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[0:00] James Lapine: Hi, it's James Lapine, and you're listening to And the Tony Goes To...

[0:22] Ilana Levine: Have you ever dreamed of winning a Tony Award? Did you ever practice your Tony acceptance speech in the bathroom mirror? Did you grow up watching the Tony Awards every year? Do you have a collection of Tony Award shows on VHS tape that you refuse to throw out? Well then this is the podcast for you. Every week I interview your favorite Tony Award winners, and together we go down memory lane as my guests share intimate and never before shared details about their Tony experience. By the end of every episode, you're going to feel like you just won a Tony. Welcome to And the Tony Goes To... I'm your host, Ilana Levine. Welcome today's Tony winner, James Lapine.

[1:11] Ilana Levine: And the Tony Award goes to...

[1:16] Ilana Levine: Passion Book, James Lapine!

[1:18] James Lapine: I would like to congratulate all the nominees and anyone who's written a book for a musical. Everyone deserves an award that's written a book for a musical. I'd like to thank Steve Sondheim for being a great collaborator and a great friend. Lincoln Center for giving us our start, and wonderful Broadway producers Jerry Schoenfeld, Bernie Jacobs, Roger Berlin, Scott Rudin, ABC Caps for standing by us when things were looking kind of rough. A great company, all of you. I know you're at Roses, so have a margarita for me. Thanks so much, and Adrienne Lobel for a great set, and particularly Sarah Kernighan. Thanks.

[2:10] Ilana Levine: Hi, James Lapine.

[2:11] James Lapine: Hello.

[2:13] Ilana Levine: When is the last time you heard that speech?

[2:17] James Lapine: 1988, was it? I don't remember. I don't think I've ever... Yeah, I don't think I've ever listened to it, to tell the truth.

[2:29] Ilana Levine: So, did any feelings come up? Did any visceral memories come up in listening to it that you can share?

[2:38] James Lapine: Well, visceral memories. I certainly didn't remember Bernadette being the one to make that announcement. That was sweet. But no, actually, it seems kind of abstract and distant, to be perfectly honest.

[2:52] Ilana Levine: Well, what's really incredible is when I asked you to come on the show, you have many Tony Awards, and I asked you to choose between Into the Woods and Falsettos and Passion, which you would want to focus on today, and you immediately said Passion, and that there were some tales to be shared that may not be known to too many outside the inner circle of the people who created this show. And so, I would love to hear anything you want to share, but I guess I would just begin with one question, which was, why Passion? Why this show? Why did you and Stephen Sondheim want to make it?

[3:35] James Lapine: Well, it's a good question. Our other two shows together were kind of more driven from discussion and were, I guess you could say, more original musicals in the sense that they were not really based on anything other than a painting and some fairy tales. But this was a movie that Steve saw called Passione d'Amore by an Italian director, Ettore Scola, and it always stuck with him, and he always had a passion, no pun intended, for it. And so, I said I would watch the movie, which I did, and on further investigation, I discovered that it was actually a movie based on a book by a, I guess it was late 19th century Italian writer. And I was able to get a hold of the Italian version of the book, and we had it translated, and when I read the book, I thought that the material there really lent itself to a musical. So, that's how it sort of came to be, and I sat down to write it.

[4:55] James Lapine: And when you said that there were things about the kind of adventure of putting this musical together, I'm going to say challenging. Maybe that wasn't true. Maybe that's not the right word to describe trying to put it up.

[5:08] James Lapine: It's the perfect word, Ilana. It wasn't challenging to write until we got into the theatre and had an audience, and then it became challenging. But up to that point, it was fun, and adapting something in many ways is easier than it is to create something from scratch. And I really love these three main characters, and we did a workshop of it. Originally, I thought it should be a sung through musical, and we sort of were moving towards that, and we did a little one of these reading slash workshops, more reading than workshop, and Steve really was vehement about it not being sung through, and he of course turned out to be right. But it's very operatic, really. The subject matter is operatic, and in the score in certain ways is as well, which is why I thought it would make for a kind of sung through piece.

[6:20] James Lapine: But for those who don't know the plot of it, it's very, I guess you'd say, dark. And it was interesting with the movie. I went and read a review in the New York Times of the movie, which kind of called it a comedy, as I remember. I didn't find it a comedy at all, actually. It's about a very unattractive, extremely sickly woman of a certain age who becomes totally fixated on a very handsome army captain in the 19th century, and focuses all of her attention on him, and all but smothers him to the point of driving him crazy. And ultimately, she succeeds in getting him to fall in love with her. So it's a kind of gothic tale, I guess you would call it.

[7:09] James Lapine: When we did it as a workshop, we had maybe 60 people in a very small room, and they just loved it. It was very, very well received, and the intimacy of it, the intensity of it, the daringness of it was really embraced by the couple of audiences we had at this presentation. And we immediately were picked up to go to Broadway, and we worked on the material, Steve and I always do, and it was exciting, and we had a terrific cast, and we got to Broadway, and we had our dress rehearsal, and people were laughing. And I thought, oh, this is strange. Why are they laughing?

[8:01] James Lapine: Not the intention.

[8:03] James Lapine: Well, it's a show, to cut to the chase, it's a show that made people uncomfortable, because it made people really question what is beauty, what is love, who are we in this story, are we the ugly one or the beautiful one? There's also, it's really a love triangle for this guy between a very beautiful, sexy, married woman who he's been having an affair with, and this very unattractive, abrasive, I guess you'd call her a spinster, who lived on the compound of where he was stationed as an army officer.

[8:43] James Lapine: Right. And at first, we sort of dismissed a little bit the dress rehearsal, but once the real audiences came, we discovered that they not only didn't like the show, but they were enraged by it, certain members of the audience. It just upset them. And they found it unfathomable that this guy would fall in love with this woman. And that's when our work began, trying to figure out how we could tell the story we wanted to tell without it being dumbed down or unnecessarily made palpable for people, but also to understand the emotional and psychological dynamics of the situation in which an audience could really ask themselves, who am I in this story? And what do I think of love? And what do I think of beauty? And what exactly are these things that we talk about so much, but don't really take a really good look at?

[9:50] Ilana Levine: You know, I read somewhere that you, and maybe this is inaccurate, or maybe it is accurate, that you felt like you and Stephen really understood Fosca as a character. Is that fair to say? Or did you discover it as you went?

[10:09] James Lapine: Well, I think we were attracted to her as a character. And of course, you know, off the page or even of a movie, I mean, you have to make it your own. And we definitely made this musical has very little, if anything, to do with the movie version of the adaptation of the book. I think we related to the woman. I think what my challenge was, and then Steve's challenge was, was to make her not likable so much, but to make her point of view sympathetic in a way that an audience could understand. And the show was very rocky in previews until we were able to really find the moment to help the audience to understand what this woman was about, and that her behavior, though it might be laughable, also has an ache at the center of it, and is really passion. It's a show about passion. And I think what we were dealing with, which I still to this day, why I love the show so much is I think we can often live in a passionless life.

[11:28] James Lapine: We don't live life at the kind of peak of emotion that a character like Fosca does. And to that degree, she is in some ways more alive than we are in our day-to-day lives. Also, because she's sickly, because her future is dim and she knows that she's probably going to die at some point from her illnesses, that every minute of the day is of import to her and her passions. So I think it's just that, as I said, these themes probably live more easily in an opera than they do in a Broadway musical. Can we talk about Donna Murphy and the casting of Donna at the center of this incredible piece with our beloved Mary Meese, who we lost recently? So beautifully cast together as well with Jerry Shea in the middle.

How did you find your Fosca? Well, I was aware of Donna. I don't remember why, and I don't believe we had worked together prior, but I certainly knew who she was and had seen her in shows, although she certainly didn't have the high profile that she was to have after this show of ours. But sometimes somebody just walks in the room and she had a song and scene to learn, and it was just there. I don't know how else to put it. I think Donna is one of our bravest performers, and I think that's what was such a wonderful marriage, because she didn't wait to step into a role or a rehearsal or whatever. She dives in from the deep end and finds her way that way. The biggest problem with Donna is she's so beautiful.

Maybe one of the things I did, which was in retrospect not the wisest thing I've ever done, was I did everything in my power to make her unattractive, and I'm sure if you had her on, she'd talk about all the moles I stuck on her and her receding hairline. I mean, the woman in the movie is quite borderline grotesque and anorexic, and I guess I was taking my cue from that, but I think I had succeeded so much that she was off-putting and laughable, and part of our process was figuring out how many moles to take off, how to lower her hairline. Right, and come to a place that works.

[14:15] James Lapine: Do you think that the character of Fosca manipulates Giorgio into loving her, or would he have fallen in love with her anyway? No, she seduced him in not a sexual way, but in an emotional way, and I think what she did, here's this gorgeous guy, never been married, having an affair with a married woman with a child. He was a rewarded military man who fought battles, was a hero of sorts in his work and life in that regard, and I think she, as a character and as a person in between two people, you know, was the one who saw beneath all that and felt that this was a man who had goodness to him, because the way they connect is through books. She lives her life through books and is a great reader, and she discovers this captain who comes to this somewhat heathen, you know, encampment and finds that there's actually a military guy who reads as well, and he shares his books with her, and they talk about books, they talk about stories, and I think that is their connection.

At first, you just assume this guy's gorgeous, you see him at the beginning of the show with a gorgeous woman, and they're naked, and that's what we think of when we think of passion, and she sees beneath that in him and loves what's good underneath his appearance, underneath this heroic exterior to find someone who's quite vulnerable and sensitive, and that's the way she works her way into his life to the point to which he discovers what it means to truly be loved, and it comes to a head in the story when he goes back to confront his mistress about leaving her husband and becoming his wife, and she puts him off and says, when my child's older, da-da-da-da-da-da, and he realizes that there was probably a great deal of protection in having an affair with a married woman, because you can't really commit.

There's no real commitment to that, and I think for the first time he began to understand that, for instance, the commitment he had to being a brave soldier and doing what he needed to do for his troops and to save a life is something that has to translate into a person's life as well.

[17:10] James Lapine: Talk to me a little bit. I mean, you and Sondheim have had such an extraordinary collaboration, and it will go down in history as just one of the most incredible partnerships of the theater. I wish it were longer, but it didn't turn out to be longer, but I'm very proud of the three shows we wrote together and the other ancillary projects we did, so thank you for saying that. Why isn't it longer? Well, that's a big question, and I just think it worked out that way. It seemed whatever I would bring to him to work on didn't really interest him, and life is funny. It didn't end, it just we never were able to find the next project, and because the three projects we did were both so special to us both, I think perhaps on his end he was looking for the fourth that had the same kind of appeal, and maybe the things that I brought to him were not really things I thought I could do well, and he had this show about these brothers, and I couldn't really quite get into that thing that he brought to me, so I think that's all it was, frankly, and you know, you blink your eyes and a decade goes by. It's kind of scary, but it just turned out to be that.

[18:47] James Lapine: Yeah. Well, I mean, how does the world thank you both for Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods and Passion, and I mean, you know, it's endless, the gifts that you have given us and the... Well, I think, you know, particularly for him when you add on those shows to all the other incredible ones that he's written, it's extraordinary, you know. The only show I had seen of Steve's when I met him was Sweeney Todd. I had no idea about all these other shows that he had written. I was a real newbie to the theater, and you know, very unschooled in musicals, unschooled in the theater, and in many ways I often say that's kind of why we were kind of great partners together, because he was my education, and I think he had somebody coming in who just related to him as who he was at the moment and not because of what he had written, and so it was an interesting moment, a kismet, I guess, when we were introduced and got to work together, and I just finished a book that I wrote about the two years from when I met Steve to when Sunday in the Park opened, and it was really wonderful to go back those many years and look at that moment in time, look at who we were, talk to our cast.

It was really a wonderful, wonderful period in my life, and I think in an odd way in the theater, because the theater was hurting at that time, particularly the commercial theater, and I don't know that our show and the way we worked on it could ever be done today, sadly.

[20:41] James Lapine: Right. Well, to have that kind of time, right? Well, you know, we did it rather quickly. First of all, Steve was, of course, already Steve, so that made a big difference, but he went off-Broadway, and that was the first time he ever did anything off-Broadway, which was a great thrill for him, and I had never done a Broadway show, Lord knows, and you know, to kind of get swept up with a very, you know, Sunday is a pretty arty-farty show, and to have had it moved to Broadway probably could have happened only then, because there was such a shortage of shows for theaters. It was when Times Square was kind of falling apart, and Broadway was not healthy the way it is today, and so we also happened to be doing it at a time when people were happy to have a show in their houses, you know, those people being, you know, the Schuberts and the Nederlanders, and to a lesser degree, G. Jamson.

[21:40] James Lapine: When Passion won Best Musical, did you expect that? Well, you know, it was by everyone's admission a kind of weak year for musicals, and I guess, you know, I didn't have any expectations. My expectations for the Tonys went away after Sunday in the Park, when we didn't really win anything, and so, you know, I just never thought anything. You know, I didn't go to those awards thinking, I'll win, I won't win, this'll happen, that'll happen. I learned to just take whatever was coming my way. So, I mean, you know, sadly, it did not have a very long run, Passion, and to my thinking, that had a lot more to do with the way it was produced than anything else, but it gave us more of a life than we probably would have had if we hadn't won. So, of course, I was happy about that, and you're always happy when, you know, you can, you know, have the people who put their trust and money in you have some kind of reward for it. So,

[22:56] James Lapine: I was thrilled for that reason as well. Can you think of, because it's a very serious musical, but I wonder if there were also really fun moments, even though you were rehearsing such a serious piece that you can recall of rehearsal room laughter? Oh, absolutely. First of all, Donna Murphy, as you know, is hilarious. And Maren, who I had worked with before, is just one of the most special people. And Jerry was kind of a newbie. He had done a couple of shows, but he was not out of the NYU program for that long. But yes, we had a lot of fun. We made a lot of fun jokes about Fosca. We laughed about, you know, who's going to want to see this? You know, we did. We had, I like to have fun when I'm working. And I have just as much fun on that one as any other one I did until the audience arrived.

[24:04] James Lapine: Right. So it sounds like that was really brutal for a while, trying to find its tone that once you were out of the rehearsal room. Yeah, I have to say, I took it very personally. Because I had to sit there every night with the audience. And I found that incredibly difficult to be sitting around people who don't like your work. It's like people who don't like your children, you know, and making fun of it. Because I think they were sort of having the response we were having in the rehearsal room at times, because it was, it was like, they just, it just, you know, the show starts with two gorgeous naked people in bed making love, you know, and you start a show with that and you go, okay, you know, I'm in.

And then that's about the end of it. Right. You know, you don't know where it's heading. And so I think that was the thing that was tough. And I found myself and I've never done this since angry at the audience and angry at people who are making fun of it. I was constantly turning around in my seat telling people to be quiet. I actually got up and went up to the aisle to a woman who just kept chortling and making cracks about everything the actors were saying. And I just, I just told her to leave, you know, I said, just leave if you don't like this, you know, and it was, it was a bit of a scene. Anyway, I guess I had passion for passion. My passion really rose to things in myself that I was surprised to see.

But you know what, that's where Steve and I were great because Steve couldn't have been more even tempered. He had been, you know, by then I had done a few shows, but he had done been through this when audiences didn't like his work. And we would just sit and we'd go out for a drink after the show. And he'd make a list of every time the audience laughed. And we would just very analytically look at that moment and discover why the audience laughed at that moment. It was like putting out fires and you'd, you'd put out a couple of fires and then all a couple others would pop up. But, but really, we just were very analytical about it when I was with him. Of course, he didn't come to every show. I was there for every show.

So and usually when he's in the audience, everybody likes it because they know he's there. I don't know. And there were people who loved it, by the way, early on, but they were usually our friends or people, you know, they were not, this audience were people who had worked all day in an office and, you know, maybe their wife took them to this or for whatever reason, they were there to be taken out of their life. They weren't there to have to examine their life. And that rose to some degree is not something that people are used to doing in a musical. So I guess that was the situation, frankly. But no, you know, when you talk about difficult times, it was no pandemic. Let's just put it that way.

It was it was a challenge and we rose to the challenge and we came out with a show that we loved and and did what we hoped it would do. And by that, I mean, we stuck to our guns and and wrote the show we wanted to write. And, you know, you let the chips fall where they may. Everybody's going to have not everybody's even lucky enough to have successes. But even when you have successes, you also have failures and you just have to you just have to take it all in stride and keep moving forward.

[27:45] Ilana Levine: What was the most fun about collaborating with Stephen?

[27:51] James Lapine: Well, everything was fun for the most part. Well, having a partner is fun. Having somebody who's that smart and fun. He's so fun and smart and acerbic and, you know, droll and droll and keeps you on your toes intellectually. And really, he had kind of a reputation when I first met him as being kind of a doer person. But that's not the person I got to know. I actually I think people are lucky enough to know him and have him as a friend, find him incredibly delightful and generous. And I just think for me, it was an exposure to a world I didn't know. You know, it was I was living down in a funky loft, you know, in the financial district and, you know, going for the first time, being in a townhouse, you know, just just on that level of being exposed to a whole other kind of class of people and that part of New York you always kind of fantasize about, you know, but never got to see.

And so it was really I'd have to say it's one of the great blessings of my life, obviously getting to work with him, but getting to have him as a friend because he is the most loyal and friend you could have and the most fun. He's just a lot of fun.

[29:25] Ilana Levine: Well, I have to say to you, you've just described how everyone who knows you describes you generous and loyal and funny and kind and brilliant. So there you go.

[29:38] James Lapine: Well, maybe I got it all from him. I learned a lot about generosity from Steve and modesty and sometimes I find some things coming out of my mouth that are pure Steve that I'm not so happy or coming out of my mouth. But, you know, that's very...

[29:57] Ilana Levine: What do you mean by that?

[29:59] James Lapine: Well, he's, as I said, a cervic. He can say some very funny but sharp and, you know, maybe critical things about people and things, you know, as New Yorkers can.

[30:10] Ilana Levine: Yes.

[30:12] James Lapine: That's one thing I think I absorbed as well. And sometimes I hear myself saying something that's not so generous and then I kind of wish I hadn't. But, you know, it's not not I wouldn't say it to you on the air, of course.

[30:26] Ilana Levine: Okay. Well, when we stop recording, I want to hear all the nasty things that go along with having a MetroCard if you're a New Yorker.

[30:35] James Lapine: I hinted at it before, but I think I speak for the world when I say that the work that you've created, the masterpieces that live for generations to come, thank you. I could go on and on, but thank you for your beautiful work and changing my life. And before we go, I'm just going to ask you a couple of questions that I end every episode with that you're going to know all the answers, I promise. And if you don't, we'll phone a friend, okay?

[31:12] James Lapine: All right.

[31:13] Ilana Levine: Okay. So you mentioned earlier that Bernadette Peters presented your Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical in the 1994 Tony Award ceremony for Passion. Do you remember who presented with her?

[31:29] James Lapine: Lord, no. Not a clue.

[31:32] Ilana Levine: Okay. It was Martin Short. Does that ring a bell now?

[31:35] James Lapine: You asked me to guess. I probably would have guessed Martin Short, to be perfectly honest.

[31:40] Ilana Levine: All right. I'm going to ask you again. James Lapine, do you remember who presented your Tony Award to you alongside Bernadette Peters?

[31:49] James Lapine: Of course I remember, Alana. Who could forget a momentous occasion like that? It was Martin Short.

[31:55] Ilana Levine: Oh my God. I knew you'd remember. Who did you bring to the Tonys that night?

[32:00] James Lapine: Oh, my wife. I don't know if I brought my daughter or not. I don't think she came, but I brought my wife.

[32:08] Ilana Levine: You used just two tickets. You did not ask for more.

[32:11] James Lapine: No. No. And I think a couple of those years, I brought my daughter and then she didn't have any interest in coming again, which I think is a good thing. So, yeah. I'm sure Sarah was there. Sarah, my wife, is always... She likes the whole dress-up part of the occasion.

[32:29] Ilana Levine: Uh-huh.

[32:29] James Lapine: So it's nice to give her that.

[32:31] Ilana Levine: Where are your Tonys? Where do you keep them? And your Pulitzer and the many, many awards that you win?

[32:38] James Lapine: Those are in a bookshelf in my apartment, not prominently displayed. My wife has won two Oscars, so we have all the really prestigious ones in one tiny little cubicle in our dining room. And then everything else is sort of, if I have them in my office. I'm sort of sorry. I don't know how I... Well, anyway, a lot of them I lost track of. My dad took... I gave a lot to my dad. And when he passed away, my brother not maliciously sold the apartment, but forgot to get all that stuff.

[33:16] Ilana Levine: So it was sold as is. And in your case, that means Pulitzers and...

[33:19] James Lapine: Yes. I'm running around with a lot of Tony nominations.

[33:23] Ilana Levine: Well, I'm very happy for them. James Lapine, thank you so much for being on and the Tony Goes To. What a pleasure to talk to you today. Thank you, my friend.

[33:28] James Lapine: You made it fun and you made me feel good. So thank you.

[33:35] Ilana Levine: You're welcome.

[33:39] Ilana Levine: And the Tony Goes To is produced by Alan Seals for the Broadway Podcast Network, the Music and the Comedy Network, and the New York Times.

[33:52] Ilana Levine: Music and lyrics for the theme song were written by Georgia Femusa.

[33:56] Ilana Levine: Theme song orchestration by Alexander Sage Oyen.

[34:00] Ilana Levine: Episodes are edited by Derek Gunther. Thank you to Parody Bill for the graphics.

[34:05] Ilana Levine: And please don't forget to go to the iTunes show page and rate and review the show.

[34:10] Ilana Levine: Thanks for listening.

[34:11] Ilana Levine: Excerpt from the Tony Awards used with permission of Tony Awards Productions.