Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll (2007)

a world premiere revue
Conceived and Directed by Scott Miller
Featuring songs from Rent, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Avenue Q, Songs for a New World, Hair, The Rocky Horror Show, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Naked Boys Singing, Company, Nine, I Love My Wife, Oklahoma!, The Last Five Years, No, No, Nanette, The Wild Party, The Nervous Set, Reefer Madness, Johnny Appleweed,
September 27-October 20, 2007
Ivory Theatre, St. Louis
http://www.newlinetheatre.com/sexpage.html

THE CAST
Aaron Allen
Kiné Brown
Zachary Allen Farmer
Nicholas Kelly
Matthew Korinko
Aaron Lawson
Khnemu Menu-Ra
Isabel Pastrana
John Rhine
Michelle Sauer
Kimi Short
Scott Tripp

THE ARTISTIC STAFF
Director – Scott Miller
“Call from the Vatican” Choreography – Robin Michelle Berger
Stage Manager – Trisha Bakula
Technical Director/Set Designer – Todd Schaefer
Lighting Designer – Kenneth Zinkl
Costume Designer – Russell J. Bettlach
Props Master – Vicki Herrmann
Lighting Technician – Trisha Bakula
Sound Technician – Matthew J. Koch
House Manager – Ann Stinebaker
Box Office Manager – Vicki Herrmann
Graphic Designer – Matt Reedy
Photographer – Michael C. Daft

THE BAND
Piano/Conductor – Chris Petersen
Bass – Dave Hall
Guitar – Mike Renard / Ken Apperson
Percussion – Kevin Neyer

THE REVIEWS
“New Line Theatre, whose fans followed the company around town for years, opens its 17th season in a new venue with a revue that stirred up controversy before the show even opened. The dustup, which centered on a clause in the contract to sell a church and turn it into a theater, died quickly. As it turns out, Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll makes a strong season opener. . . There’s no plot. Still, Scott Miller, who conceived and directed the show, plays songs from different eras off each other, adding unexpected context and resonance. . . Overall, Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll makes for an entertaining evening that shows off New Line’s sensibility, performers and new home.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“The four final numbers in the first act, from Avenue Q, Naked Boys Singing, Tomfoolery and I Love My Wife, were a perfect blend and an ideal example of using satire to make a political – or sexual – statement. . . Good voices and ensemble work from all the performers; Matthew Korinko and Isabel Pastrana, plus pianist Chris Petersen, left fine impressions. Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll, fast-moving, tuneful entertainment at the Ivory Theatre.” – Joe Pollack, KWMU-FM

“Miller keeps the two-act, two-hour show moving at a brisk and enjoyable pace for the most part, and he’s assembled a strong cast that is comfortable and engaging delivering tunes from myriad works. . . Miller’s energetic troupe delivered the goods with fun and flair.” – Mark Bretz, Ladue News
“After a little controversy about whether it was suitable fare for a theater built in a former church, the verdict is in. Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll is not obscene! (What a relief.) The good thing is that The New Line Theatre and its fearless Artistic Director, Scott Miller, received thousands of dollars worth of free publicity during the mini-squabble, and hopefully it will sell more tickets to this worthy musical review about three aspects of life in which most adults participate in at least 2 out of 3.” – Harry Hamm, KMOX-FM

DIRECTOR'S NOTES
Humans tell stories to try to understand themselves and the world around them. And what topic is more confusing, more mysterious, more in need of understanding than sexuality? From The Trojan Women to Romeo and Juliet to Dracula to Rent, many of our most lasting stories have tried to explain sex. Americans today seem to be more afraid of sex than ever, because sex keeps changing. When it is no longer exclusively about procreation, when sex has also become recreation, entertainment, commerce, art, how do we make sense of it?

And then there are drugs. From Sleeping Beauty to A Midsummer Night’s Dream to The Wizard of Oz to Hair to Requiem for a Dream, we have always been fascinated by altered consciousness. But it scares the Powerful because it can’t be controlled – just like rock and roll, only fifty years old yet already the most powerful cultural force in the history of humankind.

How do we grapple with all this? We tell stories.

But we live in a time when people with power want very much to “clean up” and dumb down American culture, to make everything safe for kids and palatable for adults who are afraid of their own complexity. For centuries there has been adult culture and child culture, each designed to deliver what its audience needs. Children learn about sharing, cooperation, and courage from their stories. Adults learn about complexity, the darker human urges, the destructive power of sex and love, the corrosion that comes with power. Unfortunately, these new American Crusaders would rather adults don’t learn about these things and instead live in happy, passive ignorance.

But some of us want to understand more. Some of us want to learn as much truth as we can in the time we’ve got. And some of those truths come in the “dangerous” form of films like Pink Flamingos and Blue Velvet, novels like The Story of O and The Subterraneans, and musicals like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Rocky Horror Show, and Hair.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll isn’t the kind of show most of us are used to. The continuity of the show comes not from plot, but from exploration and emotion. If it has models, they are probably Songs for a New World, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, and a show I saw at the Rep years ago, Songplay. In certain ways, this is an abstract show, not dealing in concrete reality but exploring very real truths about ourselves and each other. This is not a musical but it’s more than just a concert.

Even the comedy songs have surprising depth. “Perky Little Porn Star” describes the singer’s unhappy, repressive childhood which led him into the porn industry. We can laugh at his jokes, but there is some very painful truth there. “Nobody Needs to Know” is the song of an adulterous husband blaming his wife for his infidelity. “Maybe I Like It This Way” offers us a woman in an abusive relationship who knows she won't leave her abuser.

These songs have been removed from their original context to reveal truth even more universal than we imagined. Here, “Gethsemane” from Jesus Christ Superstar is sung by an ordinary man whose struggles seem to him just as insurmountable, just as overwhelming as those of Jesus. Instead of seeing the human in the divine as we did in Superstar, here we see the divine in the human.

And after all, isn’t that the point of telling stories?


Editor's Note: If you want to read all about the horrifying nightmare the New Liners endured, moving into a new theatre with this show, here are the gory details...

Urinetown (2007)

Music, and Lyrics by Mark Hollmann
Book and Lyrics by Greg Kotis
May 31-June 23, 2007
ArtLoft Theatre, St. Louis
http://www.newlinetheatre.com/urinepage.html

THE CAST
Officer Lockstock – Matthew Korinko
Little Sally – Amy Leone
Penelope Pennywise – Deborah Sharn
Bobby Strong – Khnemu Menu-Ra
Hope Cladwell – Isabel Pastrana
Mr. McQueen – Aaron Allen
Senator Fipp – Nicholas Kelly
Joseph Strong / Hot Blades – Scott Tripp
Tiny Tom – Zachary Allen Farmer
Soupy Sue – Michelle Sauer
Little Becky Two Shoes – Katie Nestor
Robbie the Stockfish – Cale Haupert
Billy Boy Bill – Aaron Lawson
Josephine Strong – Leah Myers Giessing
Officer Barrel – Joseph Garner
Caldwell B. Cladwell – Jeffrey Pruett

THE ARTISTIC STAFF
Director – Scott Miller
Assistant Director – Trisha Bakula
Choreographer – Robin Michelle Berger
Set Designers – G.P. Hunsaker, Jeffery Breckel
Asst. Technical Director – Robert Strasser
Lighting Designer – Seth Ward Pyatt
Costume Designer – Russell J. Bettlach
Scene Painter – David Carr
Props Master – Vicki Herrmann
Lighting Technician – Ember Hyde
Concessions/House Manager – Ann Stinebaker
Box Office Manager – Vicki Herrmann
Graphic Designer – Matt Reedy
Photographer – Michael C. Daft

THE BAND
Piano/Conductor – Chris Petersen
Bass – Dave Hall
Percussion – Mike Schurk
Trombone – Jim Shiels
Reeds – Marc Strathman

THE REVIEWS
“An exhilarating, don’t-miss experience. . . Urinetown plays like a tale of class warfare as performed by the Marx Brothers, and [director Scott] Miller doesn’t let politics get in the way of the laughs. The cast is first-rate, and Robin Michelle Berger’s choreography is gloriously in step with the story. So put your pennies together for the funniest, most tuneful show in town.” – Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“If you ever take a reviewer’s advice, let this be it: GO SEE THIS PLAY. Seriously. . . I have enjoyed quite a bit of theatre over the years and this is in the top 10.” – Kirsten Wylder, KDHX-FM

“New Line Theater’s production of this biting satire of politics, capitalism, corporate greed, environmental crises and, most importantly, of musical theater itself, was first-rate, particularly the extremely talented cast.” – Amy Burger, PlaybackSTL

DIRECTOR'S NOTES
What is Urinetown? It’s an anti-musical, a musical that pretends to operate on the Rodgers and Hammerstein model but instead tears that model apart. Every rule of the classic “integrated book musical” (shows like My Fair Lady, Oklahoma!, Carousel, Beauty and the Beast, The Full Monty, Wicked) is not just rejected here but actively mocked. And after more than sixty years of that model, isn’t it about time?

In this world of MTV and YouTube, shouldn’t we move forward rather than stand stuck in the conventions of the 1940s? Sure, Rodgers and Hammerstein were groundbreakers in 1943, but this is 2007.

But Urinetown is not just a show that breaks rules; it’s a show about breaking those rules. If this is a show that means to tear down the R&H model and leave it in rubble, then that must be our charge as well. Since it’s our job as theatre artists to understand what the authors meant to say and then figure out the clearest way to say that, that means our production must break the rules of musical theatre as well. As Stephen Sondheim says, Content Dictates Form.

So we ask lots of the same questions we always ask, like “Must the playing space be limited to a stage?” (We think not.) And even beyond those questions, we’ve created staging for this show that purposefully yanks the audience out of the “reality” of the story (whatever that means in the case of Urinetown) and continually reminds them that this is just a show, a fake, that these are just actors. Tonight we do not ask our audience to “suspend disbelief” like other shows do. The constant (and often hilarious) acknowledgement of the artificiality of our performance is utterly forbidden under the old R&H rules, but if you really think about it, this approach is a much more honest one. A show is artificial, after all. The actors aren’t these characters. And by acknowledging all that, we eliminate the Big Lie of the Fourth Wall.

In Urinetown, we’re not trying to lure you into getting emotionally involved with these characters. No, our aim is to get you to sit up and think about what’s happening. You probably won’t get wrapped up in Hope and Bobby’s romance because this show doesn’t care about that; instead you’ll realize how silly the conventions of old-fashioned musicals are, how corrupt the relationship between government and business is, how foolish and selfish The People can be, and how overly seriously we all tend to take ourselves in the Grand Scheme of Things.

This show works on so many levels at once – as comedy, as love story, as political theatre, parody, deconstruction. But the real surprise and joy of Urinetown is that the authors aren’t just smartass comedians; they are also supremely talented theatre writers with something interesting to say about how we tell our stories, how we record our world.

Some people won’t like our approach. They’ll wish they were seeing The Pajama Game at the Muny. (Then again, you did buy a ticket to a show called Urinetown!) But our job isn’t to make the audience comfortable; it’s to give the audience an adventure. And whatever else it may be, we think our Urinetown will be an adventure.

Grease (2007)

Book, Music, and Lyrics by
Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey
March 1-24, 2007
ArtLoft Theatre, St. Louis
http://www.newlinetheatre.com/greasepage.html

THE CAST
Danny – Brendan Allred
Sandy – Beth Bishop
Cha-Cha / The Radio – Mara Bollini
Marty – Kiné Brown
Miss Lynch – Cindy Duggan
Sonny – Joseph Garner
Patty – Erin Marie Hogan
Vince Fontaine – Matthew Korinko
Jan – Katie Nestor
Eugene – Chris Owens
Frenchy – Isabel Pastrana
Johnny Casino / Teen Angel – Jeffrey Pruett
Kenickie – BC Stands
Doody – Scott Tripp
Rizzo – Lainie Wade
Roger – Jeffrey M. Wright

THE ARTISTIC STAFF
Director – Scott Miller
Assistant Director – Khnemu Menu-Ra
Choreographer – Robin Michelle Berger
Fight Choreographer – Nicholas Kelly
Dance Captain – Jeffrey Pruett
Set Designer – G.P. Hunsaker
Lighting Designer – Kenneth Zinkl
Costume Designer – Russell J. Bettlach
Sound Designer – Steve Massey
Props Master – Vicki Herrmann
Asst. Technical Director – Robert Strasser
Lighting Technician/Food Wrangler – Trisha Bakula
Concessions/House Manager – Ann Stinebaker
Box Office Manager – Vicki Herrmann
Graphic Designer – Matt Reedy
Photographer – Michael C. Daft

THE BAND
Piano/Conductor – Chris Petersen
Bass – Dave Hall
Guitar – Mike Renard
Percussion – Mike Schurk
Reeds – Marc Strathman

THE REVIEWS
“Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey’s Grease is one of my favorite shows, and I’ve seen several different versions over the last few years. Having seen the movie when I was a teenager, I’d always preferred productions that included songs from the film. But, ever since I saw New Line Theatre’s raw, original take, I’ve become something of a purist.” – Chris Gibson, BroadwayWorld.com, reviewing the national tour in 2009

“Witty entertainment with something to say about teen sexuality, peer pressure and the erotic power of pop music. It must have been there all along, hiding under layers of poodle skirts and Clearasil.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“New Line opts to go back to basics and present the play more as it was originally conceived complete with raw language and frank sexuality. This is a horny and vulgar Grease that flips the bird at convention. It’s a daring approach that pays off for the most part… While I’ve always enjoyed the movie, it focused less on the other characters and plot elements and became more of a star vehicle. What New Line is presenting is more of an ensemble piece and, thankfully the cast delivers an entertaining night of theatre with attitude.” – Chris Gibson, KDHX-FM

“The best thing about the current production of Grease by the New Line Theatre is the tight, driving band led by Chris Petersen. The night I was there, a good chunk of the audience stood around after the show to listen to Petersen channel Jerry Lee Lewis as the band wound things up. There is nothing dull on that bandstand.” – Bob Wilcox, West End Word

DIRECTOR'S NOTES
Don’t be fooled into thinking Grease is just some silly spoof of the Fifties, a lightweight excuse to play some fun music. No, Grease on stage is as different from its movie version as Hair and Rocky Horror are from theirs. Grease originally took its inspiration from Hair and other alternative theatre pieces, and in its original form, Grease was raunchy, loud, vulgar, intentionally unpolished, a giant Fuck You to mainstream Broadway aesthetics. But more than anything else, Grease was Authentic. It understood the raw, untrained sound of early rock and roll, and the special energy of horny kids.

This was no cotton-candy musical comedy. It was smart, sly, insightful social commentary about one of America’s defining moments, a moment when our country moved from the repressed 1950s into the sexually adventurous 1960s, a moment when rock and roll – the first art form made exclusively for teenagers – was giving birth to the Sexual Revolution. Grease isn’t a story about young love, and its main characters are not really a teenage boy and girl. No, this is a show about sex in America. And the main character is rock and roll.

Critic Michael Feingold wrote in his introduction to the first published Grease script in 1972:

Grease does not discourse about our presence in Saigon. Nor does it contain in-depth study of such other 50s developments as the growth of mega-corporations and conglomerates, the suburban building boom that broke the backs of our cities, the separation of labor’s political power from the workers by union leaders and organization men. Grease is an escape, a musical designed to entertain, not to concern itself with serious political and social matters. But because it is truthful, because it spares neither the details nor the larger shapes of the narrow experience on which it focuses so tightly, Grease implies the topics I have raised, and many others. So I think it is a work of art, a firm image that projects, by means of what it does contain, everything it has chosen to leave out. And between the throbs of its ebullience, charm, and comedy, it conveys a feeling, about where we have been and how we got to where we are, that is quite near despair, if one wants to dwell on it.

Because they lived it, the creators of Grease understood that wild, thrilling, disorienting moment in our cultural history, that brief window in the mid-20th century when death and despair were not hanging over America's collective head, after the tumult of the Depression, two World Wars, and the Korean War – and before Vietnam, race riots, Watergate, and the energy crisis. This was a very special, very rich time in America that created some of the most influential culture in the history of the world.