The Ballad of Little Mikey (1997)

Book, Music, and Lyrics by
Mark Savage
June 13-28, 1997
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis

a St. Louis premiere
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Mark Savage
June 13-28, 1997
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis

THE CAST

Mikey – Mike Porter
Steve – Keith Price
Clay – Quenten Schumacher II
David – Ryan Keller
Robert – Kevin Collier
Charles – Tim Kent
Josh – Jim Hannah
Dr. Russo/Murray Cade – Gary Cox

THE ARTISTIC STAFF

Directors – Scott Miller and Brian Tibbets
Directing Intern – Jeffrey Yapp
Costume Designer – Tim Kent
Scenic Designer – Dennis Moore
Lighting Designer – Leif Gantvoort
Props – Jeffrey Yapp
Graphic Design – Tracy Collins

THE BAND

Piano – Scott Miller
Guitar – Mike Bauer
Percussion – Adam Kopff

THE REVIEWS
“When you think you’ve seen it all, along comes something like The Ballad of Little Mikey, the only musical comedy ever to include a number about anonymous sex in a public bathroom. . . That willingness to poke fun is the sharpest thing about the play.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Though your jaw may drop, you’ll be hard pressed not to smile, for this number [“Tap”], and in fact most of Little Mikey, is offered with such a winning spirit that you can’t resist. . . Particularly in the first act, the show is smartly self-mocking, exploring the gay ethos with predictable romantic fawning and some sure, swift kicks.” – Mike Isaacson, The Riverfront Times

“Scott Miller and his New Line Theatre continue to bring St. Louis challenging, refreshing musical theatre that you simply can’t see anywhere else. . . The Ballad of Little Mikey will make you think and it will teach you a thing or two.” – Steve Callahan, KDHX-FM

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
Much of the action of The Ballad of Little Mikey takes place in 1981, the year Ronald Reagan was elected president. The gay movement had been gaining considerable ground since the historic Stonewall riot of 1969. In 1979 alone, the year leading up to the action of this show, a gay high school senior sued his school for the right to take another boy to prom. The first national gay march on Washington was attended by 100,000 protesters. California Governor Jerry Brown signed an executive order prohibiting anti-gay discrimination in state hiring. Los Angeles became the 44th city to enact gay civil rights legislation. And the Moral Majority was formed by Jerry Falwell to oppose gay rights, pornography, feminism, and communism.

At that time, gay literature was not what it is today. Most gay stories were about how hard it is to be gay, about facing rejection and discrimination, about trying to find love in a world that demonizes homosexuality. Gay characters were not at all like straight characters.

But at some point in the last decade of this millennium, things have really changed for gay Americans. Suddenly, being gay isn't so outrageous. Suddenly, there are gay characters all over mainstream TV. Suddenly, kids are coming out of the closet in high school – some kids today are never even in the closet. There are gay high school proms, gay high school students forming gay student clubs, celebrities and politicians (even Republicans) coming out of the closet in record numbers.

And gay literature and theatre have turned a corner. Instead of stories about Being Gay and the pain of being an outcast (as in The Boys in the Band, La Cage aux Folles, etc.), stories are now being written about gay characters finding love, building relationships, dealing with family, work, and friendships. Though the main characters are gay, the stories are about facing the same problems and joys straight people face.

The Ballad of Little Mikey embodies both these traditions: the scenes set in 1981 are centered on the issue of being gay and what that means in a hostile world, while the scenes set in the present are about relationships, love, compromise, and sacrifice. In fact, a straight couple could play the scenes in the present without changing a word. Mikey not only covers two distinct political and cultural periods, but also two eras in gay literature and theatre. It's interesting to realize that the fantasies the friends express in the song “Ten Percent” are actually coming true – there are gays in the House and the Senate, and people really do take their gay spouses to company picnics now.

Being gay is no longer something to be ashamed of. As a society, we've grown up with Mikey and learned as he did that it's not about who you love; it's about how you love.

REMEMBERING MIKEY
I found the cast album of Mikey at Webster Records and fell in love with its honesty, its humor, and its heart. Without too much effort, I got in touch with Mark Savage, who wrote the show, and we had soon made a deal for New Line to produce Mikey. The only thing that worried me about staging the show was the song “Tap,” an extended, comic musical scene about Mikey discovering the mysteries of gay men having anonymous sex in public bathrooms in the 1970s. How was I going to deal with this number, in which a bunch of gay men do a soft shoe number with their pants around their ankles? But I did what I always do when I’m stumped. I took a step back from it, and my co-director Brian and I asked that all important question, “What is this song about at its core?” I realized this song was about Mikey discovering anonymous sex and finding it altogether unpleasant and unsatisfying. This was an experience he had to go through on his journey to becoming a healthy, well-adjusted, monogamous gay man. I realized the audience had to be led to the same conclusion as Mikey. It had to be slightly disturbing, even though it was a comedy number. I also knew from past experience that if a director is afraid of offending and shies away from presenting a moment on stage honestly, the audience will smell that fear and will inevitably be offended anyway (audiences are kinda like dogs, that way). But if you present that moment honestly, the reaction is generally much better. So we really went for it in “Tap.” We simulated every sexual position a person could navigate in a public bathroom. We created a Busby Berkeley-inspired rainbow colored ring of toilet seats. We created an in-your-face, no-holds-barred, admittedly sexual, comedy number, and it worked. Audiences loved it, and few people were offended. Only one person walked out during the entire run. But Mark Savage himself had the funniest reaction. When I asked him what he thought of that number, he told me it was so extreme, so sexual. I laughed and said, “Mark, you’re the one who wrote a song about anonymous bathroom sex!”

-- Scott Miller, director

Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (1997)

Music and Original French Lyrics by Jacques Brel
Conception, English Lyrics and Additional Material by
Eric Blau and Mort Shuman, based on Brel’s Commentary
February 21-March 1, 1997
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis

THE CAST
Laura Beard Aeling, Kevin Collier, Johanna Schloss, Mark Stulce

THE ARTISTIC STAFFDirectors – Scott Miller and Brian Tibbets
Scene Painter – Andy Milner
Set Decorator -- Leif Gantvoort
Lighting Designer – L.D. Lawson
Lighting Technician – Makeesha Coleman
Costume Coordinator – Quenten Schumacher II
Graphic Designer – Tracy Collins

THE BANDPiano – Scott Miller
Guitar/Mandolin – Mike Bauer
Bass – Terry Kippenberger
Percussion – Adam Kopff

THE REVIEWS
“New Line Theatre . . . has taken on the challenge and acquits itself with an entertaining and thoughtful production. . . directors Scott Miller and Brian Tibbets have understood and captured Brel’s smoky, bittersweet flavor.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Jacques Brel himself may have died a few years ago, but his spirit and his unique songs are indeed alive and well and living at the St. Marcus Theatre. . .The New Line Theatre’s current production captures all the potent poetry of Brel, and it is surprisingly fresh and current, despite the sometimes strong political or social content.” – Steve Callahan, KDHX-FM

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
More than any other piece written for the musical stage, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris defies description. It is an evening of independent songs (almost one-act musicals), yet it's not a revue. It doesn't have a plot or even an immediately recognizable cast of characters, so it's not really a book musical.

We think it's a one-character musical with a cast of four. Two women and two men all portray one character: Jacques Brel. The words are Brel's, the opinions, insights, and satiric wit are Brel's. The underlying, sometimes nearly hidden optimism is Brel's. The show is more a character study than anything else, but we must ask if it is a character study of just Jacques Brel the man or also of western civilization at the end of the 20th century?

Jacques Brel was born in Belgium in 1929 but moved to Paris to be a singer and songwriter. By the early 1960s, Brel had established a reputation as one of France's greatest writers and interpreters of modern songs. In 1957, the first American recording of Brel's songs was released. In 1961, Elly Stone sang two Brel songs, “Ne me quitte pas” (“Don't Leave Me”) and “La Valse mille temps,” (“The Waltz in 1,000 Time”) in a strange off-Broadway revue called O, Oysters!

Though the show didn't run long, Stone continued to perform these two songs. In 1968, Eric Blau and Mort Shuman created an off-Broadway musical using twenty-five of Brel's songs, called Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, and it ran for 1,847 performances. The show has been revived twice in New York. A film version was released in 1975, which included an appearance by Brel. Since the show first opened, Brel's songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as David Bowie, Judy Collins, and Barry Manilow. Brel died in 1978 at age 49, but they didn't change the title of the show. You'll see why tonight.

Very few of Jacques Brel's songs are simple and straight-forward. He was a poet as much as a songwriter, and the words he writes often cloak a deeper meaning. So many of the songs in the show are not what they appear to be. “I Loved” is about being in love with the symbols of love instead of with a person. “Bachelor's Dance” is about unrealistic expectations. “My Death” is a view of death as inevitable but patient. “Jackie” is a man who hates his life and wishes he could return to the innocence and simplicity of childhood. “The Statue” condemns the false (and dangerous?) romanticizing of war and soldiering. “Brussels” is about denial in the face of danger. “No Love, You're Not Alone,” is about how we project our own sorrow onto someone else so that they will “need” us. Every single song is an adventure and a meditation.

You'll never see another show like this one, and we'll never work on another show like this. So we really treasure this experience.

We hope you will, too.

REMEMBERING JACQUES BREL
This was one of my favorite New Line shows. Not only was the material challenging and inspiring, but also the small company was genuinely warm and supportive. Many events during the run were memorable in their own right – Laura slicing her hand open with her umbrella during “Madeleine” (and finishing the last hour and forty-five minutes of the show with her hand wrapped in whatever clean cloth could be found); Mark hiding words to his songs in the doorway to steal a glance when he could; Scott and Brian demonstrating the complicated choreography of “Carousel” as the four of us watched in fascination and horror; Kevin's incredibly poignant rendition of “The Statue” resonating through a silenced house. However, there is one simple memory that sticks with me, too – the memory of Kevin's and Laura's hands holding mine while we stood in semi-darkness at the edge of the stage and sang “The Desperate Ones” and “If We Only Have Love.” At the end of each of those songs, there would be a quiet moment, and just before the audience applauded, we'd lightly squeeze each other's hands. That remains one of my favorite theatre moments.

– Johanna Schloss, cast member

One of the most rewarding experiences that I had working with New Line was assisting with the choreography on both “Marathon” and “Carousel” for Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. These two songs provided such a good framing mechanism for the entire show, incorporating all of the show’s warnings and prophecies into fiercely overt language and imagery. The choreography for both songs needed to mirror those warnings accurately. This was a large task because of the wildly different types of music in the show. Staying true to the music was necessary, and in the end, it is what made those two songs most effective.

For “Marathon,” the lyrics “flashed” different images of various aspects of the twentieth century, ranging from “the twenties roar because there’s bathtub gin” to the prophetic “and the nineties whimper and the century hangs.” Scott and I spent hours working with different ideas until we finally ended up with a frantic, whirlwind tour of the century, the actors mimicking the lyrics. It opened the evening very nicely and set the stage for the rest of the show.

The choreography for “Carousel” gave us fits because of the repetition and increasingly frantic pace of the music. Again, the music dictated the sense of urgency and warning, wrapped up in a seemingly innocent amusement ride. The circular motion of the carousel translated nicely into a tight circle that moved with the music, ever scarier, like a machine out of control. Johanna, Kevin, Mark, and Laura nailed the foreboding hand movements perfectly, and I was always left breathless on the final beat. The most satisfying aspect of working with Scott on the choreography for Brel, and these two songs in particular, was that it was a truly organic process. We tried things. We researched. We argued over ideas. We consulted the cast. The music was revisited over and over again to insure that everything was timed perfectly and that it continued to make sense, even in the waning days of rehearsal. In the end, I believe those two songs really shone through because of the work and the attention to detail that we gave it. At no point was the message of Brel compromised by the movements of the actors, one of the many things that I am most proud of during my work with New Line.

– Brian Tibbets, co-director

I’m sitting at the piano during one performance of Jacques Brel and I’m thinking everything is going really well. The audience is with us and the cast looks like they’re having a great time. It’s not until after the performance that I find out that Laura has sliced her hand open with a umbrella that had broken during the show’s fourth song, “Madeleine.” Apparently, she had just sat there and bled until she could get off stage, and then couldn’t find a first aid kit. The most impressive thing was that she never missed a beat and it didn’t affect her performance in the least. The funniest thing was the next night when we assembled onstage to warm up and we found a dozen or so puddles of dried blood scattered around the stage. Laura examined the spots calmly and then said, “I bet that’s a bio-hazard.”

– Scott Miller, director

Passion (1996)

a St. Louis premiere
Music and Lyrics by
Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
November 15-23, 1996
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis

THE CAST

Clara – Deborah Sharn
Captain Giorgio Bachetti – Jim Merlo
Fosca – Laura Beard Aeling
Lieutenant Torasso – J.T. Ricroft
Colonel Ricci – Brett Kristofferson
Doctor Tambourri – Steven R. Johnson
Sergeant Lombardi – Jonathan Stone
Lieutenant Barri – Kevin Collier
Major Rizzoli – Keith Thompson
Private Augenti – Derek Silkebaken
Fosca’s Mother – Judy Moebeck
Fosca’s Father – Kevin Collier
Count Ludovic – Quenten Schumacher II
The Count’s Mistress – Sherry Frank

THE ARTISTIC STAFF

Director – Scott Miller
Assistant Director – Brian Tibbets
Set Designers – Leif Gantvoort and L.D. Lawson
Lighting Designer – Makeesha Coleman
Costume Designer – Quenten Schumacher II
Graphic Design – Tracy Collins

THE BAND

Piano – Debbie Bernardoni
Trumpet – Paul Hecht
Flute/Clarinet – Mark Strathman
Percussion – Adam Kopff

THE REVIEWS
“The New Line Theatre production of Passion is a triumph for director Scott Miller and his company. . . Miller’s cast and crew supply the fervor and understanding required to bring out the haunting melancholy of [James] Lapine’s book and [Stephen] Sondheim’s words and music.” – Gerry Kowarsky, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“At once outrageous and courageous, Scott Miller’s production . . . has the audacity and insight to strip away the layers of pretension and seriousness that enveloped the original New York production. . . resulting in a wild, bold ride for the audience. Bring a friend, because you’ll have a lot to talk about. . . All involved deserve praise for attacking the difficult assignment with considerable intelligence, honesty, and of course, passion.” – Mike Isaacson, The Riverfront Time

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

At the beginning of Passion, Giorgio and Clara sing:

Just another love story,
That’s what they would claim.
Another simple love story –
Aren't all of them the same?
No, but this is more...

And they're not just referring to themselves. They're also describing the musical Passion itself. It is a love story after all, but it's definitely not like all the rest.

Passion is a tale of deeply felt unconditional love in a world obsessed with physical beauty. It's a profoundly emotional, disturbing story that makes us think about serious issues of love, beauty, passion, and gender roles, even as our hearts break along with Fosca, Giorgio, and Clara.

We were all anxious to work on this show because it's so unlike any other work of the musical theatre. Even for Stephen Sondheim, the greatest rule-breaker working in the art form today, this is still an experiment: his first non-ironic love story. This is not a show in which the authors step back and comment wryly on the follies of love. Instead Passion charges head first into the pain and disorienting passion of love. There is nothing separating us from Fosca and her extreme expressions of love, nor from the raw sexuality of Giorgio and Clara.

The greatest joy for an actor or director is to find material that is utterly real, that accurately represents the hopelessly confusing, conflicting human condition, and Passion is that kind of show. Even the most serious musicals condense characters into clearly defined essences for dramatic purposes. But this is a show whose story works only because the characters are not essences, but are instead fully formed, deeply complex people. None of the decisions and choices made by these people is black and white. None of the characters is wholly good or bad. Everyone populates the gray middle ground of morality, responsibility, loyalty, and self-preservation.

We're all curious to see how you will respond to this show. We think everyone will have a different reaction, that men and women will disagree, that older people and younger people, married and single people, parents and children will disagree. Everyone will bring their own experiences, past loves and losses, past and present obsessions to Fosca, Giorgio, and Clara's story.

We think it will unsettle you a little, but more importantly, move you greatly. Whatever your reaction, we hope you enjoy the show.

REMEMBERING PASSION

What an incredible, unique show. The mostly sold out audiences were absolutely spellbound every performance. I've never seen anything like that before or since. It was a very dark, sometimes disturbing yet beautiful two-hour show with no intermission. Then there were the boots. Most of the men had to wear these rented boots that squeaked with every step. When the men made a scene change, there was rhythmic squeaking. When they tried to cross backstage, there were the squeaks. There was no way to stop the boots from making noise. Watching the actors backstage trying to walk without making noise was like being at a contortionists’ convention. Some walked on their toes, others tried walking on their heels, but they all walked as if they were on a tight rope. Nothing worked. It's a good thing the show held the audiences' attention so well; otherwise they would have thought there were “military mice” in the theatre.

– Steve Johnson, “Dr. Tambourri”

The role of Clara in New Line's production of Stephen Sondheim's musical Passion was by far the most erotic role I had experienced and I delighted in it. Believe me, I'd had my share of passionate, scantily clad roles in the past. But the sexual intimacy that Clara and Giorgio expressed onstage, a mere three feet from the first row of the audience, not to mention the attractiveness of my costar, Jim Merlo, was a stirring theatrical experience for me. I remember the night I first kissed Jim. We were doing a publicity photo shoot and Scott suggested that I sit on Jim's lap, in my very sheer nightgown. Jim, God love him, was not wearing a shirt, and he was certainly stirring everyone at the rehearsal – he's one of those guys with perfect chest hair placement and the physique to match. What began as an awkward moment of hesitation turned into scintillating, sensual kissing that seemed to last an eternity. Scott practically had to pull us apart. Many a rehearsal I would lose my way in the lyrics and surrender to the passion of the moment. Men and women alike found Jim appealing; many a man said he was living vicariously through me. Tough luck, guys. Needless to say during performances my professionalism always won out and I ended up thinking about breath (catching my breath, that is!) and vocal technique during our songs together. Little did I know that the following March, Jim would play Marvin to my Trina in March Of The Falsettos and he’d leave me for a man. Ah, the fickleness of men!

– Deborah Sharn, “Clara”

During the rehearsal process for Passion, I was having very serious thoughts about quitting acting altogether. This was my second show in six years. I played Doctor Tambourri, and Scott and I were having trouble trying to figure out the doctor’s motivation for doing the things he did in the show. I was also having a great deal of trouble concentrating and learning my lines. I figured I was rusty and that I was getting too old to do shows. It was very frustrating. Then about three weeks before the show opened I discovered the furnace leak in my home. I had no idea carbon monoxide was slowly killing me. I got the furnace fixed. My mind cleared, I learned my lines and Scott and I had some very good conversations about my character that made sense and helped. In the end I didn't quit theatre, although Scott and others keep begging me to.

– Steve Johnson, “Dr. Tambourri”

I don’t know if I’ve ever worked on a more beautiful, more lush, more thrilling score than Passion's. To live in that music for two months was utterly overwhelming and exhilarating. It may well be the most beautiful music anyone has ever written for the stage. And the story of Passion, again so utterly overwhelming, so disturbing, so shattering, completely absorbed me. It was all I could think about, not only during the process, but for months after we closed. And then there’s our cast – a brilliant, dedicated cast that captured perfectly the pain and beauty and obsession and danger of this dark, scary, soulful tale. There was no greater thrill than watching Laura, Deborah, and Jim, and the others tackle this story night after night. From my admittedly biased position, I really believe we went deeper and took more risks than the original production did. And the other thing that made me so proud of this cast is that Passion was one of the most difficult scores we’d ever tackled, and they learned it thoroughly, every note, every rest, every entrance. It occurred to me as we worked on it that the Broadway cast had always had a conductor in front of them cuing every entrance, every difficult passage, but the New Line cast did not have that luxury. Because of the physical intimacy of our shows, there is never a conductor between the actors and the audience. Our actors never had any help in knowing when and where to sing. They had to know the score inside and out, every fascinating twist and turn (and there are a lot!). I asked of them something that had not been asked even of the original Broadway cast, and despite the difficulty, they actually sang it more accurately than the Broadway cast. They sang exactly what Sondheim wrote, and in many cases, with greater depth and meaning because they did not take liberties with Sondheim’s music. Lots of performers have said that every note of a Sondheim score counts, that there is a reason for every note and every rest. Never has that been truer than with Passion, and I will always be exceptionally proud of how true we were to this glorious score

-- Scott Miller, director

Sweeney Todd (1996)

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler
June 7-22, 1996
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis

THE CAST
Sweeney Todd – Mark Stulce
Anthony Hope – Keith Thompson
Beggar Woman – Laura Beard Aeling
Nellie Lovett – Lisa Karpowicz
Johanna Turpin – Sherry Frank
Beadle Bamford – Michael Dewes
Judge Turpin – Steven R. Johnson
Tobias Ragg – Dan Sattel
Adolfo Pirelli – George M. Jones
Bird Seller – David Blake
Mr. Fogg – Jerry Smith
Cindy Duggan
Judy Moebeck

THE ARTISTIC STAFFDirector – Scott Miller
Assistant Director – Matthew R. Kerns
Lighting Designer – L.D. Lawson
Set Coordinator – Greg Hunsaker
Costumes and Props Designer – Quenten Schumacher II
Special Prop Construction – Pat Edmonds
Graphic Design – Tracy Collins

THE BAND
Piano – Catherine Edwards
Keyboards – Jim Ryan
Percussion – Adam Kopff

THE REVIEWS
“Under director Scott Miller, Sweeney appears in a completely different light, pared down and bitterly funny. . . Miller’s treatment makes sense and the tiny, peculiarly shaped St. Marcus Theatre is exactly the right setting for it. . . To be honest, I’ve seen Sweeney Todd before and never liked it. But this production made me consider it from a different perspective; I appreciate that.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Ultimately, it is the challenges that make Sweeney Todd, like so much Sondheim, a stimulating evening in the theatre.” – Box Wilcox, The Riverfront Times
“I was amazed at how beautifully the show fits in the tiny St. Marcus Theatre. . . I’m now convinced that is how it is most effective.” – Steve Callahan, KDHX-FM

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
Sweeney Todd is one of only two musicals that Stephen Sondheim has initiated himself (the other is Passion). Though the massive original production was very effective, Sondheim has said that he intended it to be an intimate chamber musical with few sets. And that may be the way it is the most effective, the most chilling, the most personal. This is not a show intended to leave an audience happy and safe in the knowledge that Good always triumphs over Evil. Sweeney Todd is meant to disturb.

Of the many musical motifs used in Sweeney Todd, one of the most interesting – and appropriate – is the dies irae. This chant melody from the Mass for the Dead has been used for centuries in music about death and dying. It first appears in “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” as the melody to the chorus (“Swing your razor wide, Sweeney...”). It's also found, upside-down, as the accompaniment to “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” and used as underscoring throughout the show. This inverted version also becomes the vocal melody to “My Friends.” Thus, the dies irae connects the opening number describing Sweeney with both his song about why he will kill (“Barber and His Wife”) and his song about how he will kill (“My Friends”).

This show has several things to say about human nature and about society. The most obvious statement the authors are making is that we all have the capacity for revenge that Sweeney has. In the last song, the chorus sings to us, “Perhaps today you gave a nod to Sweeney Todd,” and later, “Sweeney waits in the parlor hall, Sweeney leans on the office wall. No one can help, Nothing can hide you. Isn’t that Sweeney there beside you?”

To some extent, they are saying, we all live in the past, we all make mistakes we regret, and we all have revenge in our hearts at one time or another. Perhaps we don't go to the extremes that Sweeney did; but then again, how often are we put in the very extreme circumstances into which Sweeney has been thrust?

Like Sondheim's Assassins, Sweeney Todd also makes the case that society is to blame – for the unfair class structure, exploitation of the working classes, the abuse of power, a corrupt government and justice system. Like Assassins, the black humor in Sweeney Todd allows us to distance ourselves from the horror of what's happening, but it also makes us realize how easily we can trivialize murder and brutality. Is “A Little Priest” all that different from Oliver Stone's film Natural Born Killers or Quenten Tarentino's Pulp Fiction? As a society, we have grown numb to death; we see it so much on the news, in television shows, in the movies, that it hardly fazes us anymore. Through wars, urban riots, and “ethnic cleansing,” killing has become an impersonal act. And perhaps that's one of Sondheim's points – the fact that Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett can joke about the brutal murders they will commit is an indictment of our culture. But remember that they're not the only ones laughing – so are we.

REMEMBERING SWEENEY TODD
Scott blocked the show using the entire theatre as a stage. The cast was often out among the audience. There were two satellite stages, one on the left of the main stage and one on the right. The main stage was used only as Sweeney's barber shop. Scott blocked the opening number with the cast spaced and staggered the width of the theatre on the floor in front of the main stage. During the song there are quite a few one line solos from various cast members. I think the cast enjoyed watching the audience during the opening number as much as the audience enjoyed watching us. As each solo was performed, the audiences' heads would turn in unison toward the sound. First left, then right, then center. It was quite a funny sight. It was almost like they were watching a tennis match or they were a hundred cats looking at the same piece of string being dangled in front of them.

– Steve Johnson, “Judge Turpin”

I'm sure that everyone who has been involved in theatre has one show that will forever stand out as a career highlight. For me, this highlight is New Line's production of Sweeney Todd. Mrs. Lovett possesses a delicious sense of humor and that, paired with her obvious character flaws, provided me with a never-ending source of challenges, pleasures, and memories. One of my least favorite memories of this production, however, occurred on opening night. I was always particularly nervous before my first scene which contained the song “Worst Pies in London,” a song in which it is very easy to become tongue-tied or drop a line. This night, however, it went flawlessly and I was ecstatic. Just off stage I uttered a very quiet but jubilant “Yes!” and in doing so missed the two steps leading down and, instead, fell off the side with my ankle twisted underneath me. As soon as I heard that “crunch” sound and felt the sickening pain, I knew it was sprained. I literally crawled back to the dressing room where everyone thought, at first, that I was just playing some kind of joke. I guess it was the tears streaming down my face that convinced them that I was definitely not pretending. We were able to find a roll of duct tape with which I wrapped my ankle and the show went on. I can honestly say that, on that particular night, at least, I had no trouble finding the right motivation for Mrs. Lovett's cry of anguish as Sweeney throws her into the oven!

– Lisa Karpowicz, “Mrs. Lovett”

Every night, several white shirts and barber cloths would get fake blood on them, and someone had to wash them each night after the show to make sure they were blood-free for the next performance. That task fell to me. Let's talk about stress. I'm disabled. It's my first show in six years. It's my fourth musical in twenty-five years. It's my first Sondheim show. It's a New Line show and I'm working with Scott Miller for the first time. The temperature in the theatre is near one hundred degrees each night. Now, let's add to that, I'm crossing state lines, from Missouri to Illinois, every night with a trunk full of “blood-soaked” clothes. If the police had ever stopped me during that time, they would still be digging up my yard looking for bodies. And yet, New Line's Sweeney Todd was the best thing to happen to me in years. It was interesting and a great deal of fun.

– Steve Johnson, “Judge Turpin”

Out on Broadway (1996)

a world premiere
featuring songs from Bye Bye Birdie, Girl Crazy, She Loves Me, Dear World, Falsettos, Once Upon a Mattress, Merrily We Roll Along, City of Angels, Les Misérables, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Victor/Victoria, Mame, Dreamgirls, Follies, Company, The Robber Bridegroom, Phantom of the Opera, La Cage aux Folles, Passion, Into the Woods, The Secret Garden, The Rothschilds, South Pacific, Assassins, and other shows
Conceived by Scott Miller
March 1-9, 1996
Additional Performances August 16-24, 1996
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis

THE CAST
Chris Brenner, Tracy Collins, Quenten Schumacher II, Keith Thompson, Eddie Webb

THE ARTISTIC STAFF
Director – Scott Miller
Additional Staging – J.T. Ricroft
Lighting Designer – Linda Lawson
Graphic Design – Tracy Collins
Pianist – Scott Miller

THE REVIEWS
“A sweetly rewarding and happy surprise. . . Not since Tom Clear and Joan Lipkin’s Some of My Best Friends Are held court has a musical evening so expertly fused the intimacy, politics, and spirit of the St. Marcus. . . United in song and spirit, the cast and audience celebrate the fusion of a Broadway past into the home for a community’s political future.” – Mike Isaacson, The Riverfront Times

“Entertaining and thought-provoking, Out on Broadway, the new revue from New Line Theatre, offers musical theatre with a decidedly different twist. . . It’s what theater, at its best, is for.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“A most thought-provoking, touching, and entertaining production.” – News-Telegraph

“Some of the evening’s best moments owe their power to flawless harmonizing.” – Harry Weber, The Riverfront Times

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
(March 1996)
Gay men and lesbians have been playing straight characters since time began. They've had to sing about a kind of love they never felt, never able (until recently) to sing about the feelings they actually have. Stars like Danny Kaye, Larry Kert, George Rose, Jack Cassidy and many others never had a chance to explore in their work the issues they faced in their daily lives.

Gay or bisexual writers, including Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, Jerry Herman, Leonard Bernstein, Noel Coward, Lorenz Hart, Arthur Laurents, Howard Ashman, and so many others have had to “transpose” their feelings in order to write for the characters in their shows.

Only a few gay musicals have ever played on Broadway. And though TV and movies are finally accepting gay characters as something more than a punch line, the Broadway musical is much slower to do the same. However, in regional theatres gay issues are being explored in many new musicals by writers like Mark Savage, Linda Eisenstein, Chris Jackson, myself, and others. Two songs from Mark Savage's new musical, The Ballad of Little Mikey will be performed tonight. This spring, an album of songs from gay musicals will be released by AEI Records, including songs from The Ballad of Little Mikey and the gay vampire musical In the Blood, which New Line premiered last season.

So tonight we present the history of Broadway musicals the way it should have been.
Every song you'll hear tonight was chosen for a reason. “You Have to Be Carefully Taught” was written about racism, but its message against intolerance is as relevant today as ever, as religious extremists demonize gays and lesbians. “In My Own Lifetime” and “Do You Hear the People Sing” are particularly potent, reminding us of the all the work we have to do. “Children Will Listen” is a warning to those political and religious leaders who would promote prejudice and fear instead of understanding. And in this explosive election year, “Our Time” and “Everybody's Got the Right” are no longer just show tunes – they are battle cries.

“Everything Possible” is the song we all wish someone had sung to us when we were little, a song that we hope will be sung to children from now on.

Very few of these songs were written in the context in which you find them tonight, but I think you'll be surprised at how easily they work this way. The experiences we're exploring tonight are universal. A love song written for a straight couple fits a gay couple no less perfectly: One lyric sums it all up: “They're writing songs of love, but not for me . . .” Well, tonight these songs are for us all.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
(August 1996)
Well, here we are, back “Out” at the St. Marcus.

This is the first time New Line has ever done a show a second time. It's the first time we thought a piece was important enough. We decided that if we can reach people this time that we didn't reach the first time, then it's worth doing again.

We didn't realize this show was as special as it is until we put it in front of an audience last March. It's the only gay revue I'm aware of that doesn't make fun of gays and also doesn't ask for pity for gays. It's a very proud, brave, and occasionally political look at being gay in America. This is a show that sees gays as regular people, with the same kind of joy and heartache as everyone else, despite their often unique societal obstacles. And I think that's a big part of what made it so incredibly popular the first time around.

Gay men and lesbians have been playing straight characters since theatre began. We've had to sing about a kind of love we never felt, never able (until recently) to sing about the feelings we actually have. Stars like Danny Kaye, Larry Kert, George Rose, Jack Cassidy, and many others never had a chance to explore in their work the issues they faced in their daily lives.

Gay or bisexual writers, including Cole Porter, Jerry Herman, Leonard Bernstein, Noel Coward, Lorenz Hart, Arthur Laurents, Howard Ashman, and so many others never had a chance to explore their lives in their writing.

Only a few gay musicals have ever played on Broadway. And though TV and movies are finally accepting gay characters as something more than a punch line, the Broadway musical is much slower to do the same. However, in regional theatres gay issues are being explored in many new musicals by writers like Mark Savage, Linda Eisenstein, Cindy O'Connor & Larry.Johnson, Chris Jackson, myself, and others. Two songs from Mark Savage's new musical, The Ballad of Little Mikey (which New Line will produce in June 1997) will be performed tonight.

We've made some small changes since the last time we were here – a few songs cut, a few added, a few moved. We hope you like the show even better. Very few of these songs were written in the context in which you find them tonight, but I think you'll be surprised at how easily they work this way.

Many of the experiences we're exploring are indeed universal. As Congress passes new (possibly un-Constitutional) laws to exclude gays and lesbians from legal marriage, as Bob Dole and his friends work to prevent us from enjoying other equal rights, as national religious leaders misuse and misquote the Bible to demonize us, this is an important lesson for his all to take with us.

REMEMBERING OUT ON BROADWAY
What wonderful voices and great people to work with, and more talent that intimidated me. There was so much time and effort put into each song, which I think helped us to make the show our own. I could not believe the audiences we got; they loved us. That was a major high. But I wish I could go back and rerecord the CD. Having the knowledge I have now with several vocal master classes under my belt (trust me, my pants still fit snug), I would sing everything very different. How great we are – the only New Line show that made a CD, but we are not the only ones that should have made one.

– Chris Brenner, cast member

I remember how I felt being involved in such a unique production and how the concept of the show excited me. Using songs traditionally meant for women, but putting a new twist to them by using the male voice and form. As a choreographer, it created challenges that were fun to work out, especially with a cast that was so eager to try anything. We were all limitless, since this had not been done before and we had no expectations or past “female” interpretations to consider. During rehearsals, we had so much fun creating pictures that would allow the audience to experience each song in a new way. It was amazing to watch as each song took on a new meaning, due to the conscious choices each performer made along the way. I cried, I laughed, I smiled, and I traveled the journey with anticipation... it was better than Cats! I was grateful that the St. Louis audiences embraced this production. My fear was that it would be received as “a bunch of men singing songs about other men.” The sense of community and love, regardless of the sex or sexual disposition, was felt and experienced by all who attended and shared in the production. Whew! They got it. I was honored to be a part of it all.

– John Ricroft, choreographer

Company (1995)

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by George Furth
November 10-18, 1995
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis

THE CAST
Robert – Michael Davidson
Harry – Gary Cox
Sarah – Lisa Karpowicz
Peter – Joseph Taro
Susan – Johanna Schloss
David – Greg Hunsaker
Jenny – Sherry Frank
Paul – Andrew Nowak
Amy – Laura Beard Aeling
Larry – Keith Price
Joanne – Teresa Doggett
Marta – Angela Shultz
April – Michelle Collier
Kathy – Heather Holland

THE ARTISTIC STAFFDirector – Scott Miller
Choreographer – Michelle Collier
Lighting Designer – Kathy Mayhew
Assistant Lighting Designer – Renee Sevier
Set Designers – Greg Hunsaker, Laura Beard Aeling
Scenic Painter – Andy Milner
Graphic Designer – Tracy Collins

THE BANDPiano – Catherine Edwards
Percussion – Adam Kopff

DIRECTOR’S NOTESIt has been said that you can do anything you want in a musical as long as you do it within the first ten minutes. In other words, audiences will accept any style of music, any unusual structural devices, as long as the show's particular ground rules are established in the first ten minutes of the show. And that's exactly what the first song in Company does. The opening bars of the song “Company” instantly establish the frenetic, pulsing rhythm of the city and of modern life. When the voices enter, the couples are established as the focus of the show, along with their smothering affection for Robert. We realize that everything we see will be through Robert's eyes; and the show's surreal style suggests that it's all happening in Robert's mind, in his memory, as he tries to sort out his questions about commitment.

The couples begin the opening song with their various nicknames for Robert, which will return as a leitmotif (a musical theme representing a particular idea) throughout the score. This quickly segues into short phrases that illustrate how hard it is to communicate with Robert. We hear the voices through Robert's ears, overlapping, overwhelming, smothering. In the last sentence of the song, the title of the show is equated with love, and by implication, both are equated with marriage. Before the song is over, Sondheim has established the style, structure, and pace of the show, the brittle cleverness of the lyrics, important relationships, and the major themes of the show.

Like many of Sondheim's scores, Company is filled with commentary songs. In more traditional musicals, songs grow naturally out of dialogue, and characters aren't aware of the fact that they're singing. But in many of the songs in Company (and in Follies, Into the Woods, Assassins, etc.), the characters step out of the scene and address the audience directly. This makes the audience step back and think about what's happening rather than just feeling. Company’s score is also unusual in its extensive use of musical motifs to connect characters and events. The “Bobby Buby' motif used throughout the show focuses our attention on the married couples in opposition to Robert, their attitudes toward him, etc. Both “Tick Tock” (the instrumental piece while Robert and April have sex) and “Being Alive” make interesting use of motifs from many other songs in the show. “Tick Tock” even quotes The Twilight Zone theme.

Company is a fascinating musical that uses music as an integral part of the narrative process, while it completely discards the traditional look of chronological storytelling. But very few other musicals have followed its lead. Most later “concept” musicals copied Company's construction but were afraid to totally ignore the conventions of narrative theatre. Company stands as one of the greatest innovations in the history of musical theatre, and we can only ask twenty-five years later, isn't it time for someone to take us the next step?

REMEMBERING COMPANY

Everything I needed to know about musicals I learned doing Company. Well, while that may not be entirely accurate, I will say that the experience was invaluable in many ways. After dropping out of college, I moved home – completely lost about what to do with my life. I saw the audition notice for Company, and must have talked myself in and out of auditioning nearly a hundred times. I was dying to do a Sondheim show (I didn't know people actually produced anything of his besides Into the Woods), so I finally resolved myself to going. When I first rehearsed with the cast, I knew I was a part of something incredible. I learned how truly great musicals are constructed. I learned to take chances. I learned what the bond of theatre lovers is like. I took these things, and in time gained the direction and focus I had been seeking.

– Angie Shultz, “Marta”

In the Blood (1995)

a world premiere
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Scott Miller
May 5-20, 1995
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis
Purchase the script here.
Purchase the vocal selections here.
Ask about production rights!

THE CAST
Zachary Church – Jim Freund
Adam Graham – Leo Schloss
Rebecca Young – Laura Beard Aeling
Chaz Williams – Andrew Nowak
Danny Hooper – Keith Price
Ruby – Lisa Garcia Fensterman
Jeannie – Johanna Schloss
J.D. – Scott A. Trip
Ricki – Victoria Edrington

THE ARTISTIC STAFF
Director – Scott Miller
Lighting Designer – Steven P. Dohrmann
Set Coordinator – Greg Hunsaker
Graphic Designer – Tracy Collins

THE BAND
Piano – Debbie Bernardoni
Percussion – Adam Kopff

THE REVIEWS
“Ideas loom large in this work. The central one is ingenious. . . Two things do work for me in In the Blood. One – and it surprised me – was the vampire business. . . The other thing is the love story between the vampire and the hematologist. . . Much of that emotional conviction grows from Miller’s music, which is, I think, the best score he’s done for a show.” – Bob Wilcox, The Riverfront Times

“Conflicts lead to high-voltage confrontations.” – Gerry Kowarsky, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

AUTHOR’S NOTES
I've come a long way since the first musical I wrote back in 1981. Since then, I've written traditional book musicals (shows with a linear plot line), concept musicals, an absurdist musical comedy, a political musical, even an educational musical about the history of astronomy (no kidding).

This was the first time I've ever had a public reading and discussion of one of my shows, and it was a wonderful experience for me, for the actors, and for the audience. A big crowd showed up at our reading in February – a lot more than we expected – and their comments during the discussion afterward were for the most part intelligent and very useful. Since the reading, I've done a lot of rewriting, cutting, adding, and rearranging to strengthen the show. It's been through four versions so far, the latest of which is still being revised as I write this.

For the first time, I've constructed a score in which musical themes are used to connect characters and dramatic events. For instance, the melody to the chorus of Adam's song “The River of Life” is also the melody to the bridge in Zach's “Hell,” in order to connect these two characters emotionally; and it shows up again in their Act II duet, “Alone.” A number of other musical themes are sprinkled throughout the evening to link dramatic events and reinforce important concepts (death, loneliness, etc). Most of Stephen Sondheim's scores, Andrew Lloyd Webber's earlier works, shows like Les Misérables, and a lot of operas use musical themes in this way, and it's been fascinating playing with these musical puzzle pieces to help tell this story, even if it's only on a subliminal level.

I read a great quote recently, that premises belong on stage, and conclusions belong in the house. In other words, a playwright shouldn't tell his audience what to think; he should present interesting issues and ideas and let them form their own opinions. Of course, this is easier said than done, and it is asking more of an audience than the average musical theatre audience expects. But I have found that New Line's audiences enjoy a challenging theatre piece. As with most of our shows, In the Blood addresses a variety of issues. I hope you find it interesting and thought-provoking, as well as a lot of fun.

REMEMBERING IN THE BLOOD
Unintentional pauses onstage are the scariest thing an actor can encounter, and In the Blood had a classic. It was one of the last performances, the beginning of the last scene. Leo is onstage, “unconscious” in a hospital bed. Laura is standing next to the bed, but she’s losing her voice, and she’s blown it out during the performances so that she can now barely make a peep. Andy and Keith are also onstage, all of them waiting for Jim to enter. But Jim is offstage trying to make a costume change and he can’t open the fastener on his tux pants to take them off. So there they stand onstage, no one saying a thing as the audience hears the frantic jingling of Jim’s belt offstage. Neither Andy nor Keith can think of a single thing to say. There is more than a minute of dead silence – an eternity onstage. Finally Jim yells his first line from offstage. No one responds. He keeps jingling. After what seems like ten minutes but is actually only about two minutes, Jim finally makes it onstage, just in time to keep me from having a coronary embolism at the piano. After the show, we all have a good stiff drink and I tell Jim he can leave the tux pants on for the last scene.

– Scott Miller, author/director

Pippin (1994)

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
Book by Roger O. Hirson and (uncredited) Bob Fosse
October 28-November 5, 1994
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis

THE CAST
Pippin – Dan Sattel
Leading Player – Amy Jayne
Charles/Berthe – Kevin Collier
Fastrada – Laura Beard Aeling
Lewis – Leo Schloss
Catherine – Lisa Karpowicz
The Sweet Faced Player – Beck Hunter
The Player with Fire – Jason “Skippy” Kastrup
The Manly Player – Matthew R. Kerns

THE ARTISTIC STAFF
Director – Scott Miller
Choreographer – Michelle Collier
Production Consultant – Sara Lee Hart
Lighting Designer – Kathleen Mayhew
Assistant Lighting Designer – Renee Sevier
Set Coordinator – Greg Hunsaker
Lighting Technician – Kim Wood
Graphic Design – Tracy Collins

THE BANDPiano – Debbie Bernardoni
Keyboards – Thomas Reed
Percussion – Adam Kopff

THE REVIEWS
“If you like musical theatre that goes for the guts, head for the St. Marcus Theatre . . . where New Line’s Pippin runs.” – Bob Wilcox, The Riverfront Times
“Pippin seems to me to be New Line’s slickest production to date – skilled cast, excellent technical work, and polished vision. . . The pit band is nothing short of outstanding.” – Harry Weber, The Riverfront Times

DIRECTOR’S NOTESStephen Schwartz and Roger Hirson created a pleasant little musical called The Adventures of Pippin in the early 1970s. But after director Bob Fosse was through re-writing it, it was a cynical, sexual, slickly decadent morality play. When Schwartz raised too many objections to Fosse's changes, he was banned from rehearsals. But after it closed on Broadway, Schwartz had his ideas restored to the script and many of Fosse's changes taken back out, for future productions. New Line's production returns to Fosse's original dark vision of Pippin's quest for fulfillment and identity.

Pippin is a young man with no idea what he wants from his life. Luckily, a traveling troupe of players appears who have helped other young men in Pippin's predicament. They offer to play out his life for him – with colored lights, music and dance, comedy and drama – so that he can try things in his search for fulfillment. With the players' help, his quest becomes a roller coaster ride of razzle-dazzle entertainment and seductively dangerous excesses.

What Pippin doesn't realize though, is that the players' only goal is for him to do their Grand Finale. They make sure he fails at everything so that the finale will be his only remaining opportunity to find perfection. But it's not until the big moment arrives that they tell Pippin what he has to do. They want him to get in a box and set himself on fire – “a glorious synthesis of life and death, and life again!” They want him to commit suicide, live on stage.

When Pippin resists, the Leading Player offers the opportunity to the audience. We can do the finale instead of Pippin. She says to us, “If you should decide to do so, we'll be there for you, waiting. Why, we're right inside your heads.”

Up until that point, Pippin is a morality tale with the unpleasant lesson that complete fulfillment doesn't exist. Like John Hinckley and Lee Harvey Oswald in last season's Assassins, Pippin thinks the world owes him happiness. When he can't find it, he's angry, confused, bitter. He's told he has to settle for an average life and the fulfillment of none of his ideals.

But when Leading Player says to us, “Why, we're right inside your heads,” suddenly it's a whole new ballgame. The players are in Pippin's mind. In fact, the whole show is Pippin's fever dream, a hallucination full of the magic he never found in his life, all happening in the moment before he kills himself. His family is populated by perverse stereotypes, his fantasies filled with frightening characters of his own creation. In reality, Pippin has been causing himself to fail at everything throughout the show, and he has been convincing himself to commit suicide.

We wonder why murder and suicide among teenagers continues to increase. Maybe Pippin knows why. We create outrageous expectations for our young people and then sabotage their chances at attaining them, asking them to grow up faster with each generation. We rarely offer them role models and we destroy the ones they have, people like O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Clarence Thomas, even Captain Kirk. We tell them they can have anything they want, but it's not true. As rock star Kurt Cobain discovered recently, when everything else is trashed, all that's left is the Grand Finale.

REMEMBERING PIPPIN

If you know Scott, you know of his insistence that his actors go “over the top” in their performances. I never really had a problem with that notion until I did Pippin. Scott wanted me to play Pippin like a spoiled-rotten, annoying kid. I would like to repeat loud and clear for those of you that saw Pippin – SCOTT MADE ME DO IT! I have never really fought Scott on any of his directorial decisions, but this one drove me crazy. No matter what I did, it wasn’t big enough or wasn’t “animated” enough. To add fuel to the fire, I had been suckered by Leo Schloss and Scott to quit smoking during the length of our rehearsal schedule and performances, so my voice had a fighting chance at hitting the demanding vocal part. (Side note: I said “suckered” because Leo promised to quit as well so I wouldn’t be going through hell alone, and I later found out that he hadn’t and both of them had been lying to me the whole time. I’ve since forgiven them for this horrible deceit). Anyway, I was a little edgy and Scott kept telling me to “go bigger, go bigger.” It was frustrating to say the least. Finally, I said to myself, “He’s never going to let up until you look like a complete idiot.” With this new realization, I transformed Pippin into the most annoying, self-absorbed human being I could imagine . . . and Scott loved it. You want to get on Scott’s good side? Annoy the heck out of him.

-- Dan Sattel, “Pippin”

Laura Beard Aeling is quite the bohemian. She's a performing artist. She's a visual artist. She's a creative talent. At the time we were doing Pippin, she worked for a company that made large, blow-up, three-dimensional versions of Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream. On the first night, the cast gathered for the initial read-through of the script for Pippin. In addition to the older, crustier veterans of New Line, there were new faces. Matt Kearns, Skippy Kastrup, and Beck Hunter were the young kids of the crowd. Fresh-faced. Impressionable. Wide-eyed. The cast was asked to take turns in sharing their names and something about themselves with everyone. Laura announced that this was her second New Line production and that, “I make designer inflatables.” The three young cast members glanced curiously at each other and then at me. As Laura continued, I said to the rookies, “Sans orifice.” Laura, without taking a breath and in the middle of her sentence turned to me and said, “Philistine,” and went right on with her introduction.

-- Leo Schloss, “Lewis”

I wanted to do Pippin to shut up all the people who were always telling me what a silly, shallow piece of irrelevance it is. I think it’s one of the best of the American musicals, and not just because of Bob Fosse’s original choreography. The more I worked on this show, the more I understood that this is not a show about Charlemagne’s son; it’s a show about a spoiled, aimless college grad trying to find himself in the morally and emotionally barren landscape of modern-day America. Only from that perspective does everything in it make sense. And my other revelation – that the entire show must be happening in Pippin’s head, that in fact he is his own tormentor – seems to be the only way this show works. Yet I’ve never seen anybody else do it that way. Because the original was full of razzle-dazzle, people missed all the red meat in it. It really does work when you let it, when you respect it. Pippin is a rich, complicated, smart piece of theatre about a very real, very flawed central character that addresses some extremely important issues in American life. And I’ve realized, after doing Pippin and other overly maligned shows, that most of the time when people blame their mediocre productions on mediocre material, it’s almost always the production’s fault and not the material’s. I have found again and again, with Pippin, Anyone Can Whistle, Assassins, Passion, Songs for a New World, and Floyd Collins – all shows that have been heavily criticized – that if you give a show your greatest effort, your greatest and deepest thought, and if you always assume a problem is yours and not the show’s, the show will often reveal itself to be the masterpiece only the fanatics knew it was.

– Scott Miller, director

One of my favorite memories of Pippin was due to one of the disadvantages of the St. Marcus Theatre. Because the theatre was in a church basement, the ceiling was fairly low, and because the stage was raised two feet, it was only nine feet from the stage floor to the ceiling. Adding to that, Kevin Collier, who played Charlemagne, was six-foot-eight. So poor Kevin had to really watch for any lights hanging above the stage. In one extended musical scene, “Spread a Little Sunshine,” Kevin had to enter and exit the stage several times. In rehearsals, each time he’d enter, he’d walk onstage and – bam! – slam his forehead right into one of the lights. It happened every night, every entrance during this scene. The first time we were worried if he was hurt; every time after that we’d all giggle like third graders. It was just such a ridiculous sight. (I’m not sure why we never thought about moving the light.) Somehow, he finally learned to avoid it and I don’t think he ever hit that light during a performance.

– Scott Miller, director

Assassins (1994)

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
June 17-25, 1994
St. Marcus Theatre, St. Louis 

This was the first of New Line's three productions of the show, followed by productions in 1998 and 2008.

THE CAST
The Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald – Dan Carter
John Wilkes Booth – Anthony Mullin
Charles Guiteau – Gary Cox
Leon Czolgosz – Kevin Collier
Giuseppe Zangara – Dan Sattel
Samuel Byck – Joe Blackerby
Sara Jane Moore – Amy Jayne
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme – Johanna Schloss
John Hinckley – Andrew Nowak
The Proprietor – Leo Schloss
Emma Goldman – Laura Beard Aeling
Michelle Laflen
Andy Wolterman

THE ARTISTIC STAFF
Directors – Scott Miller and Steve Kutheis
Music Director – Scott Miller
Set and Props Coordinator – Greg Hunsaker
Lighting Designer – Steven P. Dohrmann
Sound Designer – Greg Rosebrock
Graphic Designer – Tracy Collins

THE BAND
Piano – Debbie Bernardoni
Keyboards – Scott Miller
Percussion – Luis Fernández

THE REVIEWS
“A surprisingly effective theater piece, in spite of, or perhaps because of, its unusual subject matter. The current production by the New Line Theatre brings out the best the show has to offer. . . The disparate elements of the show come together in large part because of the teamwork of the New Line cast. Individually, the performers all have fine moments, but they are at their best in what they do together.” – Gerry Kowarsky, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“New Line Theatre’s current production at the St. Marcus Theatre shores up the unity of this analysis of presidential assassins. . . Assassins is ambitious, fascinating work.” – Bob Wilcox, The Riverfront Times

“Anyone who tackles any Sondheim show and succeeds in entertaining without embarrassing themselves is a worthy force. But this group seems to go beyond that and strives for perfection in every aspect.” – Steve Allen, KFUO-FM

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
Assassins is a musical character study of the men and women who have tried to kill U.S. presidents, and of the reasons, obsessions, and protests that led each of them to this extreme act. Some did it for political reasons, others for personal reasons, others still because they were genuinely crazy.

The show's creators don't ask you to sympathize with the assassins, only to spend some time with them and realize that they are real and complicated people – much more than faceless “assassins.” They are as much a product of their times and of our American society as any one of us. When we wonder why kids are killing each other on our streets, we would do well to listen to these nine Americans. Their feelings of impotence, powerlessness, and unfulfilled dreams are the feelings so many of us experience today. The message that any one of us could become one of the characters onstage is unsettling but truer than we might want to believe.

This is an unusual musical not just because of its subject matter, but also because of its structure. In many ways, it's more a revue than a traditional musical, a revue of songs and scenes ricocheting back and forth through American history. Some are outrageously funny, some frightening, some deeply moving; like America, Assassins is a melting pot.

Strolling through it all is a Balladeer, the personification of the stories, myths, and songs that we pass down generation to generation. Composer Stephen Sondheim and playwright John Weidman propose that many of these assassins were inspired by the stories of those who went before them. To dramatize this, John Wilkes Booth actually suggests to Zangara in 1933 and Oswald in 1963 that they kill the president. The shooting gallery proprietor who sells guns to the assassins in the opening scene perhaps represents a country where easy access to guns and a too-hyped American Dream makes these nine people see only one alternative to their problems.

Booth and the other assassins sing, “Everybody's got the right to be happy.” They believe that their guaranteed right to the pursuit of happiness also guarantees them the right to attain that happiness – which is something altogether different. When the mythic American Dream eludes them, they feel cheated, ignored, stepped on.

Earl Warren said, “The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn.” We'd like to think that isn't true. We think that by understanding these nine people, we may be better equipped to help others like them – before they become killers.

So enjoy the show, and when the assassins ask you in the song, “Another National Anthem,” to join them, imagine just for a moment the fame, the attention, the chance to change the world. And then be thankful that the pressures of our modern world haven't pushed you to that extreme. Yet.

Read director Scott Miller's background and analysis essay about Assassins.

REMEMBERING ASSASSINS Anthony Mullins took on the role of John Wilkes Booth in the original New Line production of Assassins. Anthony is a gentleman of English descent and his accent still reflects his heritage, although he was attempting to affect a southern drawl. During early rehearsals, it's important to develop a bond with your cast mates, some commonality that you can share. In the case of the cast of Assassins, the first common thing discovered was a good sense of humor. Anthony was rehearsing a very intense scene in which his vocal tone and pitch were quite fevered. Anthony himself was quite fevered toward the end of the production (but that's another story – he did go on, as he himself was wont to say). In any case the balance of the cast sat in the house watching and listening. Anthony, in an impassioned moment and in his best “southern” accent, exclaimed, “It shahns so braht, yoo got ta shae yo ahss!” There was silence in the house. Then exchanged looks. Then, one of the cast in the house said, “Did he just say ‘it shines so bright you've got to shave your ass?’ ” Everyone exploded in laughter. Later, it was discovered that the line was, “It shines so bright, you've got to shade your eyes.”

-- Leo Schloss, “Proprietor”

One of the more colorful members of the cast was Michelle Laflen. Assassins is a very intense show, and as opening night approached, the cast was concerned about their ability to impart the deep emotional intricacies to the audience. Luckily, Michelle's boyfriend Kenny started coming to rehearsals about a week before the show opened. You see, when you've been through a script fifty times, it's difficult to judge its impact. Having a new person experience the production always brings a fresh perspective. Well, almost always. One night, at the conclusion of the rehearsal and the subsequent (and generally lengthy) notes, I hopped down off the stage and began to look for my things to gather before leaving: car keys, jacket, script. My script was missing. I said, “Hey, does anybody know where my script is?” Michelle responded, “Oh Kenny has it. I think he's in the bathroom.” I said, “He can keep it.” But I digress. As the cast gathered in the green room before the final dress rehearsal, Michelle spoke up: “Hey, everybody. I just wanted to let you know the show is really great. Kenny said so. He's never emotional, but last night he got choked up watching rehearsal.” Oh great. We know we're a success gang – Kenny wept.

-- Leo Schloss, “Proprietor”

During the Copland-esque singing of “Big Bill,” Kevin Collier as Leon Czolgosz waited in line to meet President William McKinley at the Great Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. The line of folks (Leo, Michele, Laura, and that one boy) extended downstage from the invisible President upstage to Czolgosz, who was waiting not to shake the President’s hand, but to assassinate him. Tech week came, and Kevin and the other gun-totin’ assassins were given starter pistols to use. They created a pretty good bang when they went off. For the McKinley assassination, Kevin and his gun were to make it to the head of the line for the climax of the song when Czolgosz, on an abrupt musical caesura, would shoot the President. But it never failed—or rather, it always did. During every dress/tech, Kevin moved to the head of the line, aimed the gun towards the audience (where the invisible McKinley stood), and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The first couple times were funny. But when it happened repeatedly—the gun working perfectly before the rehearsal, then not working at such a crucial moment—well, let’s just say Kevin’s goddammits and other choice expletives became more and more explosive. And from the point of view of the success of the moment in the show, it certainly made all of us nervous. However, most of us stifled peals of laughter when we considered the possibility of rewriting the show—and American history--so that Leon Czolgosz, instead of assassinating William McKinley, just looked at him, real mean-like, and gave him a good cussin’ out.

--Johanna Schloss, “Squeaky”

The first time I directed Assassins was the greatest thrill of my life. It was the first time I had directed a show that was truly a masterpiece, the first time I really submerged myself fully into a show, lived it, slept it, thought about nothing else. We had a very talented cast and it turned out so well. Even my mother, who I expected to hate it, found it compelling and mesmerizing. It was the first step in her conversion to the person who now prefers Floyd Collins and The Cradle Will Rock to Brigadoon and Hello, Dolly. Assassins is the bravest show ever written, a masterpiece of subtlety, of characterization, of confrontation, of psychology, of pure, brazen theatricality. It was terribly disturbing to watch and it unnerved each audience through its stubborn refusal to judge these assassins, to take the easy, safe road. It let each assassin speak for him- or herself. Some of them were clearly crazy, but some of them were clearly not – and that was the most disturbing thing of all. The message of Assassins is that the people who try to kill presidents are more like you and me than we’d like to believe. It’s a message most people don’t want to hear, but it’s one everyone should hear. Ultimately it thrilled audiences every night and was New Line’s first genuine triumph, as if our little company had finally grown to full maturity. It was a turning point for New Line and for me, both artistically and personally. The other reason Assassins was special to me, personally, is that early in the rehearsal process, my position at my “real job” was eliminated and I found myself unemployed for the first time in my life. My search for a new job was admittedly half-hearted because I discovered the incredible joy of dedicating my time fully to a show. No more did my job get in the way. No more did I have to work on the show only after work. Now it was my work. This was when I realized I was meant to be a freelancer. And I haven’t had a traditional desk job since then. One more note. I honestly believe that every high school in America should be forced to produce Assassins every four years. With gun violence in our schools reaching epidemic proportions, we must try to understand why people get angry, why they feel left out by the American Dream, why a gun makes them feel empowered – all issues addressed eloquently and intelligently by Assassins. This is the one show that could start a dialogue that might lead us to some real answers.

-- Scott Miller, director

Breraking Out in Harmony (1994)

a world premiere
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Scott Miller
March 18-26, 1994
New City School Theatre, St. Louis

THE CAST
Tucker Goodman – Kent Hobson
Steven Goodman – Kevin Collier
Anne Goodman – Dena O’Malley
Darcy Bowles – Kat Smith
Sherman Bowles – Michael Shreves
Lydia Bowles – Kim Wolterman
Bash Crockett – Dan Sattel
Trish Young – Amy Jayne
Marge Blodgett – Kinsella Berry
Christy Cable
Whitney Furlow
Curtis Singleton

THE ARTISTIC STAFFDirector – Scott Miller
Production Consultant – Sara Lee Hart
Lighting Designer – Steven P. Dohrmann
Stage Manager – Amy Lanning
Set Coordinator – Kevin Collier
Logo Design – Steve Kutheis

THE BANDPiano – Chris Hegarty
Percussion – Adam Kopff

THE REVIEWS
“There are a lot of truths – and a lot of questions – in Breaking Out in Harmony. . . Miller has dealt with a subject that continues to make news and cause controversy. . . There are many problems in the New Line Theatre production, but the drama has sufficient backbone to stand upright and deliver its message. . . Despite the shortcomings, Miller has written a musical that is ‘about something,’ and about something important too. It’s worth seeing, thinking about, and most important, acting on.” – Joe Pollack, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Some of Breaking Out’s songs are rousers.” – Harry Weber, The Riverfront Times

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
In this new musical, three members of the school board of the fictional Harmony, Missouri school district break into their high school library after hours and remove eleven “objectionable” books. Their teenage children find out and launch a protest (one of the kids even figures out how to turn the issue into a profit-making venture), and the controversy divides the community. Despite the students' protests, the board votes officially to keep the books off the shelves, so the students go to the local ACLU for help. The actual case on which the show is based, Pico v. Island Trees, went on for seven years and ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

But this is not an isolated case. In fact, since Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, censorship cases have been increasing dramatically every year. Parents continue to demand the removal of everything from Dr. Seuss and Stephen King to the Bible. An organization in Washington, D.C. called People for the American Way tracks the hundreds of challenges to materials in schools each year. Nearly half of the challenges are successful.

But our show isn't only about censorship. The other big issue in Breaking Out in Harmony is the question of when a child is old enough to make his own way in the world. The students believe that by age 17 they can make mature decisions for themselves. Yet with the continuing increase of guns and drugs among American teenagers, their parents believe they have good cause to worry about their children and about the many influences on their children's attitudes. Who can honestly say they have nothing to worry about?

Breaking Out in Harmony doesn't try to answer these questions. It merely explores the fears and motivations behind the people on both sides of these very complex issues. In an increasingly dangerous world, parents find it more and more difficult to stop protecting their children. And in the midst of an information explosion, teenagers see so many things they want to explore and discover, and they don't want their parents holding them back. Unfortunately, a case like this one puts the concerns of parents and their children into direct conflict.

The New York Times said about the original case, “The controversy . . . points directly to fundamental questions about the nature of community in modern American society.” One of the judges ruling on the case wrote, “The use of governmental power to condemn a book touches the central nervous system of the first amendment.” And the debate rages on today, over everything from Madonna's book, Sex, to the author of the Winnie-the-Pooh books.

Thank you for joining us tonight for this roller-coaster ride through the American education system, the American family, and the U.S. Constitution. We hope you enjoy yourselves, and we hope you find lots of things to talk about on the drive home.


REMEMBERING BREAKING OUT IN HARMONY
I’ll never forget one performance during Breaking Out in Harmony. One of the leading women was very difficult to work with, and one night, an hour before a performance, she showed up with her parents and demanded free tickets for them. Now, we didn't give actors free tickets for family members. But this actress told me that either I give her free tickets or she’d quit the show right then. (Being a small company, we did not have understudies.) I didn’t see how I could give her tickets without giving all the other actors tickets, which would kill our ticket sales. So I stood my ground and refused. She stormed out of the theatre screaming at me that she quit. The cast went crazy. Would she come back? Was she really quitting? I calmly assured everyone that she would be back, secretly terrified that she would not. Finally, she returned to the dressing room about four minutes before curtain and put on her make-up and costume quickly without saying a word to anyone. She did the show and finished the run, though she never said another word to me. Since that incident, I’ve become very attuned to “attitude,” and if an actor shows even the hint of attitude in auditions, I won’t even consider them. I don’t ever need to go through that again.

– Scott Miller, author and director

Breaking Out in Harmony taught me a really big, important lesson about writing – that conclusions belong in the audience. Good theatre never tells an audience what to think. It presents a story, issues, questions, and then asks the audience to think about it and come up with their own answers and draw their own conclusions. But in Harmony I told the audience exactly what I thought they were supposed to think in the finale, and though the finale was a pretty good song, it sort of emasculated the show. I was starting to feel good about myself as a writer and, without realizing it, I got pretentious and self-righteous. It hurt the show. But I learned my lesson. I hope.

-- Scott Miller, author and director

A Tribute to the Dark Side (1993)

a world premiere revue featuring songs from Little Shop of Horrors, Grand Hotel, City of Angels, Guys and Dolls, Grease, Sweet Charity, Mack and Mabel, Chicago, Working, Show Boat, Dreamgirls, Company, Jesus Christ Superstar, Promises Promises, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, and other shows
Conceived by Scott Miller
October 15-23, 1993
New City School Theatre, St. Louis

THE CAST
Beth Boschert-Duello, Kevin Collier, Michelle Collier, Tracy Collins, Rose Marie Fischer, Holly Gulick, Lisa Karpowicz, Tim Kent, Judy Kreisman, Mike Monsey, Keith Price, Dan Sattel, Johanna Schloss, Quenten Schumacher II, Darin Wood, and Paul Schankman as the Emcee

THE ARTISTIC STAFF
Directors – Scott Miller and Steve Kutheis
Music Director – Scott Miller
Technical Director and Lighting Designer – Steve Dohrmann
Costume Coordinator – Tim Kent
Stage Manager – Amy Lanning
Promotions Manager – Keith Price
Advertising Manager – Kevin Collier
Poster/Program Cover Design – Tracy Collins
Interior Program Design – Ron Crooks

THE BAND
Piano – Scott Miller
Keyboards – Chris Hegarty
Guitar/Bass – Kurt Eichholz

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
The history of the Dark Side in the musical theatre is a long one. Our survey tonight goes back as far as 1925's No! No! Nanette!, which was only dark in the most innocent way – supposed adultery that was (of course) just a misunderstanding. The first true musical tragedy was 1927's Show Boat, which presented real people in difficult real life situations – racism, marriage to an alcoholic and compulsive gambler, single parenting – but Show Boat turned out to be a fluke, and it wasn't until 1943's Oklahoma! that a new trend really began.

Then in the 1950s, director/choreographer Bob Fosse arrived, the Grand Master of Dark, and creator of many dark works, including Sweet Charity, Chicago, Pippin, and the movies Cabaret and All That Jazz. Never before or since has a director been so obsessed with the Dark Side. It became his trademark. And Stephen Sondheim, more concerned with constantly trying new things than with being consciously “dark,” forged a parallel path through the years with shows like West Side Story, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, Company, Into the Woods, and Assassins. Many of his musicals explored society's ills – gang war, the disintegration of marriage, oppression of the working class, etc.

In 1968, amidst anti-war protests and demonstrations in Washington, Hair, the first rock musical, hit Broadway with all the anger, resentment, and disillusionment of the generation of which it was born. It was perhaps the angriest musical ever on Broadway, and its words and music heralded a new age – the age of the realistic and “relevant” musical, which in today's society also meant “Dark.” Soon, other rock musicals followed with equally unpleasant themes, including Pippin, The Rocky Horror Show, Dreamgirls, Little Shop of Horrors, and others.

In the late 1980s, the “Pop Opera” came into its own – stories told in the structure and epic proportions of grand opera and in the vocabulary of popular music, owing their genesis to the rock operas of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, including Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. These shows, Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon, and others, with their tragic plots and characters, were the inevitable union of classical opera and the Broadway musical.

It has been fascinating for us during the creation of this show to see how different writers approach that side of us we try to suppress, some using comedy and others tragedy to explore that twilight zone of the human psyche where revenge is just and murder is justified. It gives us a deeper understanding of the human condition and of that uniquely American art form, musical theatre.

That said, we hope you enjoy Dark Side II, dedicated to everyone who loves the musical theatre and, more importantly, to those who think musicals are only silly love songs and sappy happy endings.

Note: If this is Dark Side 2, where’s Dark Side 1? The reason this is Dark Side 2 is that the first Tribute to the Dark Side was done by many of the same people with CenterStage Theatre Company several years earlier.

REMEMBERING DARK SIDE 2

Before each performance began, we were to gradually filter onto the stage and sit at tables, cocktail-style, in the “nightclub,” and create characters who would chat realistically while the acts would go on. Tracy, Beth, and I were assigned to a table. At one of the first rehearsals, one of us – the memory escapes me as to which one – began a conversation about our fictional boss at the department store. The other two joined in, badmouthing this fictional boss. Throughout the rehearsal process and into performances, we kept these department store worker characters, and the improvised chatter grew more and more detailed until we not only knew our own characters, but we had assembled an outside life at this imaginary job which consisted of another twenty or so people with whom we worked. (Most of them were slackers, of course.) I admit there were times that our work stories became so involved and entertaining that we were slightly disappointed when the songs, the real focus of Dark Side II, began. During the show, the cast members all took turns performing songs and placing ourselves as the clientele in this nightclub. After one particular number, Quentin and I were dressed up and were to filter to the tables while Kevin sang “Wanting Things.” Each night during this song, Quentin and I created a background tableau. We'd notice each other, make brief eye contact, then make prolonged eye contact, then offer a smile. This little affair built throughout the song, with Quentin making suggestive winks and I dabbing the glow of perspiration from my throat. When the song ended, neither had made a move from our chairs, and I'd leave, with only a backward glance shared to tell what might have been.

– Johanna Schloss, cast member

I always felt really terrible for Michelle Collier when she had to choreograph me. I am the type of actor whose body refuses to cooperate with me when it comes to learning dance moves. This was no exception in Dark Side 2. Kevin, Keith, Tracy and I were to perform a Motown-esque song called “Steppin' to the Bad Side” from Dreamgirls. Kevin and Keith had rhythm and picked up on the moves pretty readily. Tracy and I, on the other hand, weren't so fortunate. I must say, however, “Steppin' to the Bad Side” turned out to be very cool and a big part of its success was due to the amount of time Michelle spent with us. I appreciate all she did and if you're reading this, Michelle, thank you for not letting me look like a complete idiot!

– Dan Sattel, cast member

Though it was unconscious on my part, I think this show kind of announced to the world what kind of company New Line was going to be, that we were going to be doing musical theatre about sex and drugs and death and every potentially offensive topic ever to headline a newspaper. I was determined to make “Big Spender” true to Bob Fosse’s original intentions, to be about carnality, not sexiness, to be lustful and hard and disturbing. I wanted people to sit up and listen, to pay attention like they didn’t usually pay attention when they went to a musical. I wanted to say to them, “musicals are not always what you think they are” and prove to them that musical theatre was just as substantial, just as serious, just as powerful, just as muscular as theatre that lacks music. This was just a few months before we would tackle Sondheim’s Assassins and change New Line and St. Louis musical theatre audiences forever.

--Scott Miller, director