I’m delighted to announce a new collaboration with Samuel French, Inc., one of the world’s leading play publishers. From time to time, TDF Stages will exchange articles with Samuel French’s new online theatre magazine, [Breaking Character]. Because [Breaking Character] reports on theatre from around the country, this partnership will expand TDF Stage’s conversation about the theatre in valuable ways.

Today, I’m recommending a [BC] project called Collaborative Creation, which follows a successful musical theatre team as they create a new show. If all goes well, they’ll be ready to premiere their show in Vermont this September, and we’ll get a weekly glimpse into their process. I can’t wait to see what we learn as they move from “big idea” to opening night.

And now: Take a look at this excerpt from Collaborative Creation, then go enjoy the rest of the story at the [Breaking Character] website.

Cheers,

Mark (TDF Stages editor)

p.s. — I’m also excited to tell you that this summer, I’ll be teaching a course on arts criticism as part of the Samuel French Institute. For more information, just go here.

—

Collaborative Creation: Week By Week, #1
By Tajlei Levis

Our musical GLIMPSES OF THE MOON began when the Algonquin Hotel (of Round Table fame) sought to highlight their literary heritage by presenting a new musical in the Oak Room. They offered us the Manhattan equivalent of a barn – with oak-paneled walls and red velvet banquettes- and John and I had an incentive to quickly write a new musical…

John and I are now embarking on a new project, an original musical which explores a different side of 1920’s New York. The Bootlegger and the Rabbi’s Daughter was inspired by the thought of combining our respective cultural traditions (John’s family is Italian, mine is Jewish) into a meaningful multi-cultural holiday show, a Jewish Christmas musical, which would fit into our specialty of writing vintage New York musical comedies. We have a date to present it in a theatre – a former barn – in Vermont in September. So far, we have a detailed treatment and the start of several songs. By the end of the summer, we hope to have a complete script and score.

Read the rest of the story here.

Pictured: Writing team Tajlei Lewis and John Mercurio

The “War Horse” sequel finds the power of a good yarn

This month, children’s novelist Michael Morpurgo may be the most prominent author in New York. The stage adaptation of his book War Horse, about a young man and his horse surviving World War I, has been on Broadway since March, and Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation arrives on Christmas Day. Meanwhile, 59E59 is presenting Farm Boy, a War Horse sequel that follows the young man’s family through several generations.

In all cases, it’s evident why Morpurgo’s work is so alluring: His books tell sweeping, emotional stories that blend epic adventure with intimate relationships. “He has an innate storytelling, dramatic quality within his writing.” says Daniel Buckroyd, artistic director of Britain’s New Perspectives Theatre Company, which is producing Farm Boy. Buckroyd adapted and directed the material, and true to Morpurgo’s spirit, he says he wants it to be an exercise in “good old honest storytelling, as though we were gathered round the campfire.”

[Read more →]

Director Jeff Calhoun brings a new musical to life

For a director, the canvas of a new musical can be intimidatingly blank: There might be songs and scenes, but they need a world to exist in, a physical space to bring them to life. As Jeff Calhoun says, “A show has to look like something. Ideas are hard to come by when you’re working on new material, so when you do get something that you love, you have to hang onto it and go from there.”

And he should know: Calhoun is directing the new Broadway musical Bonnie & Clyde, which tells the story of the infamous American outlaws who became famous for their Depression-era crimes and their passionate love affair.

He also directed the show’s 2009 premiere at California’s La Jolla Playhouse, where he quickly seized on a concept for the set. “I said, ‘I would like the topography of the set to be as perilous as these times they’re living in,’” he recalls. “Nothing is easy. The platforms are at all different levels. You have to walk up to one and cross over to another and step over a gulley to another. I wanted it to be precarious.”

[Read more →]

Arena Stage revises its own remount of the classic musical

—

Call it a revised revival. Last year, Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage mounted the classic musical Oklahoma!, and since the production was a hit, they brought it back for an encore run through October 2. But they didn’t just toss up what they had before. The company tweaked and polished almost every element of the show, striving to deepen their original vision.
Last season, director (and Arena Stage artistic director) Molly Smith decided to give the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical a “dirt under the fingernails” quality. As she staged the romance of Curly the cowboy and Laurey the farmgirl, she also evoked the actual lives of Oklahoma settlers in the early 1900s. Writing in the program, she says “there was an essential wildness about the place and people” that she wanted to capture.
The result was a “folky” Oklahoma!, with washboards in the orchestra, smudges on the costumes, and hoedowns on the stage. The production also featured an ethnically diverse cast, underscoring how broadly American the musical really is.

For the remount, which features most of the original performers, the team pushed those concepts even further. Choreographer Parker Esse says, “There was an opportunity to dig deeper into the characters and the relationships to make sure we were going far enough.”

[Read more →]

How Kyle Barisich mastered 20 roles in the classic Broadway musical