, the production starred Mary Martin in one of her several signature roles.
The announcement set off a wave of dream casting on Twitter; I was one of many who called for thoughts, as did Scott Heller, deputy arts & leisure editor at The New York Times. The suggestions came quickly. “Bieber!” was shouted repeatedly, apparently with no one thinking about his recent erratic behavior and how that might work in a live scenario. Journalist Mark Harris jumped in with “Chris Colfer, call your agent,” which in the immediate rush struck me as a pretty good idea. One shrewd person proposed Taylor Mac, a fascinating thought. Elisabeth Vincentelli wrote a piece for the New York Post in which she suggested, among others, Hayden Panettiere, Daniel Radcliffe and Katy Perry; inviting comments separate from Elisabeth’s article, The Post asks, “Do you think America’s ready for a boy Peter? A tattooed one?” avoiding the more pressing question I ask.
I have no doubt there were many other ideas bandied about. But I never saw a single suggestion of a performer who was not white.
Jefferson Mays as Peter Pan at Centerstage in Baltimore (Photo by Richard Anderson)
It’s interesting that no one felt bound by gender in their musings, even though the slightly pre-adolescent Peter is typically played by an adult woman. That sense of traditionalism went right out the window (though hardly for the first time, since men have played the role before, mostly in the non-musical version). But if the Mary Martin-Sandy Duncan-Cathy Rigby dynasty was certainly up for reinvention within minutes of the announcement, why didn’t racial diversity come to anyone’s mind? Does no one remember Brandy as Cinderella in the 1997 TV movie of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, playing opposite a Filipino prince?
Granted, NBC wants a major star with the drawing power that Carrie Underwood brought to Sound of Music. If talent were the sole criteria, two performers who I think might be terrific in the role are Nikki M. James and Krysta Rodriguez. I’ve read that NBC would like to cast a male actor as Peter, and I’m sure there are countless famous choices who would suit – I wonder what Bruno Mars might do with the role.
Audra McDonald & Carrie Underwood in The Sound of Music
Of course, this breadth of thinking need not apply only to Peter: since Sound of Music and the 1999 TV movie of Annie were wise enough to cast Audra McDonald without getting tangled in the net of perceived historical accuracy (these are musicals, not textbooks after all), perhaps the Darling family and Captain Hook need not be staunchly Victorian white. I have no doubt that the corps of Lost Boys and pirates will be cast multiculturally (the Spielberg film Hook helped set that standard more than 20 years ago), since that’s the “easy” route, but it’s the leads that must show the wider world.
Brandy and Paolo Montalban in Cinderella
On a related note, I am concerned about the play’s retrograde (albeit fantasy) version of Native Americans. Having never seen the Peter Pan musical (NBC is showing a remarkable knack for picking shows that highlight gaps in my theatergoing, or perhaps my childhood, as I was also new to Sound of Music), I do wonder how the character of Tiger Lily and the songs “Indians!” and “Ugg-A-Wugg” play today, not unlike Annie Get Your Gun’s now often-excised “I’m An Indian Too.” I must leave that to those better versed in the material. And don’t get me started on how it portrays Captain Hook, one of dramatic fiction’s better known disabled characters.
Obviously I didn’t see every fantasy casting tweet, and even within the 1,000+ folks that I follow, I may have missed suggestions of actors of color. Yet the reflex of those around me, one of which I quickly endorsed, were all monochromatic suggestions, and that’s where my concerns lie. Many years after repeatedly hearing of Michael Jackson’s dream of playing Peter Pan (admittedly with a troubling overlay unique to that man), we revert to the dominant race in England from the era when the play was first written, rather than flying towards a spectrum of color on our way towards the third star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.
Breaking down blinkered thinking about race is an enormous opportunity, especially when the vehicle for doing so is a beloved family musical. The ball’s in your court, NBC – and in the court of all you dreamcasters too.
On Monday, Principal Marc Guarino of Trumbull High School in Connecticut reinstated the Thespian Troupe’s production of Rent, after three weeks of negotiation and outcry. On Tuesday, The Suffolk Times on Long Island published an interview with Southold Schools Superintendent David Gamberg in which he, acknowledging awareness of the Trumbull situation, proudly announced that Southold High School’s Drama Club would be producing the school edition of Rent in March, just like Trumbull.
But don’t cry ‘yippee.’ This isn’t a story to celebrate.
Here’s a paragraph from the article:
“What we did was we looked at the school script and we asked the teachers involved in it to really take a good look at it to make sure it’s fitting for the community,” Mr. Gamberg said. “It has a very strong and powerful message that we think is going to be very positive, but again this is based on the idea that we want to make sure that it’s very sensitive to the community as a whole. The three teachers involved are very responsible for that.”
The reporter then goes on to say that Mr. Gamberg doesn’t know what kind of modifications the school might make.
Wait a minute. Modifications?
Perhaps Mr. Gamberg isn’t aware that when you license a play for production, whether at a high school or a professional company, you are entering into a contract giving you the right to produce a copyrighted work as written. You can’t just pull out the metaphorical red pen and edit it to your own specifications. If you do, you’re in breach of contract. That’s something that rights holders and licensing companies take seriously.
The fact that some authors have permitted their works to be edited, or participated in such editing, for licensing as “school editions,” doesn’t give anyone permission to pile on and make more changes. When licensing houses find out such a thing is happening, they get very serious very fast, and that can lead to the loss of rights to the show. This post, combined with The Suffolk Times article, is all that’s needed to place your school under scrutiny. You might tell your committee of bowdlerizing teachers to take a break. Incidentally, where is the school’s principal in all this?
Now when small changes are requested for specific, defensible reasons, the licensing houses may have some latitude to work with schools on very minor revisions. They’re in the business of helping schools; they’re not monolithic ogres. But before anyone thinks this is a run of the mill copyright and license violation, you all need to know: it gets worse. Again, from the article:
“Plans for the school performance led a pair of Southold residents to contact The Suffolk Times with concerns over the school’s handling of gay characters in the play. An anonymous letter writer said the play was inappropriate since it could “put students in the position to have to play gay/lesbian or drug addicted [characters.]” One parent said her child believed the district was making changes that might offend gay students, including a decision to cast a female to play the role of the drag queen Angel, which is traditionally played by a male actor in school, community and professional productions.
When asked about a female student being cast to play Angel, Mr. Gamberg, who said he didn’t know if any casting decisions had been finalized yet, said, “I think that goes in line with being sensitive and making sure it’s appropriate for school. I don’t think it’s going to be written and spoken in a way that’s going to be seen as inappropriate. That’s the kind of sensitivity that [teachers are] looking at.”
Well, Mr. Gamberg, now you’ve done it. The storyline of Angel is very specifically written as a gay male role. To suggest you can simply change the performer to female fundamentally alters the work and seems designed, at the very least, to eliminate the drag queen element of the character – which is essential. Believe me, I’m completely supportive of non-traditional casting, but not when it’s used to smooth over “difficult” content in order to placate the narrowminded.
Wilson Jermaine Heredia & Jesse L. Martin in the film of Rent
Tell me, will you be making your female Angel heterosexual or lesbian? Exactly where does your “sensitivity” lie? You may think you’re appeasing your community by suggesting this change could happen, but instead you’re flirting with tampering with a beloved work without the right to do so in order to kowtow to homophobic sentiment. Are you just afraid of what some people in the community might say about Rent? What exactly is inappropriate in the school edition? There is nothing sensitive in what is going on with Rent at Southold.
This post, coupled with my advocacy on behalf of the students of Trumbull High School, may suggest that I’m a rabid Rent partisan, but I’d be writing this if the show was Spring Awakening, Legally Blonde, Avenue Q or Grease. My issue is the rights of students to take on challenging work in their schools, rather than forcing all high school theatre to be utterly anodyne. I’ll yank this post down immediately and replace it with a full apology if I learn that the school is in consultation with MTI, which licenses Rent. But I’m placing my bet that you’re out of bounds Mr. Gamberg, though I’d be perfectly delighted to be proven wrong. The simple solution is to do Rent: The School Edition as written. However, if you are intractable in your desire to rework the show to your own standards, and your statements and planned actions result in your school losing the rights to Rent, there will be only one person for your students to blame. He sits in the superintendent’s chair of the Southold School District.
My thanks to Natalie Chernicoff for bringing this situation to my attention.
I had not intended to write again about the conflict over a planned production of Rent in Trumbull, but the story continues to grow. In the interest of brevity, this post will merely draw your attention to several other pieces written about the Trumbull High School Rent controversy, notably from the chairman of the Board of Education and from the town’s First Selectman. They bear directly on the controversy, and even offer a compromise solution.
“The benefits of exposing the school and the community to the play Rent are undeniable. The discipline of tolerance, the gift of acceptance, the splendor of diversity, and exposure to different lifestyles are certainly lessons that should be a critical part of a high school student’s education and mature growth….While I personally do not agree with the position taken by Mr. Guarino, I support his right to make that decision. This is a school decision, not a Board of Education decision, and is one that a head of school has every right to make. While much of our town may be “for Rent,” I am confident that we have a firm “lease” on promoting diversity and tolerance here, too.”
“I believe there is a positive alternative that addresses Mr. Guarino’s valid concerns while at the same time allowing RENT to proceed. Every summer, the Trumbull Youth Association (TYA) offers a summer musical for the community. Many of the Trumbull High School students who participate in our high school theater program are also members of TYA. Proceeding with this musical in the summer through TYA offers enough time to address the very valid points offered by Mr. Guarino. It will also allow graduating Trumbull High School seniors the opportunity to perform in this musical before they leave for college. Finally this action will embrace the concept of collaboration, communication and compromise at the same time we try to teach our students the fundamental principles of acceptance, responsibility and tolerance. It is my sincere hope that this recommendation will establish a dialogue and a workable solution that all of us as Trumbullites can respect.”
“These are high school students. They can handle this. To suggest that the student body requires a comprehensive, board-approved coddling betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the very students he is supposed to be serving. They don’t need to be coddled. And just to be clear, this is only an issue because Rent deals indirectly with homosexuality, AIDS, and addiction. Quite honestly, I think the THS Musical players will provide a much more insightful and compelling treatment of this subject matter than Mr. Guarino will be able to cobble together in the next year.
I find this whole business to be very concerning. What happens when Mr. Guarino gets ahold of the AP English reading list and takes exception to some of it? This is a dangerous precedent to set. I suppose the one lesson that the THS students can benefit from is that sometimes we all experience authoritarianism and it’s maddening. You know it’s authoritarianism when you witness righteous anger from its recipients — which is what I see with this fine group of THS players. The silver lining in all of this is that they have handled that anger beautifully — with grace, poise and maturity.”
“I’m gonna be blunt: High schoolers across America aren’t dumb. Although parents may not be ecstatic about the topic, their teens are most likely sexually active. They sure as hell have friends that are trying to figure out their sexuality, and most definitely have been through a few health classes talking about sexually transmitted diseases. Which is why I’m dumbfounded about what’s going on in my hometown right now: the principal of Trumbull High School has cancelled the Thespian Society’s production of Rent because of its sensitive nature involving topics like sexuality, drug use, HIV, and the love lives of both gay and straight characters. Topics that kids are discussing AT school probably this very moment.”
“Last March, the “school edition” of Rent was performed by Hillsboro Comprehensive High School in . . . Nashville. The home of the Grand Ole Opry is more progressive than Trumbull.
So before the Trumbull Thespian Society is ordered to perform South Pacific, but cuts the onetime questionable romance between Nellie and Emile because, you know, they’re different, here’s a suggestion: Take Rent off campus. Perform it in a barn if you have to.
Or go to principal Guarino and tell him you’ve decided to instead perform something else.
Needless to say, please try to read each of these piece in their entirety and share your thoughts. This issue is more important than any single school, because it is far from an isolated incident, and not unique to Rent.
In the immediate wake of announcing to the Trumbull High School Thespian Society that he was canceling the planned spring production of Rent, Principal Marc Guarino spent almost an hour talking to the students about his decision, speaking of “challenging issues” with the play and saying it wasn’t “the right time.” These nebulous explanations didn’t seem to satisfy the students or many of their parents. Two days later, the principal let it be known that he was going to have further conversations on the topic, suggesting there might still be the opportunity for the Tony Awarded and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical to play this spring.
Well the hammer dropped last night, only two working days later, given the Thanksgiving holiday. At a meeting of the Trumbull Board of Education, a letter from Mr. Guarino was read reaffirming his decision to terminate the production. Yes, that’s right – a letter was read. Principal Guarino wasn’t present at the meeting to make his position known, or to respond in any way to the comments and questions of parents in attendance.
Trumbull High School
As the first-year principal of a school in a new system (he was previously an assistant principal in Guilford CT), Mr. Guarino has adopted a stonewalling stance. He has not responded to inquiries from me or from any member of the media, including major national outlets. What at first seemed like it might become a valuable dialogue about art, educator’s responsibilities and important themes that run from Jonathan Larson’s 1996 musical right through the present day, has turned into the cone of silence. In the course of a little over a week, Mr. Guarino has transformed himself from educator to autocrat. That’s a real shame.
Neither Guarino nor the system’s superintendent’s office are willing to even release the text of the letter that was read at the board of education meeting last night. Obviously by dragging things out, he makes it utterly impossible for Rent to go forward, even though his letter will eventually (presumably) be released when the minutes of last night’s meeting are approved and made public. But make no mistake about it, his actions have poisoned the atmosphere at his school and fostered a somewhat heated dialogue on the Facebook group Keep Trumbull Real. The issue will not die.
In the absence of official comment, I can only respond to what I’ve heard and read from others. As a result, I have many questions.
Why did Principal Guarino meet on Tuesday afternoon with the drama director and principal of a nearby high school which has already successfully produced Rent, if there was presumably already a letter to be read at the Board of Education meeting hours later? Was that meeting for show, a pretend stab at looking for a positive solution?
In speaking about the “issues” of Rent, what exactly troubles Principal Guarino? Is it the mere mention of AIDS & HIV, which have been sad facts of life since before the Trumbull students were born? Is the mention of drugs, which are so prevalent in both our society and our entertainment that one of the most acclaimed TV shows in recent years is about a high school teacher turned meth kingpin? Surely Mr. Guarino can’t think of gay, lesbians and transgender people as lesser citizens. Besides being discriminatory, that retrograde thinking can’t be countenanced in anyone in an educational position. So exactly what’s the problem here?
Mr. Guarino reportedly expressed the feeling that there was not adequate time to prepare the appropriate contextual activities to prepare students and the community for the show. But beyond asking the drama teacher what she would do, did he reach out to anyone for the study guides and lesson plans that already exist at the many high schools that have already done the show? Or did he just foist blame onto a 17-year veteran of Trumbull High for not having one that met his undefined standards? There’s so much support that could be brought to bear if only Mr. Guarino wished to try.
Could there have been better communication between the drama director Jessica Spillane and Principal Guarino? Yes, it would seem so, and presumably appropriate but not draconian consultation will occur in the future. Yet why punish the students for this, since that’s who are really losing out – in particular the seniors.
Mr. Guarino, are you opposed to Rent, or are you afraid that others will be and, in your first year, are you moving it off the school’s stage to avoid controversy? If so, you’ve actually blown it, because now, unless you completely capitulate and let the show go forward, a portion of faculty and the community will always see you as someone who didn’t want to work for the best possible solution for the students, rather than for yourself. If, as I’ve been told, you’ve said that you’d be open to Rent at some point in the future, you might salvage the situation by immediately and unequivocally declaring your approval for Rent beginning next year, and leading the effort to create whatever education plan you feel is necessary for a production.
I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I was intrigued to learn that the mother of Trumbull’s First Selectman, Timothy Herbst, is the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Education. Neither of them have spoken publicly about this situation, but do I detect a bit of a dynasty? And is it at all relevant that in winning his third term, Mr. Herbst defeated Martha Jankovic-Mark – the mother of Thespian Society president Larissa Mark? What is the official stance of the Town of Trumbull on this dispute?
One person who was eager to talk about the situation in Trumbull is Daphne Rubin-Vega, a Tony nominee for creating the role of Mimi in the premiere of Rent, now the mother of a nine year old child. Asked about whether the content of Rent should be considered problematic for teens, she said, “In this day and age, I can’t think of anything more appropriate. It’s perfectly designed for high school. To me, a loving awareness of the issues, sexuality, health, AIDS in particular is important. Rent is the perfect way to open up dialogue with young people. The cancellation of a production that people have been looking forward to is an obvious sign that our educators don’t want to take on the responsibility of educating our young. They’d have to answer questions and they don’t want the questions raised.” Vega said her child has already seen Rent and asked me if we should jump in a car right now and go up to Trumbull to lobby for the show. That may yet happen.
Does any official in Trumbull have to answer my questions? I guess not. I’m a former Connecticut resident, but I don’t live there or pay taxes there. However, if these questions are being asked by residents, by parents of students in the schools, by the students themselves, by the press, they deserve a coherent, public answer, and an answer that is neither reactionary or fearful. They deserve it not next week, not next month. Now.
* * * *
Update December 4, 10 pm: Several hours after my post was made public, the statement from Principal Guarino was publicly released. I reproduce it here in its entirety, as posted on the Keep Trumbull Real Facebook page.
Dear Trumbull students, parents, and community members. My decision regarding the spring 2014 musical Rent: The School Edition was a difficult one and understandably caused much disappointment. I truly believe that successful and supportive schools are those that nurture strong relationships between the school and its community. Programs which foster student learning, growth and creativity require support from all aspects of the school and community. With that said, I understand the responsibility I have as Principal of Trumbull High School to assure that our school is a safe, supportive environment for all students to learn, grow, and create. I first learned Trumbull High School was producing Rent: The School Edition not from the theatre arts department, but rather from a member of the community where I reside. Mrs. Spillane neither informed me nor consulted with me regarding the selection of Rent: The School Edition during the meetings we had in July and August. I appreciate that Rent is an important piece of American musical theatre. It presents educational opportunities for our students, staff, and community members to explore themes like acceptance, love, and responsibility. Rent: The School Edition also presents challenges – both in content and execution. There is no evidence that an open communication, collaborative process – with either my predecessor or me—was considered to further explore Rent: The School Edition’s inherent opportunities and challenges. Open communication would– to the best of the school’s ability – provide a safe environment educationally, artistically, and emotionally for all of our students. Whether or not a formal approval process was required in the past, these opportunities and challenges should have been shared with me, especially given the fact that I am new to Trumbull High School and the Trumbull community. Since this decision has been made, I have met with students and have read their messages of support for this production. I have met with parents and received correspondences from community members and concerned individuals from around the country. The commonality I share with all these groups is the potential Rent: The School Edition has to promote our district’s mission statement and our school’s core values and beliefs. To date, I have not been presented with a plan to make this a reality for our students, staff, and community. Without a thought out plan, Rent: The School Edition will be a missed educational opportunity. Without proper planning, Rent: The School Edition has the potential to become a speech rather than a meaningful dialogue to capitalize on all significant themes it presents. I am committed to developing this plan to best meet the needs of all students. Trumbull is a wonderful community and our students continue to impress and amaze me. I am honored to serve as Principal and will always focus my efforts to support all aspects of student growth and development. I have already spoken with Dr. Cialfi, Dr. McGrath, Mrs. Spillane, and Ms. Bolan regarding my intentions to develop a collaborative process based on open communication to bring Rent: The School Edition to Trumbull High School. This process will require input and feedback from various groups. Most importantly, it will take time. Based on my research with various schools, this process will not meet the timeline for the spring of 2014. As I told our student leaders, Mrs. Spillane, Ms. Bolan, Dr. Cialfi, Dr. McGrath and some parents, I fully support Rent: The School Edition. We will bring Rent: The School Edition to Trumbull High School following a model that has proven to be successful at meeting our intended learning goals. Thank you. Marc W. Guarino Principal, THS
Outside of the annual Tony Awards broadcast, theatre is not a subject frequently dealt with on national television. So the next six days might be one of the richest confluences of theatre-related programming in recent memory, with three separate programs with roots in the theatre coming through America’s cable boxes between now and Monday night.
That said, I must immediately dash any expectations that the first of these programs in any way proves of benefit to theatre in America. Premiering tonight on TV Land, the series Kirstie features Cheers alumnus Kirstie Alley as the veteran star of 14 Broadway plays who, in the first episode, is reunited with the now-adult son she gave up for adoption in his infancy. That the show is a poor excuse for a sitcom is beyond my declared expertise, so I’ll contain my comments to its representation of theatrical life.
Kirstie is a show that seems to have been made by people who have watched movies about the theatre, and their creative liberties have been magnified into absurdity. Alley’s character lives in an apartment that seems sprung from 30s or 40s plays like The Royal Family, Accent On Youth or Old Acquaintance. Her career supports a full time personal assistant as well as a driver; there’s a chef in the pilot but he has disappeared in the three subsequent episodes available for review. How many stage stars can manage that? Could she have family money that would explain the largesse? Perhaps. But there’s no excuse for her decision, in the final moments of the opening night performance of her newest play, to delay the final curtain by adding dialogue meant as a declaration of affection for her once-abandoned son. It is patently absurd.
It’s worth noting that the series’ creator, Marco Pennette, has exercised his love of theatre on TV before, albeit through a supporting character. On the late 90s sitcom Caroline in the City, Amy Pietz played an actress who was appearing in the musical Cats, late in its long Broadway run. This afforded many sly and knowing digs at tired Broadway musicals that may well have been lost on much of the audience, but which jollied along those of us who watched primarily for Malcolm Gets’ performance. Kirstie offers little that sly beyond naming Rhea Perlman’s personal assistant character Thelma, a nod to the role played by Thelma Ritter in All About Eve. The only saving grace is that after the first two episodes, Kirstie’s depiction of theatre seems to become a footnote in the series, although Kristin Chenoweth’s cameo as an Eve Harrington type in the second show carries a bit of welcome snap that elevates the leaden comedy as much as possible (there’s also a terrific guest shot by Cloris Leachman as Alley’s estranged mother). But, in short, Kirstie makes Smash look like a documentary.
The second offering is the much promoted live broadcast of The Sound of Music, with Carrie Underwood leading the cast as Maria. Because it will be done live, it’s impossible to make any judgments, though I’m sure the commentary will be flying fast and furious during and after the broadcast on social media; I have already seen critiques of the cast recording, which was being streamed by Spotify yesterday.
Unlike almost everyone in the country, apparently, I am one of the very few who has never seen The Sound of Music, so I’ll be able to take the broadcast on its own terms. Yes, you read that right: I’ve never seen the show on stage and I’ve only seen snippets of the film (specifically Julie Andrews’ opening mountaintop twirl, the “Do Re Mi” and “16 Going on 17” numbers, and the final sequence with Von Trapp singing Edelweiss and the family’s subsequent escape). But I’m very pleased that there will be a version of the stage show to sit alongside the film for posterity, allowing fans and musical theatre students to get a sense of how a show can be altered for its screen incarnation (it joins Rent in this category). While the NBC presentation will be a peculiar hybrid of TV and theatre (it’s being produced for TV as if it were a stage production, though it is a one night only event that will play in person only for technicians, sans audience and audience reactions), I suspect it will prompt me to see the movie at long last, to make my own comparisons.
Audra McDonald in Six By Sondheim
Capping this trilogy, on Monday night, is the HBO documentary Six By Sondheim, directed by James Lapine and produced by (among others) former New York Times drama critic and lifelong musical theatre buff and expert Frank Rich. While the roughly 80 minute program makes the shrewd decision to focus musically on only six significant Sondheim songs, it casts a much wider net over the composer’s life and process than the title might suggest. It admirably features but a single talking head (in contrast to so many documentaries): that of Sondheim himself, drawn from a wide range of interviews over several decades. I was impressed to hear Sondheim, ever the wordsmith, drop “concatenate” and “serendipity” into a single sentence – no wonder this guy is the eminence grise of composer-lyricists, perhaps never to be equaled.
While his interrogators are mostly excised, there’s really something to be said for any show which manages to embrace moderators as diverse as Diane Sawyer, Tony Kushner and Mike Douglas and which squeezes in clips of performers like Cher and Patti LaBelle singing “Send In The Clowns” (LaBelle proves that, unlike Glynis Johns, she really knows how to hold a note). Another asset of the show is the newly produced performances of, among others, “I’m Still Here” (by Jarvis Cocker) and “Opening Doors” (with Jeremy Jordan, America Ferrara, Darren Criss, Laura Osnes and Sondheim himself as the producer seeking a “hummable melody”) which vary greatly in visual style thanks to contributions by different directors for each, most notably Todd Haynes.
A prized personal possession
As a big fan of Sondheim, but something short of a rabid one, the program certainly includes tales and tidbits I’d heard before, but packaged as elegantly as one could ask; I was certainly startled when the composer recommended liquor as an indispensable aid to writing a musical. Whatever one’s familiarity with Stephen Sondheim and his work, Six By Sondheim is a indispensable record that speeds by in a flash, and its presence on the dominant pay cable service puts other outlets like Ovation to shame. It would be naïve to expect a series of such programs from HBO, but Sondheim has many more memorable songs worth exploring; we can only hope that we may yet see more documentaries on his life and work as expert as this one, whatever the forum.
So gather around your viewing screen, set your DVR, or get ready to buy a couple of DVDs very shortly (definitely for Six By Sondheim; possibly for The Sound of Music). As for Kirstie, please stay away, so its travesty of theatre fails to make much of a mark anywhere. And, in the meantime, I hope you’ll join me in my daily prayer for season four of Slings and Arrows.
When I saw it for the first time last week, I was really struck by the poster for the West End debut of the musical Urinetown. Why? Because it didn’t look like a theatre poster. It looked like a movie poster.
In point of fact, it looked to a certain degree like the poster for Star Trek: Into Darkness, which owed a debt to the poster for The Dark Knight Rises. Many movie posters are endlessly iterative and imitative, as they want to subtly remind you of other successful films in the same genre. I give points to Urinetown UK for evoking dark futures with humanity under threat – completely consistent with the world conjured in the show. Equally apt, it counters the darkness by placing a young attractive couple, reaching for a drop of water, at the center of a spaghetti-tangle of (empty) pipes, and they added a tagline: “A drop of hope can change the world.”
It has taken almost a decade since Urinetown’s Broadway closing for it to reach England, so the opportunity to capitalize on Broadway buzz has long since faded, That certainly suggests one reason why the graphic bears no relationship to the Broadway marketing material, unlike The Producers, The Book of Mormon, Jersey Boys and so many other US to UK transfers. That works in two directions as well, since Mamma Mia! and Matilda ads look the same in both countries, having started in London.
As I pondered the Urinetown UK art, it struck me that one reason the vast majority of theatre ad design looks so different from movie ad design is that while a movie is trying to simply drive sales and pique interest, theatre designs, more often than not, are trying to build a brand. If theatre images emphasize a star, they could be undermining a long run, since eventually stars leave; movies have no such problem. Think of the image of Les Mis’ Cosette: as the show ran and ran, the image became so ubiquitous that they could run ads without the show’s title and you would know what the ad was for. Producer Cameron Mackintosh’s team even could play with the image, running variations on Cosette that honored holidays or welcomed other shows to Broadway. And it was hardly the only show to do that: think of the Phantom’s mask, the eyes of Cats, the Chagall-esque Fiddler on the Roof, Larry Kert running after Carol Lawrence for West Side Story (though that would eventually be supplanted by Saul Bass’ fire escape logo for the film). Colleges, high schools and community theatres use knock-offs of these designs for years and years.
As I’ve said, it’s the lapse in time that has afforded Urinetown UK the chance to go in another direction, since given the relative age of the show, it doesn’t undermine a worldwide branding effort. The other reason they have that opportunity: in my opinion, the original Urinetown graphic never became iconic. Do you remember it? Perhaps only vaguely, and I suggest that’s because it was only a type treatment, as opposed to an image, a true logo, a brand.
To digress for a moment: when I worked at Hartford Stage, one of my responsibilities was to work with a range of local designers to secure pro bono graphic designs for each of our shows. In addition to keeping expenses down, it insured that each show would have its own feel and look, with the ads held together by a very solid, strong and consistently utilized company logo. In this process, the artistic director had only one edict – there must be some representation of the human in every graphic. He believed that people are at the center of theatre, that audiences come to watch people on stage, and so the human element – sometimes nothing more than an eye or a hand – was a reminder of the unique nature of live theatre. In hindsight, thinking back over 50 shows, I believe he was right and I’ve advocated for this approach ever since. To be fair, not every design was perfect, and some worked better as art than as marketing, but the best remain those that followed the artistic director’s dictum. If you think of great theatre graphics, I’d be willing to bet that you’ll find the majority do so as well. That’s why, at least in my estimation, there’s not a graphic image from the Broadway Urinetown that lingers in memory.
But turning back to Urinetown UK, as I have often this week, I continue to applaud the complexity and sophistication of its imagery, which come to think of it also recalls that used for Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil. I was so intrigued, that I took the time to watch a three-minute promo video for the show and, to be honest, it ended up showing me what I think is missing from the Urinetown campaign. A barrage of words flew at me from a variety of speakers, all describing the experience of the show: epic, wackadoo, eco-friendly, apocalyptic, daring, exciting, entertainment, political, adventurous and satirical wit. Director Jamie Lloyd said he hoped it would advance “conversations about climate change, environmental disaster, the moral responsibility of big business.”
But looking at the poster and watching this video, I realized that something has been, if not forgotten, downplayed for this Urinetown, at least as I know the show.
It’s very, very funny. I laughed a lot.
Not only that, it is especially funny to those who know and love musicals, since it’s “satirical wit” is focused, in part, on previous, iconic musicals.
Now if it is Lloyd’s intention to lean heavily on the show’s Brechtian overtones and downplay the humor, then you can probably ignore everything from here on in. But if Urinetown UK– with all of its topical, political and social overtones – is to retain its irreverent take on both a world without water and its stance as a love letter to musical comedy, then I’d urge the powers that be to tweak the tone of their rhetoric and their imagery, lest they mislead their potential audience – and those who buy. Remember, you’re fighting a title that, for some, carries a whiff of something distasteful, even while it becomes a memorable point of distinction from most other musical theatre.
I’ve heard it said many times that if a show is a hit, its logo – whatever it is – looks brilliant. And perhaps in the long run, if there is in the long run, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But when you’re trying to set expectations and lure audiences, every communication is freighted with meaning (it can even effect the advance perception of critics who were previously unfamiliar with the material), and what I remember most of Urinetown was having a darned good time.
It’s not unusual for book releases to be coordinated with a related event taking place elsewhere in the media circus: the autobiography that appears just as a star’s major film is coming out, the personal memoir that primes the public for a political campaign. However, no one can accuse Julie Taymor of engaging in such wanton promotion – she certainly can’t be pleased that Glen Berger’s Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History (Simon & Schuster, $25) debuts just as she returns to the stage with A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn. One imagines she’d have been happier if there were no book at all.
Countless people are reading and writing about the book as another chapter in the seemingly never-ending saga of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, the headline generating musical that has been the target of brickbats from arts journalists virtually since the show was first announced. Spider-Man: TOTD seemed to throw raw meat to the media at every turn, ranging from fundraising challenges and production delays to several highly publicized cast injuries which seemed to turn the show into a latter-day Roman arena. It kept Patrick Healy of the Times and Michael Riedel of the Post in competition for breaking tidbits in a manner rarely seen before.
I didn’t find Berger’s book particularly revealing, largely because it covers ground that had been extensively reported elsewhere, and I confess to having consumed the events as they happened. In fact, I made a point of seeing the very final performance of the Taymor version and the opening night of the version reworked without her – and, for the most part, Berger’s – consent, after they had been supplanted by Philip William McKinley and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa respectively. Yes, I watched the show’s travails, as most did, as a theatrical car wreck in slow motion, a modern-day tragedy of creative hubris played played out in benday dots and rock chords.
For all that Berger recounts, the book constantly reminds the reader that it is the story of Spider-Man: TOTD as viewed through one person’s biased eyes – rather than the whole story. Berger goes out of his way to paint himself as a innocent caught up in the maelstrom of vastly more famous, and vastly wealthier, artists than himself. His emphasis on being separated from his family, of his personal financial troubles, of how different his world is from that of his acclaimed and wealthy collaborators Bono and Taymor – they grow tiresome, as if Berger deserves some sympathy or absolution for his role in the debacle by virtue of his less lofty perch. But he’s not exactly Nick Carraway observing the actions of Gatsby and the Buchanans – he’s a willing participant until his own calculations backfire on him, severing his ties forever with Taymor, who he has built up as his own artistic Daisy. To compare him to Faust conveys a grandeur I decline to confer.
The fact is, reading Berger’s book is like watching only one viewpoint from Rashomon, and one is all too aware that others undoubtedly have very different versions of the same events. I can’t help but suspect that the musical might at best be a page or two should Bono write his life story; producer Michael Cohl would no doubt recount the saga as a story of how he rescued a damaged show that most believed was dead on arrival; should Taymor tell her version, it will be of an artist (herself) persecuted by greedy philistines. Whether anyone will care to follow the tale repeatedly refracted through varying prisms is anyone’s guess, though that might be the only way to get the real story.
All of this should not suggest that Berger’s book has no value. It is, at the very least, a superb answer to the perennial question about troubled or failed shows: “Didn’t anyone realize how bad it was going to be?” The book is an encyclopedia of ignorance, ego and self-delusion, a look at how a theatrical property, especially one with such a high profile, almost becomes unstoppable, and the many ways in which it can go wrong, of how perspective is lost when you are so close to the work for so long. Aspiring producers should read it as a cautionary tale – not about a one-off disaster, but rather about when it pays to just say no, shut a show down, and move on, since Spider-Man may be the most expensive show to date, but there are plenty of complete flops that followed much the same misguided path.
Inevitably, Berger’s book will find its way onto many a theatrical bookshelf, even if it doesn’t have the elegance or educational value of many other books with which it shares conceptual and theatrical DNA. As I read it, I was reminded of a book about a vastly less well known disaster: playwright Arnold Wesker’s The Birth of Shylock, The Death of Zero Mostel, a chronicle of a quick Broadway flop notable mostly for the death of Mostel, its leading actor, who died while the show was trying out in Philadelphia. Like Berger, Wesker seems almost entirely unaware of his own complicity in the show’s failure, even as he repeatedly tells about his taking aside actors to countermand the edicts of the show’s director, John Dexter. Shylock the show is in the dustbin of Broadway history, whereas the legend of Spider-Man will surely go on; however, the author’s account of the production of Shylock makes for better literature than Song of Spider-Man.
While there are certainly great Broadway books of autobiography (Moss Hart’s Act One is an exemplar of the kind), more often than not the best chroniclers are those on the fringes or outside of a production entirely. Ted Chapin’s Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical ‘Follies’ is an impeccable recent example of the former, derived from Chapin’s own notes as a production assistant on the original Follies; William Goldman’s The Season: A Candid Look At Broadway has long stood as a grand achievement of the latter. Of course, in both cases, the authors were given rare access, which seems almost impossible in the more media savvy world of today; the film industry was reminded about the danger of giving journalism too much access when critic Julie Solomon roamed free on the set of a Brian DePalma film, resulting in The Devil’s Candy: Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco, a detailed chronicle of the famous flop The Bonfire of the Vanities.
Though it covers work which is vastly less infamous and some 50 years in the past, I daresay that Jack O’Brien’s recent Jack Be Nimble: The Accidental Education of an Unintentional Director (Farrar Straus and Giroux, $35) is the more worthy, entertaining and educational insider theatre book of the year. While O’Brien could have easily produced a standard memoir, given his own considerable achievements as a director, he followed Chapin’s lead and instead opted to write about the access he had as a young man to a remarkable confluence of talents: the members of the APA and later the APA-Phoenix theatre companies, which included Richard Easton, Rosemary Harris and above all the now little-remembered Ellis Rabb. I know firsthand what a wealth of stories Jack can tell about his own exploits, but by deciding to honor the artists who formed his own aesthetic, he has written a work of history and memoir that is ultimately more important and informative than Berger’s attempt to make a few more dollars off the Spider-Man debacle.
Perhaps, one day, a young PA on Spider-Man: TOTD will emerge with his or her own book, to draw the truest picture of what went on as the web collapsed. Until then, we’re left with a lopsided recap of a story that we mostly know, told by what is called, in literary circles, an unreliable narrator.
Let’s face it: railing against Broadway musicals adapted from movies is a useless exercise. As long as people keep buying tickets for them, and as long as enough of them turn out to be financial successes, they’re going to keep coming, some terrific, some blatantly and ineffectively mercenary. After all, the major Hollywood studios have now established theatrical divisions, looking to exploit their catalogues of stories and marketable titles and to them, theatrical budgets are tiny, so risk is minimal. If the pace ever slackens, I predict it’s going to be a long time coming, and likely due more to the blockbuster mentality that is overwhelming Hollywood being unable to translate to the stage. Pacific Rim, The Musical anyone?
The fact is, musicals from movies are hardly a new phenomenon. As far as I’m concerned (quoting myself from a blog post last summer), “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with musicals based on movies. When it is done with enough craft, with care and talent, no one begrudges a show its origins.”
The new Aristophanes musical!
There’s no question that lovers of musicals harbor a deep-seated desire for the wholly original musical – a story not heard or seen before, a score not lifted from some era’s Top 40 hits. There’s a particular craft at play there that hopefully won’t be lost and don’t mistake anything in this post as not desiring more of that work. But adaptation has been around for almost as long as Broadway musicals themselves; the only change is in the source. What’s puzzling is why certain sources have largely been abandoned.
Quick what was the last memorable musical you can name that was adapted from a play? And, excluding those which first became movies, what was the last solid musical based on a book? Actually, let’s drop the question of success altogether and just look at origins.
In the past decade on Broadway, only three musicals were adapted from plays: Lysistrata Jones, Spring Awakening and The Frogs (four if you include All Shook Up, exceedingly loosely based on Shakespeare). Only one musical was made from a book that hadn’t been previously filmed. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: Wicked. And I suppose you could make the argument that the Wizard of Oz tie-in gave that show a leg up as well, and it didn’t stand solely on its direct source.
Another Aristophanes toe-tapper!
It’s easy to think up reasons why literate sources have been, seemingly, all but abandoned. Sure, they don’t have the benefit of major Hollywood marketing pushes, but isn’t there some value to decades, if not centuries in the literary and theatrical canon? Hollywood quickly options countless literary properties, some of which never get made, but don’t those rights lapse at some point? Certainly there are numerous plays and books which never get bought as potential films. Those in the public domain shouldn’t be the only ones considered.
A quick reminder may be in order. The tradition of adaptation is as old as the fully integrated musical, since Oklahoma! itself was based on the Lynn Riggs play Green Grow The Lilacs. Among the many musicals adapted from plays: My Fair Lady (from Pygmalion), Hello, Dolly! (The Matchmaker), The Most Happy Fella (They Knew What They Wanted), Where’s Charley? (Charley’s Aunt), The Threepenny Opera (The Beggar’s Opera), Porgy and Bess (Porgy) and, more recently Merrily We Roll Along (from the play of the same title). As for books, think about Show Boat, Damn Yankees, The Pajama Game, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, and Pippin (from Steinbeck’s The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication). Don’t forget that musicals have even been assembled from short stories, perhaps most notably Guys And Dolls (Damon Runyon), Fiddler On The Roof (Sholom Aleichem), and Wonderful Town (Ruth McKenney).
To be sure, when it comes to plays, subjects and scale have changed; one might more easily envision the large-cast plays of the 20s and 30s translating into musicals than todays four-to-six character plays. I’m not remotely suggesting that every play (or book, or movie for that matter) is necessarily right for musicalization. But decades since “musical comedy” has ceded ground to “musical theatre” in the artistic vernacular, it would seem there’s a rich vein of material that has been left untapped.
Sing along with Wedekind!
Hollywood studios committing resources to developing musical properties may in fact be the best argument for returning to plays and books as musical sources. Now that the studios want to handle their own stage development, the window may be closing for independent producers who seek rights to movies and the same may hold true for artists who are self-generating ideas for movie into musical adaptations. All the more reason to look beyond the silver screen.
What plays do I think might work as musicals? Peter and the Starcatcher (a book that became a play) seems an obvious one from the recent crop of Broadway plays; frankly, it already feels like a musical to me in many ways. Prelude To A Kiss has always struck me as the basis for a romantic musical with deep feeling. I’ve gently begun nudging Alan Ayckbourn about his Comic Potential. Since Born Yesterday is already an American Pygmalion, it could work just fine. Some of August Wilson’s plays could conceivably translate into a musical blues idiom that’s already in place in his language. Remember, I’m not suggesting stereotypical musical comedy, but musical theatre. And while new plays on Broadway may be scarce, there are plenty Off-Broadway and in regional theatre.
As for books? Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, perhaps, as a musical/opera mix. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Perhaps even a particular favorite of mine, the surreal but compelling Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, with the added element of extensive puppetry work from Handspring.
Broadway remains the predominant engine and the goal of new musicals, and my suggestions may not be obvious material with built-in marketing appeal; these may need to be developed and produced in the not-for-profit sector. But as plays become operas (Doubt, Angels in America) and books have long become movies and then musicals (FromHere To Eternity is coming up soon in London), there seems to be a large swath of literature that can be told combining story and song, live on stage. We just need creative people, artists and producers alike, to look beyond the obvious and the easy, and to their own bookshelves, which are stacked with novels and plays, waiting to be told anew. Time to stop watching, and start reading, imaginatively.
In one of his best known stories, “Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54′ N, Longitude 77° 00′ 13″ W,” the science fiction and fantasy author Harlan Ellison tells of a man who has lost his soul and who embarks on a metaphysical journey inside himself to find it again. At the end of his adventure he finds (partial spoiler alert) a bit of long forgotten pop culture ephemera.
I never need to go on the journey taken by Ellison’s protagonist, because while I know my soul is more complex than any single touchstone, I am certain of what looms largest inside the innermost me. That’s because it also happens to sit, at 18 volumes and counting, on the shelves across from where I write. I refer to “The Complete Peanuts,” an ongoing series of hardcover reprints from Fantagraphics of every “Peanuts” cartoon drawn by Charles M. Schulz, which still has several years to go before it is fully complete. Between those covers are perhaps the single greatest influence on me from age five to 15, and in many ways both the formation and reflection of my psyche.
A relatively early “cast” of Peanuts
Since I was born in the early 60s, “Peanuts” was already established by the time I began reading the comics page of the local newspaper. Thanks to tag sales and paperback reprints, I was able to work my way back to the strip’s earliest years without any difficulty.
Remarkably for a comic so steeped in Schulz’s own Midwestern childhood decades earlier, the Peanuts were a late 60s-early 70s phenomenon, as TV specials, a long-running musical and theatrical films spread the gospel of Charlie Brown and company (there was even a book called The Gospel According to Peanuts). Both the establishment and the bourgeoning counterculture found something they could share in Peanuts, and while there was surely a massive marketing campaign run by The Man, resulting in Happiness is a Warm Puppy taking up permanent residence at cash registers everywhere, you could also find Peanuts-emblazoned merchandise in progressive record stores too, with Snoopy posters (maybe even some in blacklight-sensitive colors) on the walls behind the bong display cases.
I’ve only read the first volume or two of the collected works, even though I buy them as they’re published; they seem to call for a certain kind of lazy Sunday afternoon, perhaps in a hammock, that one rarely finds in Manhattan life. Even those earliest strips remain familiar; they don’t trigger a forgotten memory like a random madeleine, but merely jog my brain where snapshots of the strips reside barely out of reach, filed, not faded. While the digital transition continues apace, I’m putting these books aside to be read by me in two or three decades, though youthful visitors with clean hands will be welcome to page through them in the meantime.
Here’s the World War I Flying Ace, high over France…
While a biography has already emerged which links, in some cases unfavorably, Schulz’s own life with that of his characters, I have no particular interest in the artist’s role as a man, a husband, or father. As much as possible, I want to retain that childhood innocence where the work simply exists, that time before we fully realize that an actual person has created these things we read.
Then, as now, Peanuts is a marvel. The main characters are archetypes: the ever aspiring but never succeeding Charlie Brown, the take-no-prisoners Lucy, the contemplative Linus, the artistically single-minded Schroeder, the free-spirited and soulful Snoopy. It’s worth noting that for all of the other characters Schultz created, these five were the core of the strip; Violet, Patty, Shermy, Frieda, Franklin, Pig Pen, Woodstock, Spike and so many others were always supporting players. Schroeder even ran out of steam after a while, ceding his lead position to both Sally and Peppermint Patty.
But for me, Peanuts was all about Charlie Brown and Snoopy – the former being the person I saw myself as, the latter being the personification of who I hoped to be. I never could kick a football, even if it wasn’t snatched away from me; I couldn’t throw or hit a baseball; the little red headed girl (or blonde or brunette) would barely notice me, let alone return my affection. I couldn’t let go of that enough to enjoy the simple pleasures of a good meal (suppertime!) or an imaginative foray into dark territory. No Red Barons for me – too scary. Even as I achieved academically, even as I began to gather a group of friends with whom I am close four decades later, I always felt like the kid who got a rock in his Halloween candy, the kid laying flat on his back, staring at the sky, wondering why he’d fallen for the same ridicule yet again.
Flyer for Amity Junior High School’s 1977 You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown
Peanuts even provided my entryway into theatre. The first time I can recall performing publicly, I played the title role in a significantly truncated and surely unauthorized presentation of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown at my day camp at age six or seven; in ninth grade, in the first musical ever produced at my junior high, I played Snoopy in the complete show, taking on the persona to which I aspired. I can’t remember auditioning for either engagement, but perhaps there’s something to be gleaned from the fact that while in my single digits, others saw me as I saw myself, while perhaps seven years later I could assume (or had assumed) a more exuberant façade.
I muse on my one-time obsession and future comfort because after decades of ever-less-inspired television specials, I read last week that the Peanuts characters will soon return to the big screen…in 3D rendered images and 3D projection. I will stop short of calling this sacrilege, because, as I say, the original work remains intact. But I worry about Peanuts going the way of Alvin and the Chipmunks, Underdog or Rocky and Bullwinkle, other childhood treats who proved to have less dimension when a third was added. Peanuts, like The Simpsons, have always looked vaguely creepy when fully modeled; they are best suited for the two-dimensions of the page precisely because they function in an isolated world wholly their own and their distinctive features can seem monstrous when extrapolated into something resembling reality. The makers of the stage musical intuited that immediately, which is why there are no oversized heads or dog costumes in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
I am not a die-hard collector of memorabilia; there is no “Peanuts room” filled with collectibles in my apartment. But my bookshelves belie my interests. Those Peanuts volumes share space with the complete works of Berkeley Breathed (“Bloom County” and its successors), I’m working out a justification for buying the multi-volume hardcover compendium of “Calvin and Hobbes,” and I should probably start squirreling away funds for the as yet unannounced but hopefully forthcoming complete “Doonesbury.”
I will spend hundred of dollars on these books because I want to hold them in my hands the way I did when I first read them, not scroll through them on a screen. “Doonesbury” is and will be the chronicle of American life in my era (conveniently beginning in New Haven when I was growing up there). But Peanuts – which ended just before Schultz died in 2000 – will be the constant reminder of my childhood, and in some ways the record of it as well, the philosophy, the psychology and the often rueful humor that gave birth to me as I am today, burrowed deep inside my brain and my heart.
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.”
