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[0:00] Teresa Attridge: Ever wonder what it takes to make a new musical sing? Our mission is to make the exclusive and inclusive. We're interviewing the creatives who are changing musical theater one 11 o'clock number at a time. This is your Backstage Pass.

[0:34] Teresa Attridge: Hello there, Barnacles. It's Teresa and Pauls. And as always, we have a very, very exciting episode for you today. This one is, you know, it's a little nuanced. It's a little, dare I say, complicated. We're going to be interviewing the creative team of A Complicated Woman today, which is incredibly exciting. Jeff, Jonathan, why don't you just give us a big old hello?

[1:04] Jeff Calhoun: Hey there.

[1:05] Jonathan Brielle: Hey, how y'all doing, Barnacles?

[1:08] Teresa Attridge: There we go. That's what we call the fans of the podcast.

[1:11] Pauls Macs: Our loyal fans, we call them Barnacles.

[1:13] Teresa Attridge: Our loyal subscribers to The Barnacles.

[1:16] Pauls Macs: I love that. That's great.

[1:17] Teresa Attridge: Wonderful. Pals, why don't you give everyone our little bios about our guests today? I don't know if everyone listening can feel the sparkling energy that's currently going between the airwaves.

[1:27] Pauls Macs: Well, we are very lucky to have Jeff and Jonathan who are part of the creative team for A Complicated Woman. And actually, Jeff, this is the first time we've had a director on the show. This is usually a writer's focused podcast, but I know you're a champion of new musicals. We're really, really excited to have you and have your perspective. If you don't know who Jeff Calhoun is, you should do your homework, but I will go ahead and read his bio. So Jeff Calhoun is a multi-talented director, choreographer, producer, and dancer. Calhoun worked closely with Tommy Tune and performed in the first US tour of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and the stage adaptation of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

His work with Tune earned him a Tony for Best Choreography. Calhoun directed the Disney musical Newsies. The musical boasts eight Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical and Best Director of a Musical. He additionally worked on Bonnie and Clyde, the first revival of Jekyll and Hyde, the 1994 revival of Grease, the 1999 revival of Annie Get Your Gun, Bells Are Ringing in 2001. Calhoun has a close relationship with Deaf West Theater and has helped them put on their adaptation of Oliver and Big River.

[2:29] Pauls Macs: All right, Jonathan, let's move to you. On Broadway, Jonathan Brielle wrote the music and lyrics for Foxfire with Hume Cronin, Keith Carradine, and Jessica Tandy, who won the Tony Award. Off-Broadway, he wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Himself and Nora, which received an Outer Critics Best Musical nomination at the Minetta Lane Theater in 2016. Regionally, Himself and Nora has been produced at American Theater Group, at Nymph, the Old Globe, and several times at the James Joy Center in Dublin, Ireland. His other musicals include Book, Music, and Lyrics for Nightmare Alley, produced by The Director's Company, Primary Stages, New Jersey Rep, and The Geffen Playhouse. Writing Book, Music, and Lyrics for A Monkey and Me, the show was produced twice at the Eugene O'Neill Cabaret Conference, and Jonathan starred last year at Axelrod Performing Arts Center with Tova Feldschuh as his mother and Thee Ann Cox as his monkey.

In Las Vegas, he wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Enter the Night, which played at the Stardust Hotel for 12 years, and Manhattan at the New York, New York Hotel. For U.S. and international national tours, he has served as Executive Music Supervisor for Rugrats Live and produced and wrote the score for book writer Rupert Holmes on Goosebumps Live. On television, Jonathan continues to serve as music director for the kids' show, Wonderama, and even wrote their theme song. I was noticing the charitable organizations that you work for. You are the Executive Vice President of the Johnny Mercer Foundation, creating programs for federally funded schools in New York, Newark, Los Angeles, Miami, and Atlanta.

You are also the writer, producer, and resident of the Johnny Mercer Writers' Grove at Goodspeed Musicals, helping oversee the Johnny Mercer Foundation songwriting project at Northwestern University. I just want to call that into space because the Johnny Mercer Writers' Grove is so, so important to developing new musicals. So many of the artists that have been on Backstage Pass have been at Goodspeed. Teresa's been at Goodspeed. The work that's being done there is truly, truly incredible. So thank you, Jonathan, for all your contributions.

[4:22] Jonathan Brielle: Thank you.

[4:23] Pauls Macs: Jonathan is the former National Projects Director of the Songwriters Guild of America, and he's also the Artistic Director and Founder of Vala, a new platform dedicated to launching new musicals and providing forever free education for grades K through 12. All right, well, Jeff and Jonathan, welcome. We're so glad to have you here.

[4:37] Jeff Calhoun: Great to be here.

[4:39] Jonathan Brielle: Thank you. It's nice to be here.

[4:41] Teresa Attridge: A Complicated Woman will be playing May 10th through June 2nd at Goodspeed Musicals, and we can't wait to talk with you about the show and learn more about it. I'm really excited for this discussion because it is actually complicated. Is the best way to start just to be talking about how did you start to write this piece? Who is John Kinley? Who is John Kinley to you?

[4:59] Jeff Calhoun: Jeff, I think you should dig in and tell what your connection is to all of this, because you really started all of this.

[5:03] Jeff Calhoun: Yeah, it's going to be difficult, so just please stop me from just doing one long sentence. But Mr. Kinley was a very famous summer stock producer back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. And it's where I actually got my equity card when I was 10 years old, tap dancing with Ann Miller. And that's where, in subsequent seasons, I met Tommy Tune, who then became my mentor and sort of changed my life. At Mr. Kinley's 90th birthday, I found myself alone with him, all the other guests, Joel Gray, and Tommy Tune, and Sandy Duncan, Elaine Stritch. Everyone had left, and it was just me and Mr. Kinley. And I'd always been intimidated by Mr. Kinley, because you have to remember, I was 16, 17, and 18 when I worked there three seasons. I had never seen anyone quite like Mr. Kinley. And I asked him at this birthday party if the rumors were true, and he proceeded to tell me about his life, and he asked me to tell his story. That was almost 20 years ago. That's led to this.

[6:00] Jonathan Brielle: You know, Jeff and I met in 2005, doing Himself and Nora at the Old Globe. Jeff was co-directing with Joe Hardy. And then we reconnected, I think, around 2012-ish. I saw a show you were directing, and you're like, hey, how are you? We were going to work on a show of mine, and Jeff sent me this incredible documentary that he had done about John Kinley. I watched it, and then I said, hey, you know, this is a musical. And Jeff's response was, I was hoping you'd say that. And that sort of began the journey.

[6:37] Teresa Attridge: Well, I think that's really fantastic, and speaks to the power of mentorship, which is something that, you know, I've had really incredible mentors in my theater career. But I mean, for Mr. Kinley to have allowed you to then meet Tommy Tune, who's made such an impact on your life. You look at the history of musical theater, like Stephen Sondheim and Oscar Hammerstein. This mentorship role is so critical, because the gift of musical theater, or the knowledge of musical theater, is really passed down a lot of times from person to person.

[7:01] Jeff Calhoun: I was absolutely, he's such a hero to me. I took it very seriously when he asked me to tell his story. And at the time, I thought I would tell it through a documentary. And that's the one Jonathan was referring to. And so I went to film school down at Union Square, that down and dirty New York Film Academy. I hired an Oscar-nominated documentary director and hired a cameraman and a lighting guy and rented a car, got our plane tickets. And the day we were to go film Mr. Kinley, his niece called me and asked me not to come. And I told her that Mr. Kinley asked me to do the story or I wouldn't have, where would I have gotten the idea? They were adamant about it, but I had already purchased the tickets.

And so we flew there, we got the rented car. And as we drove up to the house, my phone rang. So they must have been looking through the curtains. And Apple said, Jeff, please don't approach the front door. We love you, but we can't support this. And it's heartbreaking because his story is one that could help many people. And he is a public figure. In my mind, it's a hero's tale that did put a kibosh on the documentary. So I edited together 24 minutes of whatever footage I had from stars and people that had worked with Mr. Kinley and locals that talked about how he improved the economy and just what a success Mr. Kinley made of his life. He truly was a hero for many people. And so I never dreamed it would take a form of a musical, but I must be clear, it's really based on the conversations I've had with Mr. Kinley and the rest is really based on rumors and we had to take theatrical license.

So it's not really a documentary. We are taking liberties, but it certainly is based on what I know of Mr. Kinley. The only thing that I'd like to add is that because he is a public figure, it's really based on the wonderful work that Ian Field Stewart has done from everything that is in public awareness. That's how we created the story. It was inspired by Jeff's experience, but we were very careful to make sure that it was developed on everything that was out in the public.

[9:00] Jonathan Brielle: Ian Field Stewart is the book writer for A Complicated Woman. Yeah, she's remarkable. She kind of honed it through their very specific lens. I love musicals that tell us about chapters of history that we don't know yet. And maybe this is a discredit to me and my knowledge of theatrical history, but I was unaware of Mr. Kinley's contributions to the American theater. And so that's one thing I love about going to the theater is learning about chapters of history that I was unaware of.

[9:26] Jeff Calhoun: I think you're just too young. You're too young to have known the Kinley players. He really created what Broadway has become by taking the MGM stars as their contracts weighing. I'm talking about Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Ann Miller, Mickey Rooney, huge MGM stars. And as their contracts weighing, he brought them to Ohio, to Warren, Akron, Dayton, and Columbus. So families could see these big Hollywood over-screen stars right there on their stages, their local stages. And of course, that's what Broadway has become, right? We take Stark and we put him in revivals. And he was doing this back in the 50s and 60s. The original stunt caster. We love to see it. But I think it's more than that. John Kinley really was able to breathe life into the regional theater about making theater something that everybody could go to, to feel that it was something that was worth their time and their money and to be able to go see, yes, a star.

But in that, they were able to see all of these shows that got to maintain life. After leaving Broadway and going regional, it gave young actors who were doing summer stock like you, getting your card when you're 16. It's really important to remember that theater exists outside of New York City. John Kinley was someone who was able to really breathe life and sustainability into the regional theater scene, which is super important.

[10:37] Jonathan Brielle: Absolutely. And also all for the price of a movie ticket. And a movie ticket back then, too. He was very proud of that.

[10:43] Teresa Attridge: What I would give for that to still be accessible to us today, let me tell you. In reading the script, knowing now that you knew John Kinley personally, one of the questions that I'm really interested in is when you're writing a piece about a person, like a real person, when you're writing a piece based on someone's life, how much of, like you're saying, the mythos or the rumor or the legend about a person, how are you able to take what seems so larger than life, it has to be real, and put it into something like a musical where we have all of this heightened script and text and emotion and song? How do you find those two things meld together in this particular piece? Why a musical versus a play?

[11:29] Jeff Calhoun: Well, Mr. Kinley was showbiz. I mean, he was musical theater. He did plays as well, but I only did musicals with him. And again, I want to stress that this is inspired by Mr. Kinley's life. There are things we know that are factual that are in the show, but then there were holes that we had to take artistic license to fill in. But as a writer, Jonathan could probably speak to that.

[11:50] Jonathan Brielle: Yeah, I mean, what Ian has done so wonderfully is we knew that they had a best friend. We didn't know anything about that best friend. And so Ian really created the cast.

[12:02] ⚠ About 5 minutes of audio could not be automatically transcribed.

[17:06] Jeff Calhoun: Sense of things. It was very black and white. And so what I was so struck by is that John always, and by the way, internally, we refer to them as Jay, so that we never get confused. On stage, people either recognize John or Jean, but internally, Ian and I always talk about Jay. Because it is that complete person. Now, the journey is that they had to realize that they were Jay. And if we started in that place, we wouldn't have a show. But they had to somehow bring this duality all together, if that makes sense. Because if you imagine, I don't know if any of you know who Liberace was. During that day, in the era of Liberace, there was just somebody there who nobody thought of as gay. It was just a flamboyant personality.

And so everything was always there. There was no vocabulary, or it wasn't talked about. There is this duality and the pressure from family, as well as from their best friend, Nina Mae, getting pulled in two directions, and how to reconcile that. And to me, that's just, I think that it's a universal struggle for any of us, whether it's gender, or whether we have aspects of ourselves that we accept about ourselves, and we don't accept about ourselves, or we have parents or family who don't think that we should be who we are. It's that universal story. And so for me, that's what made it incredibly personal. And yet, I'm a showbiz guy. And I just love that aspect of John's ability to put on a show and always have humor as a way to survive.

That's what sort of floats my boat. No, there's no one more show business than Mr. Kenley was, that's for sure. 100%. And what's interesting, it wasn't until late in his life, I believe he was 60, until he actually had surgery, which I think is, you know, really ahead of the curve and very brave for that time.

[18:58] Jonathan Brielle: Very much so. As Jeff pointed out earlier, I am admittedly young or younger, but our cultural knowledge seems to be expanding as we go further in time. But to experience all the rejection and heartbreak, or that social pressure to embrace one side of yourself that John or Jean, or I guess we should say Jay, experiences in the show, I felt that pressure and that heartbreak so intensely as I was reviewing the materials. You know, one thing we like to do on this show to give the listeners a sense of the music is to play some songs from the show. And I was hoping we could start with "The Man Who Runs The Show." Is that okay, Jonathan?

[19:33] Jeff Calhoun: Absolutely. Do you want to set it up? Because this is another moment that's really fascinating where Jay is singing about Lee Schubert. It's a great song where they get to envision what they want. I'll let John set it up because he'll be better at it than I will. But I want people to know that Kenley was not only prior to him being a theater impresario, he was in the Merchant Marines because he could type 150 words a minute, which is quite extraordinary, I'm told. And then he became Lee Schubert's personal assistant. So he discovered Lillian Hellman, The Children's Hour, and this was when he was very young. So in the show, it takes place at that time when he's become Lee's assistant. So in the song just before this, we've seen Gene as a sex worker.

And so we begin to see that, oh, there are these two personalities or these all in one here. You begin to see now John working at Lee Schubert's office, realizing that as much fun as there is being Gene to get ahead and survive in life, just as their parents taught them, you kind of need to be the man. I think that's about the best way to set that up. All right, here's "The Man Who Runs The Show" performed by Nora Bridgid Monahan.

[20:41] ♪ Musical number: "The Man Who Runs The Show" — performed by Nora Bridgid Monahan ♪

[23:35] Jeff Calhoun: Yes, I'm in charge. Yes, he's in charge. Every place I go. And the folks who kept me under will all sit and watch in wonder. I will be the brightest light this world has seen. And so they'll know, they'll know. And so they'll know. I am the man who runs the show.

[24:05] Pauls Macs: Wow. That song is fantastic. It's such a great I Want song that just really intros the stakes and we see so clearly the path that Jay is going to go on as they progress through the show.

[24:20] Pauls Macs: I feel like "The Man Who Runs The Show" is also such an interesting term just because it is said that when John—and please correct me if I'm wrong when I was doing my own research—that John was born, his parents were like, oh, well, life will just be easier if he's a boy. And this idea that John's more forward-facing persona is like who John was with family and who John was in his career. It was all about like, yes, I can utilize this. And later on with Nina Mae, we don't give any spoilers, but it does come up this idea of, oh yeah, you've had an opportunity to be able to just take it off and put it back on and be able to have these advantages. Like this is something you can do that I can't do. Keep in mind that women didn't have the vote when John Kenley was born.

[25:09] Jeff Calhoun: Absolutely. It was a very different world.

[25:10] Jeff Calhoun: And also it's important to understand that he presented as Mr. Kenley to the world. I only know of three people that knew both John and Jean. An agent at ICM, Eric Shepard, the performer, Edie Adams, and Leslie Cutler, who directed all of his shows. That's also what was so fascinating to me. I never met Jean, but Kenley told me that story at his 90th birthday. I just assumed he was very flamboyant and effeminate and probably gay. And so it was such a window into such a deeper scenario after the birthday party.

[25:42] Jeff Calhoun: Lee Schubert in the show has a lyric that I was looking at that relates to this as well in describing Jay saying, you, you're your own kind, dot, dot, dot, of situation. Yes, your own kind, dot, dot, dot, of battle cry. When the meek fall down in this wonderfully godless town, you need to be a standout, I mean, stand up kind of guy. And I thought that summed that up very well as well. The lyrics in this are wonderful, by the way.

[26:09] Jonathan Brielle: Thank you. Can you tell me a little more, especially when you're writing a period piece, how musically you sort of incorporate all these different influences for a show that you're writing in the modern day, that is about a universal story that takes place in the past? How do you sort of balance all those elements out when you write a musical?

[26:27] Jonathan Brielle: I think it's important. This is gonna be a very long winded answer.

[26:30] Pauls Macs: We love long winded answers. It's a podcast.

[26:32] Jonathan Brielle: We love it. People are here to listen.

[26:33] Jonathan Brielle: This is what we're here for. The Barnacles of London.

[26:36] Jonathan Brielle: Okay, great. For me, in the 1950s, this is how long winded this answer is going to be. In the 1950s, there was a split when rock and roll happened between theater and pop music. There were some writers who went with it, like George David Weiss, who wrote "Mr. Wonderful," and he also wrote hits for the Stylistics. And so there was a split in musical theater and pop culture. And it remained a split until some rock and roll happened, you know, like "Hair" and "Godspell." And then Stephen Sondheim came along and just confused every young writer that ever was because Stephen Sondheim was Stephen Sondheim, and he was a genius at what he did. But it confused some people that that's what they thought musical theater was, when in fact, that was what Stephen Sondheim was.

For me, what's always been important to me, and by the way, I've had incredible mentors in my life in my stint at the Songwriters Guild enabled me to have incredible mentors. George David Weiss was just really an amazing songwriter and head of the Songwriters Guild, Irvin Drake, we need to understand the shoulders that came before us so that we can stand on them. Now, for me, I grew up on rock and roll, as well as theaters, as well as R&B. It's always important to me that theater somehow musical theater for me reflect our current culture and not be some high minded thing that's very specialized. That doesn't mean that I'm not interested in writing a period piece, but I tend to look through a modern lens.

I orchestrate as I write. It's right here, I'm in my writing room where I spend about 10 or 12 hours a day. For me, just writing on piano or guitar, which I also play is too limiting in terms of it can make us less specific. I orchestrate as I write so that I find a world that we can be in. The interesting challenge about this show is that you've got two very different lead characters. You have Nina Mae and you have John Kenley. Nina Mae being a black character that lived, you know, the music has sort of a 1960s R&B quality to it, whereas Kenley is really golden age musicals. And yet by the time we get to Warren, Ohio, we're kind of in that TV, almost Getson's musical style, but still through a vocabulary that's informed by pop music without being period and without being a total pasteurization of it.

It's really about being informed by current music when I look at an older style. Hopefully that makes sense to your listeners, but it's having a body of knowledge to draw from so that you can see it through a modern lens.

[29:20] Pauls Macs: Oh yeah, that makes total sense. I'm teaching a musical theater history class actually right now in the country of Latvia, which is a fascinating experience because some of the students don't know what a musical is. One of the shows that they were really drawn to was "Cabaret." Well, that's written in 1940s Germany. What Kander and Ebb did was they listened to that period music, but then they adapted it for Broadway, right? Like they didn't just make it a one-on-one translation. So I think the work that you've had to do has probably been pretty intense, but it sounds fantastic. I'm wondering if that's the perfect segue to actually play the song "Nina Mae," because we've heard "The Man Who Runs The Show," which absolutely has an incredible golden age sound. But now the listeners will be able to hear "Nina Mae" and be able to understand that musical opposition that's so beautiful and so complex within the piece.

[30:02] Jonathan Brielle: Absolutely. And by the way, that track is still yet to be orchestrated. We've got a bunch of vocals and everything else on it, but it'll be even developed further. When Elle Morgan Lee was on the show, I fanboyed over her a little bit. Do you know what that is? I was like, I just think you're so incredible, Elle Morgan. But if you could please share with us about the song, that would be fantastic.

[30:19] Jeff Calhoun: I'll fan out a little bit on Elle Morgan Lee because just an amazing artist, musician, and actress. Just incredible to work with. And we are incredibly blessed to be working with her. So the setup is Nina Mae and Jean have just finished a night of working as sex workers. They have met up in this diner and Nina Mae is showing Jean some information about a sex operation that she's considering having. And Jean is just kind of put off by all this. Like, what are you talking about? You have to remember that Jean and Nina Mae are different. Jean is both. Nina Mae wants to transition and Jean is not really interested. Jeff, do you have any? Did I screw that up at all? Or you think I'm...

[31:06] Jeff Calhoun: That was brilliant.

[31:07] Jonathan Brielle: You're killing it, Jonathan. You're slaying the game.

[31:12] Jonathan Brielle: Slaying it. All right. Well, here's "Nina Mae" performed by Elle Morgan Lee.

[31:16] ♪ Musical number: "Nina Mae" — performed by Elle Morgan Lee ♪

[34:46] Pauls Macs: Speaking of slaying, speaking of slaying, can you believe? I wish I had the confidence that this character has. I wish I could walk through the world. You can just feel it in the music. It's like empowers you as you're listening.

[35:01] Jeff Calhoun: What's really interesting is that Ian has that confidence in life. I am constantly blown away by her certainty. And by the way, Ian and I have gotten very close over the last six years that we've been working on it. We were definitely poles apart when we first started. But we both learned from each other in so many ways and we've become quite close. But she really has that kind of confidence. When you meet her, you will see that crystal clear.

[35:38] Pauls Macs: Thanks for joining us on New York Theater Barn's Backstage Pass. Join us next time as we continue our conversation with Jeff Calhoun and Jonathan Brielle about the new musical, A Complicated Woman.

[35:53] Pauls Macs: Get your Backstage Pass. Get your Backstage Pass.