Category — Drama

Stephen Schwartz in front of his current Broadway shows

A Q&A with the superstar composer on Godspell, Wicked, and more

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Stephen Schwartz is one of the most influential forces in contemporary musical theatre. As a composer and lyricist, he’s created classics shows like “Pippin” and expanded the American songbook with tunes like “Meadowlark” and “Day By Day.”

At the moment, two of Schwartz’s defining works—”Godspell” and “Wicked”—are running next door to each other on Broadway, and he’s collaborating with Aaron Sorkin to create a musical about Houdini. Since Hugh Jackman is attached to play the legendary magician, there’s a good chance Schwartz will be celebrating yet another hit in just a few months.
Last week, Schwartz joined me for lunch in midtown Manhattan. We discussed his lengthy career, his thoughts on his current Broadway shows, and how being a team player doesn’t always mean what you think.

I’m delighted to present the highlights from our conversation.

– Mark Blankenship

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TDF Stages: Godspell, which stages the teachings of Jesus with a rock-pop score, has been produced thousands of times since it premiered Off Broadway in 1971, but until the current revival opened last fall, it hadn’t been on Broadway in over thirty years.

What’s it like to have your first hit back in the spotlight?

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The actor becomes Perón in Broadway’s “Evita”

Welcome to Building Character, TDF’s ongoing series about actors and how they create their roles

Michael Cerveris has recently starred in dark, brooding shows like Sondheim’s Sweeney Toddand the Kurt Weill bio-musical LoveMusik, but at the moment, he’s embracing grandeur and passion for the Broadway revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita.

According to Cerveris, playing Perón, the Argentine leader and husband to Evita, is not as much of a stretch as it may seem. “I think what people tend to think of with Andrew Lloyd Webber is big, romantic melodies and pop sensibilities, but Perón is the one character in this who sings not quite atonal, but very angular, quasi-opera sort of [music],” he says. “Of all the characters in the show, I think my vocal parts are probably closer to Sondheim than anything else. I feel like my experience with singing and learning how to sing Steve’s work has prepared me really well for some of the stranger writing that Andrew’s given to Perón.”

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Complex emotion in a Neil Simon revival

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When you hear the name “Neil Simon,” you might think of knee-slappers like The Odd Couple, but recently, several directors have been working to expand his legacy.

David Cromer’s woefully short-lived Broadway revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs found delicate drama inside family comedy, and in her current remount of Lost In Yonkers for The Actors Company Theatre, Jenn Thompson places loneliness and hope next to rat-a-tat laughs.

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Robert Patrick (photo by Dylan Kenin)

We were captivated by this story in LA STAGE Times about Robert Patrick, the playwright and off-Off Broadway pioneer. His frank stories about the off-Off scene—and what happened to him when he left it—are rich, moving, and occasionally heartbreaking.

Take a look at this excerpt, and then read the full story at LA STAGE Times.

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A new play takes its time at MTC

How long does it take to build a fire? Make a can of soup? Repair a table that an angry drunk smashed to pieces?

To find out, you can time the scenes in Regrets, Manhattan Theatre Club’s carefully paced new drama, now at City Center.

Set in Nevada in 1954, the play follows life in a “divorce camp.” Sixty years ago, Nevada had the most liberal divorce laws in the country, so men would move there just long enough to establish residency and split from their wives. Sometimes, they lived in special campgrounds, forming temporary communities of the listless and the lonely.

In Regrets , the community mixes card games and beer runs with unpleasant secrets, and the consequences get heavy. If we feel those consequences, it’s arguably because the play takes its time defining them. Scenes are long and conversations are rich, and if someone sweeps the floor, he sweeps the entire thing. This creates a methodical calm, even as emotions flare.

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