Last night John and I went to the opening of Lincoln Center’s loving and sumptuous production of Act One, which James Lapine has adapted and directed from Moss Hart’s 1957 autobiography. The book is a touchstone for theater geeks everywhere. Each generation offers its own backstage tales: such works include 42nd Street, The Royal Family, Stage Door, All About Eve, A Chorus Line, the TV shows Fame and Glee, and such books as Frank Rich’s wonderful memoir Ghostlight, and Tim Federle’s delightful YA novels, Better Nate Than Ever and its sequel Five, Six Seven, Nate! – Tim’s books center on a kid’s desperate yearning to appear in a stage musical version of E.T.
Almost every theater-themed work follows an outsider looking for his or her big break, for admittance into the magical and sacred realm of, most often, Broadway. I’m a sucker for these stories. In Act One, the young Moss Hart dreams of escaping his family’s squalid Bronx tenement, and he writes a play and gets to collaborate with George S. Kaufman, a legendary playwright and director. Hart’s play, Once In a Lifetime, needs to be rewritten during its tumultuous out-of-town try-out, and even though I knew that everything was going to work out just fine, and that the play would become a hit, I was still terribly anxious. Anyone who’s ever been involved with a new play knows the stomachache-inducing terrors of the rehearsal and preview process.
Here are some things that I’ve either experienced or heard about:
On one new musical, the producers decided to cut their insanely expensive set entirely and perform the show on a bare stage. The set was dismantled and tossed into the alley beside the theater. The show was still a bomb.
When a show isn’t working and no one knows how to fix it, the producers will often obsess over some insane minor detail, like the leading lady’s wig.
I wrote a play called Mr. Charles, Currently of Palm Beach. It was first performed as part of an annual one-act festival at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. During previews the theater’s Artistic Director called the play’s director, Chris Ashley, and me into his office. He was furious: the play contained frontal male nudity! This was outrageous! We reminded him that the script had always mentioned nudity – hadn’t he read it? He tried to cancel the show but finally we reached a compromise: there would be a large sign in the lobby, reading “WARNING – MR. CHARLES CONTAINS NUDITY, SMOKING AND OBSCENE LANGUAGE.” Who wouldn’t want to see that play?
During previews of The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, during a brief dance sequence, one of our actresses actually did break her leg. I was never sure how this related to the theatrical “Break a leg!” superstition.
When a show is in trouble there’s always a moment when someone will ask, “Do we need the second act?”
