From the Mouth of Mary Martin: On the Writing and Selecting of Roles

In her autobiography My Heart Belongs, Mary Martin writes:

A fine libretto, wonderful music, a role full of vitality can make milestones in the careers of entirely different personalities in the theater. Annie [Oakley] was one of those roles. It was one of Ethel Merman’s unforgettable ones; it gave Delores [Gray] her first big break; it afforded me many of my happiest hours onstage.

And that brings up one more thing I have learned: beware of any role which somebody says is "written especially for you." If the role isn’t written so well, so strongly, that any professional can play it, don’t get involved. That, too, is what theater is all about.

Some examples:

Mama Rose: Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone (not to mention the many great regional Roses)

Dolly Levi: Carol Channing, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Pearl Bailey, Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye (and that’s the short list)

Charity Hope Valentine: Gwen Verdon, Shirley MacLaine, Debbie Allen, Donna McKechnie, Charlotte d’Amboise, Christina Applegate

Perhaps Martin’s statement rings true because the basis of any production of a show that is either new or used is interpretation. The interpretation is derived from the libretto, which means that a great role can survive many different interpretations, provided they are rooted in the text and supported by the playwright’s intentions. If someone is writing a show for a specific personality, that means that they could be using that actor’s natural charisma, acting style, or personality as a crutch, to cover any gaps in characterization.

As you can imagine, I’m always casting shows as I write them, organizing my dream cast as I go along; however, it’s equally delighting to think of the many different actors who could also play the part. I feel like I’ve done my job if I can imagine people with different appearances, voices, or personas taking on the roles.

the Broadway Mouth
April 2, 2008

I'll Forget You

I just saw the Legally Blonde tour (more on that when I'm back into the swing of things) and was thrilled to to see three familiar names in the cast--Coleen Sexton (who I knew was the cast, though I ended up seeing her understudy), Natalie Joy Johnson (from the NET Godspell tour, though I saw her understudy in Godspell), and Kate Rockwell. No, I don't forget easily, I guess.


Nancy Opel in Making It On Broadway:

I had a baby and I left the business for two years. I literally had to move away. I knew that if I didn’t, I would stay in this business. The lure is too strong. I was warned by some people, “If you stay away too long, they will forget who you are.”
Damn it, that’s right. They do forget, and I don’t care. I did the right thing for my family. Do I have regrets about the things I may have missed? Not really. A scrapbook isn’t the same as a healthy, well-adjusted child.

It’s interesting to watch the trends in Broadway casting; people do get quickly forgotten. Watch how new people are quickly cast from one show into another. One minute, they are nobody, and the next, they are in the latest hit show. While the people who did that a mere five years ago are nowhere to be seen.

Take, for example, Tyler Maynard, who was able to move from Altar Boyz into The Little Mermaid. Tony Yazbeck got Gypsy after A Chorus Line, just as Mara Davi got The Drowsy Chaperone.

Everyone gets their breaks in their own ways, and I’m thrilled for anyone who can make a go of acting on Broadway because each role in earned with much blood, sweat, and tears. I’m not saying that Maynard, Yabeck, and Davi haven’t earned their roles—I’m not implying that at all.

But, as Nancy Opel mentions, I wonder of the great talents who have been forgotten along the way. It’s so easy to focus on the big talents who have deservedly managed to get from one show to the next because they are wowing us right now, but as we reflect on who we’d love to see in roles, let’s not forget that there’s a truckload of major talents who are, from reports, still in the business. It’s not atypical for people to enter into the profession of starring on Broadway, only to then tire of it, crave the stability of family, or to choose other avenues for their talents. However, just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean they are not out there, trying to get seen.

The hot tickets of not-too-long ago, I can’t just forget them. I choose not to forget them. I don’t know what reason we haven’t seen them on stage, but it wouldn’t be surprising to know that they simply haven’t been able to get seen.

Let’s all take a moment and remember all the fantastic performers from the past fifteen years who are still out there—the Matt Bogarts, Sandra Allens, Chuck Wagners, Maya Days’—pounding the pavement, trying to a nice man like a Ziegfeld or a Weismann to get them into a great, big Broadway show.

I’ll not forget you.

the Broadway Mouth
Originally Posted March 31, 2008

Ten Minutes Ago

Ten minutes ago I saw you
I looked up when you came through the door
My head started reeling
You gave me the feeling
The room had no ceiling or floor
--Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella

Ten minutes ago she was a secretary. Ten minutes ago she was a wedding singer. Ten minutes ago she was scooping poop. Ten minutes ago he was fired from TCBY. But now, they are Ethel Merman, Idina Menzel, Laura Benanti, and songwriter Jeff Marx.

Never underestimate people of talent and ambition, even if that ambition seems far-fetched or muted by shyness. That man waiting your table before you head off to Cry-Baby really could be a Broadway star next year. That kid promoting his songs on BroadwaySpace could write the next Hairspray. That girl with the funny voice who keeps calling you about attending her reading could write the next Les Miserables.

Sure, there are a lot of folks out there knocking on doors who really aren’t the best dancers, aren’t that great with their monologue, and maybe don’t even write strong lyrics. But, some day, if you open your eyes, you’ll find someone who really is the undiscovered Heather Headley or Marc Shaiman.

Idina Menzel has my favorite story, told in Making It on Broadway. She was a wedding singer, one of the same that gets pushed to the back of the brain because she sings “while people chew.” Worst of all, the bandleader of her band once had the sound guy turn her mic down so his girlfriend would be louder. Some time after that, she starred in Rent, Lippa’s The Wild Party, Aida, Wicked, See What I Wanna See, and now people are paying $20 a pop to buy Enchanted, where she became the Disney princess and $15 to hear her new solo album.

But it’s no Cinderella story. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of determination, a lot of faith in yourself to become something. But the truth is that Idina Menzel was always Idina Menzel, and starring in Rent didn’t change that. If she had never gotten the Rent gig, she’d have the same voice, the same talents, even if she was an administrative assistant.

So, the quiz of the day is:

1. Who will the people around you become in ten minutes?

A) Someone I will later regret not taking seriously.
B) Someone who’ll invite me to the opening night party.
C) Someone I’ll be glad for keeping in touch with.
D) Someone who could have made me a ton of money.

2. In ten minutes, who will you become?

A) a Broadway performer
B) a Broadway songwriter
C) a Broadway book-writer
D) a Broadway producer
E) a Broadway director
F) a Broadway set-designer
G) a Broadway costumer
H) a Broadway historian
I) all of the above except A and C
J) all of the above except A-F
K) I’m going to Hollywood.

the Broadway Mouth
Originally posted March 27, 2008

Amazing Discovery: Joseph Kramm’s The Shrike

This was such an awesome find that I'm happy to share it again.


It plays out like a modern movie. A man, in a moment of desperation, attempts suicide. After failing, he finds himself in a mental institution with only his estranged wife to comfort him, not to mention to keep his new girlfriend at bay. With his estranged wife bearing sole legal power to free him from the confines of state custody, he grows increasingly agitated at being a sane man in an institution, as his wife begins to peel away all his connections to the outside world.

Over a year ago, I stumbled upon an old Random House copy of Joseph Kramm’s 1952 Pulitzer Prize-winning play in a used book store on a search for rare musical libretti. Not wanting to leave empty-handed, I grabbed The Shrike on a whim, knowing nothing about it. The play was produced and directed by Jose Ferrer, who also starred as Jim Downs, the man whose life hangs in the balance. According to the book Show Time, Ferrer won the Tony for the role and later brought it to the screen in 1955 opposite June Allyson. The play itself ran for 161 performances and also starred Judith Evelyn as his desperate wife and Isabel Bonner as the female psychologist Dr. Barrow whose feminine perspective inadvertently imprisons him longer.

The story begins as a curious depiction of a man facing a life of broken dreams but emerges as a tense observation of a woman desperate to escape loneliness, despite her mutual consent to the condition. By Act Two, it is unclear exactly why Jim is in the hospital—Is he really, indeed, mentally unstable, or is he being driven there by a system that requires him to give up sanity in order to appear sane. In reading, The Shrike becomes a page-turner.

In all my years of bookstore shopping, in all my years of keeping an eye on plays, I’ve never seen The Shrike before. If you’re into reading plays, particularly in search of something of high interest for your theatre group, check out The Shrike.

From Dictionary.com:

shrike (noun)— any of numerous predaceous oscine birds of the family Laniidae, having a strong, hooked, and toothed bill, feeding on insects and sometimes on small birds and other animals: the members of certain species impale their prey on thorns or suspend it from the branches of trees to tear it apart more easily, and are said to kill more than is necessary for them to eat. any of numerous predaceous oscine birds of the family Laniidae, having a strong, hooked, and toothed bill, feeding on insects and sometimes on small birds and other animals: the members of certain species impale their prey on thorns or suspend it from the branches of trees to tear it apart more easily, and are said to kill more than is necessary for them to eat.

the Broadway Mouth
March 20, 2008

From the Mouth of Arthur Miller: The Nature of the Adaptation

“I had never thought to make a play of [the real event that formed A View From the Bridge] because it was too complete, there was nothing I could add. And then a time came when its very completeness became appealing.”

That’s what Arthur Miller wrote as an introduction to a published edition of his revised A View From the Bridge, his 1955 play about a man driven to sacrifice his name and honor out of an unspoken love for his niece, a daughter figure in love with a spellbinding illegal immigrant.

I found this an interesting quote because there is a strange hypocrisy at work among stage people, myself included. As writers, we crave to find our own entry into a story, some way to make it personal and workable to us. We don’t just adapt a life story, for example, but we alter it to fit our own interpretation. If this doesn’t happen—this interpretation of the work—we become critical, call the musical “faux,” and walk away lamenting the easy path taken by the show’s creators.

However, when Hollywood takes on a property, we are not so forgiving of any attempts to personalize a work. Most people, it seems, found the new scenes in the recent A Raisin in the Sun to be unobtrusive, but most did not welcome them with open arms. We accepted Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street without ever agreeing to the cuts to Harold Prince’s original version. To me, I never accepted the add-ons Arthur Miller himself gave the film adaptation of The Crucible, insisting that showing the girls in the forest steals from the mystery of the unraveling of the events.

The problem is that most pieces of creative work are personal. They are somehow a reflection on one’s own ideas and worldview. I recently contemplated how a book would adapt to the stage, and I found myself attempting to interpret the story and characters, not only to breathe some life into them for the new dimension but also to find my way into the story, someone else’s story. I was doing exactly what I dislike Hollywood doing. This is not unusual—the few other works I’ve contemplated adapting for the stage were all rooted in my interpretation—but it still makes me a hypocrite of sorts.

Perhaps the criticism for whether an adaptation is a bastardization or a blessing lies in the success of the work. No one ever complains about the alterations made to the movies of The Sound of Music or Hairspray because they work so beautifully. If Hello, Dolly! or Guys and Dolls had been immensely entertaining, I guess no one would mind the changes.

the Broadway Mouth
Originally posted March 14, 2008

You Don’t Really Know This Man (or That One or That One): The Musical as an Entry to the Writers’/Writer’s Psyche

This revival is in honor of Next to Normal's opening on Broadway:

There’s something very personal about The Glass Menagerie. It’s as if Tennessee Williams opened up his soul and gently laid it on the stage. The Great Gatsby is also a very personal work. When you study the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, you can almost see him hiding behind both Gatsby and Nick Carraway, one foot in Nick’s arm-length distance and another in Gatsby’s parties, trying not to want the life that’s there. Most pieces of great literature seem to be that way—Charlotte Bronte’s hopes and ideals in her Jane Eyre, John Steinbeck’s social concerns and love of nature in The Pearl, or August Strindberg’s meditations on truth in The Father.

Compare that intense personal expression with most musicals that have been successful on Broadway. It’s hard to see that kind of personal expression conveyed in, say, Guys and Dolls or Hairspray or even Meredith Willson’s solo opus The Music Man. Perhaps one or two of the Sondheim shows feel that personal and Rent. Rent is unique, however, in that Jonathan Larson had the chops to write the book, the music, and the lyrics, so Rent is largely his own creative expression.

The problem is that musicals are, by nature, a collaborative art form. One hundred percent of Sweet Bird of Youth is Tennessee Williams; there is no lyricist to take over for part of Chance Wayne’s dialogue or a composer needed to help convey Heavenly’s psyche.

It’s also important to remember that musicals are typically adapted from another source, so Flower Drum Song is a derivation of C.Y. Lee’s vision and The Secret Garden brings to life Frances Hodgson Burnett’s unique worldview. Sometimes those works might be filtered through creators’ lenses (such as the fairy tales in Into the Woods) or re-imagined/refocused to become a personal reflection of a creative team (like Annie), but the art form is still largely a group effort.

It’s such a rare occurrence that, when it does occur, you can’t help but sit up and take notice. In listening to Bernarda Alba recently, I was reminded of the singular nature of Michael John LaChiusa’s work, for which he typically writes the book, music, and lyrics. After having CD exposure to four of his works—Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party (librettist duties shared with George C. Wolfe), and Bernarda Alba—it’s fascinating to study the unique voice that emerges from his work despite their adaptive nature. You could never watch How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and feel like you are getting an entry into Frank Loesser or Abe Burrows’ minds, but in LaChiusa’s work, you begin to see patterns, thoughts, and ideas that give entry to his soul.

If we can ever get to the place where musicals don’t have to be like The Producers or Spring Awakening to hit the cash cow, where audiences and critics welcome personal shows without requiring laughs every three minutes or broad comic caricatures, it would be interesting to see how else music can be used to express emotions.

I find Lin-Manuel Miranda’s creation of In the Heights interesting. In a recent Gothamist interview with John Del Signore, Miranda discusses the origin of his show:

The first song I wrote is called “Never Give Your Heart Away.” It came out of a conversation with a Latino friend of mine. At the time I was in a long term relationship and my friend was sort of your classic player. And he was telling me what his mom told him as a kid: "Never let a woman play you; play them first!" And I remember thinking about what a f--- up life lesson that is. I wrote that song on the subway from West 4th Street, riding back to my home on 200th Street, imagining a mother imparting that lesson to her son. That character ended up becoming Benny.

In an original work, those revelations belong to the creator. In an adaptation, those revelations belong to the creator of the original work, sometimes losing something in the process of interpretation (and sometimes gaining something else). In The Scarlet Pimpernel, for example, Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton reinterpreted and refocused Baroness Orczy’s original tale. Whatever motivated Orczy to create the character is reinterpreted for the musical. Sometimes what gets adapted is pop in nature. For example, Elle’s journey in Legally Blonde is an interesting one, but it lacks the level of insight that it might have had had the characters been created by someone on the creative team. Similarly, Arthur’s final dilemma in Camelot is a fascinating one, but it is not one that seems to be a fervent concern of Alan Jay Lerner’s. It’s one that fits the story well.

This is not in any way a negative perspective of these works; it is an observation for the sake of discussion. In my musical comedy, which I would call intensely personal despite its physical humor and fun caricatures, the journey of the main character is strictly at the musical comedy level.

I loved the Alice Ripley interview with Andrew Gans on Playbill.com in which she discusses her off-Broadway musical Next to Normal. In it, he writes:

Ripley plays the mammoth role of Diana, the manic-depressive wife of Dan (Brian d'Arcy James) and mother to Natalie (Jennifer Damiano) and Gabe (Aaron Tveit). After years of a drug-induced existence, where she experiences neither life's highs nor lows, Diana tries to find happiness, at first without the aid of medication and later through more drastic methods. While researching the role, Ripley says, “I did everything that I could. I definitely did a lot of homework, reading up on the subject matter of the show — books and online research. Also, I'm drawing from my mother's side of the family. Diana's story is in me personally. Even though I don't have the same story . . . the bloodline of what she goes through is definitely in my family.”

That sort of depth of character is something the musical hasn’t seen much of; it is something that can’t be nurtured in an adaptation or in an atmosphere where only comedy is welcome.

But it’d be awfully interesting to watch.

Broadway Mouth
February 27, 2008

Defining a Golden Age

I don’t know if you can actually identify a golden age while you’re in it. It’s one of those phenomena that only become apparent after some distance and reflection.

Yet I have written about (and others have been considering) the possibility of there being another Golden Age for musicals on Broadway, perhaps something akin, if not replicating, the great Golden Age spurned on by the revolutionary Oklahoma! in 1943.

But before the question of a Second Golden Age of musicals can be answered, the term must be defined.

First of all, it’s important to remember that, while a critical element of theatre, a Golden Age is not defined by financial success alone. Financial success is extremely important in the world of Broadway because it is an arena of the arts that is still largely financed by individual investors as a means of earning a profit. Success breeds interest and more success. Historically, great shows that have now been identified as brilliant and ground-breaking are shows that have had a measure of success. No one stands and takes notice of the revolution made by a flop.

However, the definition of a Golden Age must take into account something other than financial success. In terms of financial success, Broadway has never matched the heights of the 1920s, particularly in the 1927-1928 season in which, according to Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon in the book Broadway: The American Musical, an astounding 264 new productions opened. Broadway was tremendously successful in the 1920s; however, the era has never been defined as a Golden Age. The shows of that era are products of their time, and while many of the songs live on, the shows themselves tend to be footnotes to greater shows from the Golden Age or have only survived by falling victim to post-Oklahoma! sensibilities as their books have been reshaped to be palatable to new generations.

Compared to the plethora of quick-closing shows of the 1980s (Rags, Starmites, Wind in the Willows, Smile), Broadway is indeed in “great shape” as Elaine Stritch says in Rick McKay’s Broadway: The Golden Age. We still have our fair share of shows that close in the red (The Civil War, Jane Eyre, Urban Cowboy, High Fidelity, Brooklyn, The Pirate Queen, Sweet Smell of Success, to name a few), but the shows we’ve had with great runs are also very impressive. For original shows, there are fourteen new shows from previous seasons (non-revivals) still running on Broadway, not to include recent closers The Drowsy Chaperone and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

However one may bemoan the state of musicals on Broadway, the reality is that The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a modest show, ran 1136 performances on Broadway, compared to the original Carousel at 890, Damn Yankees at 1019, Guys and Dolls at 1200, and Hello, Dolly! at 2844. Yes, the theatre was smaller, but what’s important is that it was financially feasible for a comparative number of performances (in other words, profit is profit). A few other impressive runs of late: The Color Purple at 910, Hairspray at 2274 and counting, Thoroughly Modern Millie at 903, Avenue Q at 1878 and counting, The Full Monty at 770, and Rent at 5,012 when it closes in June. Other shows with impressive runs include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Drowsy Chaperone, Tarzan, and The Light in the Piazza.

It is, indeed, an exciting time to love Broadway. While we have few of the big name-recognized stars of the Golden Age (like Carol Channing, Ethel Merman, John Raitt, Gwen Verdon, Alfred Drake, Mary Martin), we do have a growing number of names that are becoming recognizable to the outside world—Audra McDonald, Nathan Lane, Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, Patrick Wilson, and Anika Noni Rose. Almost as important, we also have a growing number of stars who have been able to make a career on the Broadway stage, people who have managed to parlay one or two successes into reoccurring roles—Sutton Foster, Hunter Foster, Donna Murphy, Marin Mazzie, Rebecca Luker, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Norbert Leo Butz, Karen Ziemba, Christine Ebersole, Kerry Butler, Christopher Sieber, and many others. That’s tremendously exciting.

We are also in a time when Broadway is getting increased visibility. No, it’s not to the same height as the Golden Age, but it’s getting there. Grease: You’re the One That I Want was not a ratings powerhouse for NBC (though enough of a hit to warrant extending the series by an episode or two) and still turned a poorly reviewed production into a hit, not to mention giving several very talented people a leg up on a Broadway career (and more than just Max and Laura). Disney’s High School Musical and the feature film adaptation of Hairspray spotlighted the magic of musical theatre and will surely create an entirely new generation of musical fans; they all already have songs from those movies on their iPods. MTV turned Legally Blonde into a teen favorite (when was the last time anyone outside New York was singing Broadway songs from a new show on such a grand scale?), and not only was it impressively successful when it aired, it has since spawned a reality television search for a woman to star in the tour, which will not only help make the tour a rousing success but will further the cause of Broadway.

Other than Hairspray, we’ve had many other Broadway film adaptations that have sparked the interest of a new generation—Chicago, Rent, The Phantom of the Opera, The Producers, Dreamgirls, and Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Let’s not forget, as well, that not only did Fantasia create a stir on Broadway, but she performed “I’m Here” on American Idol and at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy party, causing someone from Variety (quoted on Broadway World) to suggest that “Broadway shows could be a great source of material and there are not enough A&R execs mining this increasingly rich territory.”

Even without Fantasia, with LaChanze in the leading role, Oprah helped make The Color Purple a must-see show, generating intense interest by featuring it on her daily talk show. To top this off, there’s Idina Menzel’s new CD and Marissa Jaret Winokur on Dancing With the Stars, two great opportunities to showcase Broadway talent to the rest of the country. That’s all very exciting.

Those are all signs of a healthy theatre season.

However, there is another qualification of a Golden Age, shows must be of a certain quality. The Golden Age is the Golden Age because of Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, The Pajama Game, My Fair Lady, and Fiddler on the Roof. We’ve had many fun shows the past five years with tremendous scores, but I’m not sure how many of them touch the great shows of the past. The greatness is present today; there’s simply something missing in the recipe—perhaps the struggles of adapting films to stage, concepts that are a stretch for a full evening, or a missing element in the creative team.

As I’ve written before, I saw seven shows on my last trip to New York in August of 2006, and the only one in the league above was Hairspray. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy myself very much, it’s simply that the shows didn’t leave me with that tremendous impact (as compared to, say, the trips I took in which I saw The Music Man, Follies, or Kiss Me, Kate). I think we’re on the way to getting there; our creators are building their muscles.

In looking over the selected chronology in the book Broadway: The American Musical, it’s interesting to note when shows opened. It varies from year to year, but during the Golden Age, two or three superb (or beloved/remembered) musicals would open in a year—in 1960-1961 there was Camelot, Do Re Mi, and Carnival!; in 1961-1962 there was How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; in 1962-1963 there was Oliver! and She Loves Me; and in 1963-1964 there was Hello, Dolly! and Funny Girl. In 1997-1998, we had Side Show, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Lion King, and Ragtime. It seems to me that those shows all make for a more interesting season than most recent years.

A third key component for a Golden Age is the road. We are no longer in a time when a young Elaine Stritch could take Call Me Madam on the road (or when road audiences would know Mary Martin and John Raitt on tour in Annie Get Your Gun). Look at how Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (one of those fun shows with a tremendous score from my last Broadway trip) struggled on the road with Norbert Leo Butz as the lead. As a person who thrives on road companies, the past five years have been pretty pathetic in terms of Broadway tours. The road never got the revivals of Gypsy, Wonderful Town, or Man of La Mancha. With non-Equity actors (and the related changes to staging and choreography), we got sacked with Oklahoma!, The Music Man, and The Wedding Singer. Many of the shows that tour from Broadway now are the shows with name or music recognition (Saturday Night Fever, All Shook Up), changes from Broadway (Seussical and Sweet Charity), and small casts that can keep costs low (Little Women and Brooklyn). Part of a Golden Age is when the energy and excitement from New York spills over into other parts of the country.

This is not to be doomsdaying, however, because there is much to be excited about in the theatre—In the Heights is giving us the first Broadway musical incorporating hip-hop, not to mention that shows like Rent and Spring Awakening are able to thrive alongside Hairspray and Curtains (a show whose staying power is very Golden Age-like). There are so many very talented people performing and auditioning, and there are folks like Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, David Yazbek, Stephen Schwartz, and Jason Robert Brown writing new music for Broadway.

Yes, I still say we are on the verge of something great.

But then . . . I don’t know if you can actually identify a golden age while you’re in it. It’s one of those phenomena that only become apparent after some distance and reflection.

the Broadway Mouth
Originally Published February 23, 2008