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[0:00] Ben Rimalower: Once upon a time.

[0:07] Ben Rimalower: Broadway Podcast Network presents Giants in the Sky: How Sondheim and Lapine Went Into the Woods with me, Ben Rimalower. Today's guest, Jack O'Brien, who was the artistic director of the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, where Into the Woods was produced before Broadway.

[0:25] Ben Rimalower: Jack O'Brien has won three Tony Awards for his work directing Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia, William Shakespeare's Henry the Fourth, and the long-running musical hit Hairspray. His six other Tony nominations for directing a wide-ranging group of plays and musicals give just a hint at the versatility he's displayed across 65 years of directing on Broadway, as well as for opera and television, not to mention his 26 years as artistic director of the Old Globe.

[0:55] Ben Rimalower: He has written two must-read memoirs, Jack Be Nimble, The Accidental Education of an Unintentional Director, and Jack in the Box, or How to Goddamn Direct. Um, it's funny, I realized in the email that I wrote you, I said that I'd seen a reading of Catch Me If You Can, and I'm thinking back, it wasn't a reading, it was an elaborately staged workshop with choreography and set pieces. And uh is it really? I can't remember where that was. Uh of course I saw it on Broadway, I was a big fan of that production. But I've been thinking about the difference between readings and workshops as I've been trying to piece together this history of Into the Woods because it's all pre-internet, and there's very little record of what happened before it got to the Old Globe.

Um, and so uh I talked to James Lapine and I've been to his archives at Yale, and as many of the actors from workshops I can round up, but it's some decades ago. People don't remember that many details of a reading they did in the 80s, you know.

[2:03] Jack O'Brien: No, they don't.

[2:05] Ben Rimalower: But I've heard that you have a memory like a steel trap.

[2:08] Jack O'Brien: And uh probably true. I'm thrilled, thrilled for it. So I'd love to know um when did you first even become aware that the follow-up to Sunday in the Park with George would be this fairy tale musical?

[2:22] Jack O'Brien: I remember um which is very often the case in those years. I've always been very close with uh Andre Bishop at Lincoln Center for obvious reasons, and um he was constantly doing, particularly when James was involved, he was constantly lending a hand, a generous hand there to develop anything. And I remember talking to him, and he said, you know, that it was quite far along, and that he loved it. He thought it had wonderful stuff about it. Now I I'm trying to put this with my steel trap memory. Um I have a phenomenal memory for what people were wearing and what they said. What I never know, I don't have a rear view mirror, so I never know what year anything happened. I never did. Um it all seemed to be too recently.

[3:17] Ben Rimalower: Well, it's all relative.

[3:19] Jack O'Brien: Of course. Um anyway, um so it was Playwrights Horizons was where Andre was then, right? And it was um uh I I know that uh Into the Woods opened at the Old Globe at the end of 86, and that there was a workshop at Playwrights in June of 80, May and June of 86, and I think a reading at Playwrights in 85, which there's very little detail about. Were you there for any of that? Or just hearing about it from Andre.

[3:51] Jack O'Brien: Had nothing to do with any of it. And the interesting thing is, and I I've I've spoken to this elsewhere. Um when because of my connection with Andre and my um, I mean, Andre moved to Lincoln Center as I was doing two Shakespearean actors there. And Greg Mosher was still in the driving seat there. And Greg was one of the best producers I have ever encountered. He was, I mean, whatever else you want to think or hear or say, and I think it's a myriad uh list of responses and reactions, I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Greg. He was with me every step of the way, he supported me. Um I just thought he was fabulous, so a wonderful producer. But Andre was moving in, and Andre and I were very close, and there was part of me that was sort of upset that Andre wasn't producing two Shakespearean actors. So we were there was a lot of backing and forthing at that point. And I'm not sure that the initial um suggestion of the globe must have come from Andre.

[5:17] Jack O'Brien: Um, and as I've said many times, the minute that was announced at the globe, the entire regional industry shifted.

[5:28] Ben Rimalower: Interesting, yeah.

[5:30] Jack O'Brien: The next day, we got a phone call asking for tickets from Australia.

[5:40] Jack O'Brien: Wow. Suddenly, overnight, because of a Sondheim musical, the entire terrain, the map of regional development, changed. I remember doing an interview where they said, aren't you afraid you're going to be a try-out house? And I said, My regional playwright is William Shakespeare. I'm fairly secure. We did three Shakespeare every year. So there was no loss of innocence, and there was no threat that we were just going to do nothing but musicals. Um, which is actually something when when the La Jolla Playhouse was reinstituted, and Des came there, their first several years were wildly eclectic and experimental. But eventually, they started doing the kind of programming we were doing, and ultimately they have become a kind of tryout house, much more than the globe has over the years.

[6:55] Jack O'Brien: And so as far as the distinction between um becoming a tryout house, I think you're talking in terms of artistic programming and um, you know, uh so something I guess like a new the new Sondheim musical, especially on the heels of them winning the Pulitzer, probably was in the sweet spot best of both worlds because there's so much commercial interest and yet it's as stimulating an artistic endeavor as you would probably want.

[7:25] Ben Rimalower: Exactly right. I mean, has there ever been anybody who's who actually became a colossus uh bestriding two worlds like Steve did because he really with I guess with the exception of funny thing, which was blatantly commercial, not really none of the rest of them qualify.

[7:49] Jack O'Brien: Yeah. We're talking about Sweeney Todd, and we're talking about Sunday in the Park, and you know, I mean, one has never known where to categorize him, actually.

[8:01] Jack O'Brien: Um, so we were thrilled, and we were aware that suddenly we had to come up with the goods. Um Tony Strage just, I'll never forget, came out. He's the he was the designer at that point, and he was fastidious in terms of um the rendering of his designs. And there were thousands of painted branches, and they were sometimes off in reality, a quarter inch. And he went bonkers and threw them out, and we and then went back and repainted everything himself. I mean, he was that he had that kind of OCD um propensity. Um, and it was very hard on my staff, believe me. Um, but we we stood up to the challenge, and then there was the the first preview, and I'm in the back sitting next to Steve.

[9:07] Jack O'Brien: Now, Steve and I became very close over the subsequent years. We were neighbors here in New Milford, and he was in Roxbury, and um because his one of his closest friends, Peter Worcester, um, who was also an architect, was the architect of my home that I built up here, which I've subsequently sold to Ethan Hawke and his family. Um, it was a go was a gorgeous house that I called Imaginary Farms. I actually was building it when I was doing Imaginary Friends in New York, and we called it Imaginary Farms, and it was magnificent. And for like 12 years, I did Thanksgiving and Christmas for that whole crowd. And the the night that Steve died, he was Thanksgiving evening, and we were at Marsha Mason's because I'm in a new house here now, and I didn't think I could possibly pull it off.

So we went to Marsh's instead. I sat on his right for four hours. He was loquacious, funny, naughty, hilarious, revelatory, kind. Nine o'clock, he and Jeff got up and left the table, and at one o'clock he was dead. And you know, so this year we're all going off by ourselves. Nobody wants to be together this year, which we all how could we? Um, but um I had a very close relationship with him over the years, but we weren't that close initially. So we're sitting in the back of the theater of the globe, and he turns to me and he says, Well, are you gonna give a speech?

[10:42] Jack O'Brien: and I said, Excuse me. And he said, Are you gonna give a speech? You know, they're all nervous. This is the first no one's seeing this. We may have to stop. And I said, Oh, oh, okay. And I got up and ran down the aisle and got up and got my usual applause.

[10:58] Jack O'Brien: And and uh I mean they were used to me doing this. I did about seven minutes and got about four good laughs, and um came back as that and he said, I'm writing you into the show tomorrow. Now, actually, I don't recall how real how complete the narrator was at that point. Yeah, I can't remember if he if he started the show. I don't think he did. I think it was bump, I wish, and I that wasn't him. So maybe maybe my DNA is waddled its way in there, who knows? Um, going back to the commercial issue, it's interesting because Into the Woods has become especially over the um the years, partly due to that American Playhouse broadcast that was so um kind of like a gateway drug to musical theater for younger generations. Um, it was there any sense with the subject matter in that developmental moment, this had a commercial potential beyond the more eclectic kind of arty Sondheim intellectual vibe.

[12:08] I don't think we thought so. I mean, well, that wasn't the appeal. No. Um, and as a result, you know, I remember I picked Steve up at the airport. Uh we were in rehearsal by the time he finally came out. And he said, How do you think it's going? And I said, I I just think it's too many stories. And he said, Well, that's the point. That's what we were trying to do. No, no, we're gonna do that. And I thought, well, shut up, Jack. Um but um it it didn't feel intrinsically commercial. But but you see, over the years, it's been clear that Steve has been way ahead of the curve. I mean, the fashionable thing to say when you saw the original production of Sunday in the Park is I love the first act, but you didn't need the second. Yeah. Whereas now, the second act to me is the more profoundly moving of the two acts. We've sort of grown up under his strict tutelage of paying attention and leading with a very complicated set of rules that he seemed to define.

[13:29] Yeah. So I mean, I I was invited, David Rockwell, who's a very close friend of mine, invited me to the final dress of this product last production of Into the Woods. And um, it was the same afternoon of Bernie Gerston's um memorial at Lincoln Center. And so I was almost late as I rushed into the St. James to sit next to David behind the cameras, which were doing the thing. And I I was totally unprepared. And it was a rock concert. I mean, I have never experienced a total conversion from esoterica to circus maximus. I mean, it was unbelievable. Every number got screams of applause, and you thought to, and also, may I say, I think it's in many ways the best I've ever seen it be. I mean, uh, I even I, who I think have seen every incarnation from our initial one on down the years, was not prepared for the unmitigated joy and the relish of comfort that that audience experienced.

[14:47] Well, so going back to the the transfer the transformation of the show, the development from from the old globe to the version uh that opened on Broadway and became base, you know, basically the published show. Um, I know that one of the changes that was sort of most uh significant, other than just clarifying and everything, was the increased focus on the role of the witch. And there's been some kind of conflicting things I've heard. Some basically saying that it was built up for Bernadette Peters because the audience came to see her and wanted to see more of her, which obviously had not been a problem at the old globe, and others saying that no, that were dramaturgically at the old globe, it felt like there were holes where the witch's story needed to come out more.

[15:35] I think that's true. Also, she was what was that actress's name? Ellen Foley. Ellen Foley, yeah. She was, I mean, she she started with that rap number. Yeah. You know, um, that was her first number, and she didn't have all that much to do, and she really wasn't very well developed, but also, it it didn't. Ellen didn't really land. She really didn't land. She wasn't she was good. She was very good. But there was something jagged and um almost applique about that aspect of the character and the music. Um in my heart, of course they expanded at first. You know, why would I of course they would. They'd have to. First of all, Ellen didn't have that kind of voice. Um, and and also the the shift from ugly to beautiful, um, she uh that didn't happen in the original.

I mean, as I remember it didn't. I do remember the the longing for the daughter and all that. I mean, that was there, but um no, um Bernadette brought this sort of historical perspective of Steve into the room, as so, however experimental, however jazzy, hot, interesting, vulgar the initial sketch was, it quickly was transmographied into something much more suitable for a diva than Ellen's role.

[17:24] It was very different. Would that have been one of your main uh notes on the old globe production? Or or what what kind of things were were the holes that needed to be filled? Well, after Steve, and we were driving from the airport, and he said, No, that's what we're doing. I sh I shut up. I mean, you know, I mean, not that they didn't ask me, or I mean, every that we were very, very uh amicable and and and happy together. It was a very joyous and and very exciting time for us all. But um Steve and James, they had the stick in their hands. They knew what they were doing. Um there was no confusion, there was never a lack of where this can go. Um where it would go was up to uh experimentation, and um it kept getting better and better. It kept getting clearer and clearer.

[18:32] Um I remember, but this was must have been in New York. Attending uh one of the rehearsals when Chip and Joanna got it takes two for the fruit reading it for the first time. Um so much fun to see their faces and and all of us as Steve's at the piano playing it. I'll never forget that. Um but they you know, they they were relentless. They they were even though it was charming and funny and all the rest of it, that was never what they wanted to do. They really wanted to push the limits. And the tougher it was, you know, I I used to feel early in in my relationship, my friendship with with Steve, that the driving force was perversity. He liked a challenge that you shouldn't be able to do.

[19:32] That well, I think it's also goes back to his inherent love of puzzles. He was so unbelievably smart and so attuned to what was available. It's that that's I love that gentle intellectual arrogance. It's such a wonderful description of that. Um and and that's so present in Into the Woods, because there are so many times where the the sort of genius of it just slips, goes down, you don't even know you're swallowing it. It's just so uh seamlessly um digestible. Um some of those lyrics that really land, even though they're coming at you so fast. Uh uh, so I love that. Thank you. Um I'm curious also, in terms of the um, was this the first time for you as artistic director of the old globe where you had to deal with you know commercial producers, what do you call enhancement money? Because that was sort of a new concept at the time.

[20:42] Um am I right? Yeah, it was. And and um, you know, the the going rate basically at that time in the late 80s, early 90s was a million dollars. Basically, if you were doing if you were doing uh a development for a commercial uh network, they they the the going rate was about a million dollars difference between what you could budget and what they needed. Uh now I think it's what eight times that now. No, but um we had we had to do some soul searching, we really did. We had to. We had to suddenly say, Can we withstand this? And can we and will when the board of course the board loved it? I mean, they loved it. I mean, I've got this a new book out that it just came out Tuesday called Um Jack in the Boxer, How to Goddamn Direct.

And it this it speaks of another moment when we were uh we were developing the remounting of Carnival, and I had in my almost in my grasp, this young company who had come through San Diego and we'd all gone out for drinks together with my halting French called Cirque de Soleil, and I was gonna do that production with them, and we were literally announced and ready to go when Michael Stewart's sister pulled a plug.

[22:20] Jack O'Brien: Wow. And it's you you should get the book because it's so much fun. Absolutely. But on the day um that that happened, a script hit my desk from Steve called Getting Away with Murder. Which was, I think, if you'll notice in all the literature that said of all the shows he's done, they never mentioned that plan. Yeah. But I was a big it was a huge success in San Diego because it got me out of a complete jam. I mean, the board had Steve Sandheim there, you know, at the opening night party. So they were happy as clams. They did really well. Anyway. I I remember when that was going on, that was like 95 or something, maybe something like that, yeah. Christine Eversol, was that right? No. Well, in New York, yeah.

Oh is a different cast. It was Becky Baker. Oh, wow. Globe, yeah. That's a different take. Interesting. Totally, totally. Fascinating. Um my first experience with Christine, who is the quintessential essence of a star. She just exudes it. I mean, she's utterly divine, and I'm mad for her. And I'm amazed that she hasn't been become, she's never had the right vehicle along the line. I mean, I think at one point they were so hopeful that um Paper Moon, which they did for her, was going to deliver her, and it didn't. Um, but she boy, she's something else. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious also, uh, when the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak, like when you were directing Hairspray uh at a Seattle Rap, is that where where you guys no no, we were at Fifth Fifth Avenue.

Fifth Avenue, excuse me. Um, how how do you what do you bring having been the artistic director welcoming the uh pre-Broadway production? What what what do you take of that with you when you're in the other role? Um what an interesting question. Um I wish look, I I wore that mantle for 25 years, yeah. And it really delivered me professionally to the degree that, which is what this book is about, basically, is because I found myself after 25 years of running a regional theater, I had directed everything. And you know, directors don't get to do that. So I don't know anybody who's had a wider range of properties as I've had, including television and opera. Yeah. Um, it's sort of it's sort of surreal, actually.

You think, are you any good at all? I mean, how can you do all these things? Um, so I I subsumed, I guess, my own aesthetic and just wore it wherever I went. Yeah. Um I was never really aware of being a guest. Because having run a theater, I knew only too well what was behind there and how difficult and how much pressure and how much strain on department heads. So I I think that was the big difference, is that I was not, yeah, I still think of myself as a regional director. Even now I do. I mean, but you you had some major credits even before you went to the Old Globe. I know, I know, I know. I I'm I'm I don't understand me at all. It's fascinating. Uh well, I'm very excited to read the book.

Well, you'll have a good time. I'm very, very excited for it. Is there is there anything else that you remember specifically about Into the Woods? Um, making that that uh crossover from the Old Globe? Um no, but you know, now that you've mentioned it, when I think back on it, my memories, my connection to Steve, not James. James was directing, of course. Yeah. And we're we're very good friends. Um we care a great deal about each other and and we communicate quite often. But at that point, uh, I don't remember much about his work or his presence. And I'm not sure if it's because he's so modest, because you must realize he is. I mean, he accomplished last week something I would not ever have imagined, which is the greatest tribute to Steve possible in this memorial um afternoon that he produced that was the single most extraordinary event of its kind I've ever attended.

Wow. It was impeccable, and it was deeply moving and hilariously funny, and and just a real appropriate tribute to the to to Steve. But he's very, very quiet and very modest. And Steve isn't. So I'm not sure that the my experience was not being galvanized by the Herculean energy field that Steve always generated when he walked into a room. Wow. Well, that that is an uh incredible um evocation, also. Um so thank you for that too, Jack. Um stuff just falls out of me. I don't know what to say. I don't get it. Well, I'll I'll read the book and uh I'll look forward to the next one too, because obviously there's more fallen out. What a pleasure. I loved it and enjoyed this. If you if you if you want more, if you need more clarification or something, I I don't have nothing, I'm not holding anything back, clearly.

I appreciate that. Well, okay, it's uh there's something that I might edit around because this is really a kind of fluff piece, you know, if you will. I mean, there's nothing in this no, I understand. I understand. But I but I have had some um feedback from some of the actors from various points. Uh uh, and and Le Pine talked about this a lot in his book about Sunny in the Park with George, but uh certainly in the Into the Woods process, it still seems like there was maybe a lack of bedside manner, at least with in some of his collaborations with the actors, some of them. And uh I'm curious. You mean James? Yeah, oh sorry, did I say Steve? Yeah, no, no. No, no, you didn't. I know. I know. Oh, yeah, sorry, with James.

Um, and I'm curious uh if that was uh something that as uh artistic director you had to run interference on or were aware of in any way. No, I wasn't, I wasn't aware of it. Uh although I was very close to both Chip and and Joanna. Yeah. Um Joanna and I have become very close. Don't forget, um James's style as a director is as a writer. He is he is he comes through the writer's door, not the director's door. And so I think over the years he has figured it out. But um as as you'll see this in the in the book too, the the toughest person I've ever worked with in terms of understanding an actor's process is is Stoppard, who who doesn't get who just can destroy them without ever thinking that he is destroying them, over something like a final consonant.

Wow. Oh yes. So the writers hear a different music. The directors who come as as actors' directors, which I would include myself, are there to basically care for um cosset, protect and embolden the actors' art by interpreting for them a second or third wave of understanding of the writer's intention. The writer only wants the words understood. And I think that that is where that's that's James's access to the process, which over the years, now that he's done a great deal of it, has evolved. I bet. Anything. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, you know, the odd thing is directors that never see another director work. Not true of any other artist in the theater. But uh, but the directors basically, and some might much, I think too often, are are superstitious and and hung up on mojo and all sorts of stupid.

Yeah, I don't I don't believe it. I never did. An artistic director would be the exception to that rule then. Mm should be. Yeah. Hopefully. Well, I've I'm sure that you that you have been. Um uh well, thank you for that too, then Jack. Uh it is really great to talk to you and uh I I really do appreciate it. And if you need more, call me, okay? Thank you for listening to Giants in the Sky, how Sondheim and Le Pine went into the woods on the Broadway Podcast Network. Check out episode nine with Ann Hold Ward, the original costume designer.