With a book by Clay McLeod Chapman, the show deals with the events following the arrival of a stranger into a small town, one who starts cruising the streets in his Dodge and sparking off feverish rumors from the town’s inhabitants. The score is written by Bruce Hornsby and Chip deMatteo, with 8 of the 19 songs in the score having appeared on Hornby’s 2009 album, Levitate.

The cast for the reading includes Robert Spencer, Jill Paice, Tom Wopat, John Cullum, Natalie Belcon, William Parry, Becky Ann Baker, Anastasia Barzee, Bryan Tyree Henry, Joey Sorge, James Moye, Dalton Harrod, Riley Costello and Brynn Williams.

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FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
1. Levitate CD.

I guess Blackface is in.  In what, I have no idea.  After A Behanding in Spokane‘s ridiculous black character and Lend Me A Tenor‘s Otello moments, The Scottsboro Boys one-ups them all and turns the minstrel concept on its ear.  In fact, the whole construct of a minstrel show is upended by Kander & Ebb’s latest “last show”, and done so with supreme excellence.

Using such a viciously constructed format to essentially deride the formula (let alone the concept) of a minstrel show to take a musical look at the Scottboro Boys’ historical experience is, quite honestly, a stroke of genius.  I knew the story, and still the emotional drive John Kander & Fred Ebb elicit during their songs balanced by David Thompson’s book was quite astonishing.  Overall, I think its the best newly constucted musical I’ve seen in quite some time, at least since 2004′s Caroline or Change – easily trumping the new constructs I’ve enjoyed since then, including Fela!, Xanadu, Passing Strange, Grey Gardens, Spring Awakening, In The Heights, Billy Elliot, The Light In The Piazza, & the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  Easily.  Perhaps the best first-run musical I’ve ever seen.  Perhaps.  I’m not a huge fan of superlatives, but, I really feel this show deserves it.  And I’m not alone.

Thinking back on the show, The Scottsboro Boys is an excellent score, has a great book, is filled with generally excellent performances and is well directed (by Susan Stroman).  But, the composite of those is far greater than the sum of its parts.  There’s an interesting balance between drama, irony, and shame – each executed both as an individual emotion and in concert with the others.  Its somewhat hard to describe, but the feeling I had when those three emotional elements began working was so complex, so well constructed, that I was simply amazed in a truly positive way.  And that’s not easy for a cynic like me.

This isn’t the first time a group of white creative forces set out to deal with essentially a story that promoted white shame due to historical racism.  But that didn’t bother me.  Truth is truth, and art’s contemplation of truth, slanted as it may be, can often override any awkward intention so long as its forthcoming about its perspective.  And its timely, given that the Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, recently honored the Confederacy (in an honorary month!) without thinking about the racist implications – which demonstrates how the racist tides that caused the Scottsboro Boys’ convictions back in 1930′s Alabama are still covertly at work across the country.

Aside from the politics of a racially-charged musical, the show is quite excellent as a piece of musical theatre.  Kander & Ebb brought the sounds of 1930′s jazz, blues, bluegrass and soul into a modern theatrical arrangement with flair.  Some standout songs (for me, anyway) include the story-initiating Commencing in Chattanooga, the tale of honesty Make Friends With The Truth, a very sassy Never Too Late, a harrowingly homespun Southern Days, and a proud You Can’t Do Me.  And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the use of actual blackface in the titular finale, which is devastatingly executed, from the minstrel show standard cake walk to a deconstruction of blackface for the final, powerful moment.

While the individual songs aren’t necessarily meaningful unless you’ve seen the show, most of them have the central figure, Victor Dixon Brown’s Haywood Patterson.  Patterson was the only member of the Scottsboro Boys who was never released from prison, refusing a plea-bargain, and dying from cancer in 1952.  And Brown is simply outstanding in this role.  Rather than being saddled with a noble black man role, Brown brings a complexity, thoughtfulness, and actual soul to the character, elevating him entirely.  His singing voice has some excellent range, and given his previous Tony nomination (The Color Purple), I’m very much looking forward to the rest of his career.

More notable in the cast are John Cullum, Coleman Domingo and Forrest McClendon.  Cullum has proven to be an excellent performer time and again, here as the only (actual) white man in the show.  As the Interlocutor, he’s ostensibly the show’s leader, but is constantly overrun by the other actors – intentionally.  To say he’s wonderful would be to elevate the roaming characters he plays, but he does a very fine job.

Domingo is someone I’ve enjoyed for a while.  I saw him in Passing Strange and his own one-man show, and he never fails to provide an arching, elegantly over-the-top humor, either on stage or on Logo’s Big Gay Sketch Show.  He’s become a theatre staple, and here he does his best to paint broadly a host of white characters that are supposed to be interchangeable.  Flair, indeed.  McClendon is his equal, although Domingo’s natural flamboyance serves him a bit better here.

Notable among the other “boys” are Rodney Hicks (he of a fantastic bass), Christian Dante White (last summer’s The Wiz’s Scarecrow), Julian Thomas III, and Sean Bradford.  Hicks doesn’t have any particular acting moments of note, but his voice stood out to me several times.  White is all limbs, and stood out in a number of dance sequences.  Thomas had some excellent, touching moments, with a few thoughtful interchanges.  Bradford stole a moment with Never Too Late, as a recanting white woman who had accused the titular characters of rape.  Just a great featured performance.

The rest of the cast is generally excellent, and most of them receive moments to highlight their skills.  Overall, however, my standouts were just that.  Truly memorable moments in a collection of excellence are hard to pick out, but I’m not exactly known for going simply.

At the end of the day, the composite of the production, music, story, and performances deliver a superlative theatre experience.  And at less than a hundred minutes, that’s even more impressive.  Although the show ends at the Vineyard any day now, the sold out run is just a stepping stone to Broadway, where the show will easily reign.  Hopefully, some of the Mamma Mia-Addams Family-Phantom going crowd will actually see something that has some depth and thought to it, and this show certainly deserves it.  Virginia & Alabama be damned.  There’s a history lesson here, one all too close to the current climate to be avoided.  And its an amazing piece of theatre.

Producer Barry Weissler told The New York Times that the former would require director-choreographer Susan Stroman to restage the show to suit the arena set up of the threatre and the latter is “too glamorous and sprawling” a venue for the intimate show.

The only pity about this, really, is that the show might have given some artistic credibility to the fight for Best Musical, Book and Score at the Tony Awards this season, something the shows that are competing for nominations in that category this season are generally lacking. With its inventive and daring minstrel show framework, one that turns on its head the tradition of blackface, The Scottsboro Boys is one of the final collaborations between John Kander and Fred Ebb, the musical theatre team responsible for Cabaret, Chicago and many other musicals and has had a positive response in its current run at the Vineyard Theatre, having extended its closing date until 18 April. The book of the show is by David Thompson. The cast features John Cullum, Colman Domingo, Brandon Victor Dixon, Sean Bradford, Josh Breckenridge, Derrick Cobey, Rodney Hicks, KendRick Jones, Forrest McClendon, Julius Thomas III, Sharon Washington, Cody Ryan Wise and Christian White.

Let’s all hope that we do see a transfer of the show in the upcoming season. It’s about time Broadway got a new musical that’s worthy of that moniker, one that is tossed around far too easily these days.

Purchases from Amazon.com

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
1. Scottsboro: an American Tragedy on DVD.
2. Heaven’s Fall Film about the Scottsboro Trials on DVD.

JD Cullum has Gomez Addams’ forehead.

Without looking up from his burger, Cullum says, “I made out with John Astin. We were in a show together at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC. I played, among other roles, a woman John’s character was quite fond of. Eventually, before I could fight him off, he laid one on me.”

Astin continues to teach acting at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, where Morticia’s husband earned his Bachelor’s Degree in drama. “Those days back east,” Cullum says, “were good for me. I grew up on Manhattan. I was asked to take over the lead in Romance Language off-Broadway when I was only 18. I had six days to learn the role and I told my dad there was no way I could do it.”

 Enter two-time Tony Award winner, John Cullum. “He took me line by line, promising I would learn it. He was right.”

 John turned into a formidable (and timely) acting coach. “I never studied drama,” JD admits. “I remember struggling with a moment in Romance Language when Huck Finn sees Tom and has to greet him. I didn’t know whether to say ‘Tom!’ first or hug him first.”

John stepped in, Cullum says, and told his son to hug him. “So I hugged him. Then he said to hug him again. So I hugged him again. He said to do it again, and again, and again. Finally, he said, ‘Now say Tom when you hug me’ and the name came out spontaneously with the hug. That was the moment that it clicked. It’s all about losing the self-consciousness. And about pretending really, really well.”

JD Cullum hit Broadway at 20 in George Bernard Shaw’s You Never Can Tell, as Phillip, with Uta Hagen. “My dad replaced Phil Bosco as the waiter part-way into the run. During a rehearsal, he was balancing drinks on a serving platter and spilled them on everyone. I was so upset I had to leave the room. Later, during the live show, I was mouthing my dad’s lines. Finally, Victor Garber (Dr. Valentine) slid his hand across his throat, telling me to knock it off.” Cullum laughs. “I had to let go. I realized that my dad knew what he was doing and would be just fine.” Five Tony nominations later, JD was right. John currently portrays the only white member in The Scottsboro Boys at the Vineyard Theatre in New York.

The elder Cullum (Northern Exposure) also played Beverly in the Broadway run of August: Osage County, occupying the first 16 minutes on stage [spoiler alert??], then darting off to do another play because his character does away with himself.

“When I have a problem figuring out a line, a scene, or another actor, I often think, ‘What would my dad do?’ So,” JD says, “I’ll call him. We’ll talk things through.”

JD met his wife, Shareen Mitchell, at a yogurt shop in Studio City. “She had come in with a friend of mine. I saw Shareen in a play, we got to know each other and the rest….” You don’t need a road map to fill in the thought that trails off. “She owns two vintage clothing boutiques, one in LA and another in New York. I can’t go in. Boys aren’t allowed. It’s like one big living room for women to try on clothes.”

JD Cullum came to Much Ado About Nothing at the invitation of director Michael Murray. “I had worked with Michael in Tonight at 8:30. I was also in seven of the eight Noel Coward one-acts Antaeus put up a while back. Michael directed two of them.”

I wondered how Murray cast Torri Higginson as Beatrice. Like JD, Torri has a sci-fi TV background, having appeared on Stargate Atlantis. “Michael and I spent a lot of time talking about who should play Beatrice,” JD recounts. “Her character has the largest consciousness of anyone else in the play. She’s the most self-aware. We auditioned a lot of actors, but when Torri came in, we knew she was perfect for it.”

Cullum says learning a Shakespearean character is much easier than a Klingon role, as he tried to do in Star Trek: TNG. “I wish I’d studied more. I should have done more research. I didn’t realize Klingons were supposed to be stoic, so I never felt that I nailed the character. But I justified my inappropriate behavior by reminding people that I was playing a Klingon boy, not an adult. That way, I could be forgiven.”

We forgive those growing up. And growing up is what Cullum says Benedick does in Much Ado. Benedick swaggers out, cavalier, and care-free in the first act, “But he matures in the second. At first,” Cullum says, “Benedick has a special relationship with the audience. He’s the most open, vulnerable. But he goes through a change.”

I ask about the physical choices Cullum has made. There are times he gestures so little, you can’t help but be drawn to his faces, his eyes.

“I have to remember that Shakespeare is the star. It’s all about the language. It’s tempting to lay on gestures to emphasize language you think people won’t understand, but I realized that works against me. I decided, in many moments, to just stand there without gesturing, and talk.”

JD Cullum, despite his love of Shakespeare, is not tied to it. “I’d love to do a modern play,” he says. “While I’d love to do Richard III, I’ve also got a friend with a wonderful translation of Gogol’s The Government Inspector, which I’d like to pitch.

“But, really,” Cullum adds, mopping up the last of his mushroom burger at The Bucket in Eagle Rock, “I’ll do whatever comes along.”

Anyone up for another Addams Family?

Much Ado About Nothing continues through May 21 at A Noise Within in Glendale.

With a book by David Thompson, The Scottsboro Boys features a score by John Kander and Fred Ebb – sadly, a posthumous premiere for Ebb. The show is directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman and has a limited run Off-Broadway. With any luck, we’ll see a Broadway transfer of this show, which seems to be the most astutely political small scale musical since Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. Dealing with the issue of racial injustice, the musical delves into the infamous “Scottsboro” case of the 1930′s when a group of African American teenagers were unjustly accused of attacking two white women and the boys’ attempts to prove that they were innocent of that crime.

John Cullum, Brandon Victor Dixon and Colman Domingo head up the cast, which also features Sean Bradford, Josh Breckenridge, Derrick Cobey, Rodney Hicks, Kendrick Jones, Forrest McClendon, Julius Thomas III, Sharon Washington, Cody Ryan Wise and Christian Dante White.

It sounds a bit like A Little Night Music meets the Arabian Nights. It’s interesting, then, that the music for this will be provided posthumously by “The Waltz King” himself, Johann Strauss II, whose music for the show has been adapted and arranged by Jonathan Tunick, with lyrics provided by Ellen Fitzhugh.

With a book by Richard Nelson, based on Joseph Roth’s novel The Tale Of The 1002nd Night, the show will be co-directed by Harold Prince and Susan Stroman, opening for a limited run at the Menier Chocloate Factory on 19 May.

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FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
1. The Tale of the 1002nd Night by Joseph Roth.

Copyright Vineyard Theatre 2010

While at the first preview of The Scottsboro Boys, I found myself thinking a lot about legacies. The new musical by David Thompson, John Kander and Fred Ebb looks unflinchingly at America’s sad legacy of racial intolerance. Its stylistic legacy is to the musical theatre of Harold Prince, a high-concept show in which each musical number is alternately ironic, detached, jaunty, presentational, uncomfortable, frightening, showstopping. But the greatest legacy I thought of is that of its writers. After the death of Fred Ebb, his songwriting partner has brought to fruition their unfinished collaborations: two musicals produced in Ebb’s lifetime but not in New York (All About Us and the underrated The Visit) and two left unfinished (Curtains, The Scottsboro Boys.) And while the delightfully nostalgic Curtains was a love letter to the Golden Age of musical comedy that Kander and Ebb were raised on, The Scottsboro Boys just might be the apex of the cutting-edge musical theatre that they helped create. 

Virtually everything about the show is unorthodox. I hope I’m not betraying any surprise by revealing that the entire show is told in the framework of a unique minstrel show (the musical’s working title was, in fact, Minstrel Show) – one in which the African-Americans play the Caucasians. The one Caucasian in the cast is the commanding John Cullum as the Interlocutor, who functions much in the same way Joel Grey’s Emcee did in Cabaret. There is only one woman in the cast, as well – the African-American actress Sharon Washington. The show is somewhat of a companion piece to the 1975 Chicago‘s vaudeville format. Much of that was lost in the colosally-successful modern revival, but the minstrel show here is intrinsic to the whole.

David Thompson’s book skillfully manages to tell its story without many traditional conventions. There’s no B-plot here: the 2-hour intermissionless musical tells the story of the so-called Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men falsely accused of a gang rape in 1931 Alabama. It follows their incarceration and the many trials they faced in their quest for justice and freedom. Make no mistake, this show shares a lineage with Alfred Uhry, Jason Robert Brown and Hal Prince’s Parade, and it presses many of the same buttons that show did. Unlike the sprawling South of that musical, though, there is not much of a supporting cast. There is no romance, no sidekicks or comic relief, at least in a straight-ahead sense. And while the musical is populated with both black and white stereotypes, as befits the style of a minstrel show, Thompson manages to make the Scottsboro Boys flesh-and-blood and therefore worthy of our emotional investment.

If there’s a flaw in the writing, it’s that there are almost too many characters to paint them all believably. Some focus is given to the character of Heywood Patterson (Brandon Victor Dixon), who has the show’s climactic moment, a powerful song called “You Can’t Do Me.” It has substantial impact, but doesn’t immediately register because we haven’t been clued in enough that Haywood will take a central role. It’s my hope that, in the weeks prior to opening night, Thompson and director Susan Stroman will give Haywood more attention earlier in the show, so as to maximize the already-substantial impact of this moment when he faces Cullum’s judge and makes a crucial decision as to his fate. (Shades of Parade‘s Leo Frank here.) The tone shifts periodically throughout the night when Thompson finds it necessary to momentarily allow some realism to creep in. But largely, the lack of convention seems to have been freeing, in allowing the author to create a genuinely original, potent work.

Stroman, serving as director and choreographer, creates her most dazzling, and most cohesive work, in many seasons. She brings out the best in the ensemble, with Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon standouts as the “endmen” on the minstrel line, traditionally named Bones and Tambo. She has clearly paid scrupulous attention to the form of the minstrel show, and recreated it here. There are traditional cakewalks present, and her choreography matches the intensity of Kander and Ebb’s score with creativity and old-school knowhow, most particularly in a dancing paean to the electric chair (another actual minstrel show staple) and a deliciously ironic Kander and Ebb concoction called “Make Friends With The Truth” that’s destined to become a favorite.

The score, of course, is the engine driving the production. Kander’s music has multiple echoes of his past triumphs Cabaret and Chicago, with “Nothin’” sounding an awful lot like Bert Williams’ “Nobody,” which inspired “Mr. Cellophane.” The song “Financial Advice” has the acid wit of “Meeskite” or “If You Could See Her.” This is pure 100-proof Kander and Ebb through and through, even an unusually lilting, mournful and folk-tinged melody entitled “Go Back Home.” 

Stroman has clearly directed the show at a heightened level designed for a much bigger stage than the off-Broadway Vineyard Theatre. With no stars above the title and a skeletal, effective set (by the talented Beowulf Boritt), it might seem a long shot for Broadway. And a show this polarizing could fare either way with the reviewers. I saw it as a sort of culmination of the legacy I have to believe John Kander wants to leave for the Kander and Ebb team – as creators of provocative musical theatre that pushes the envelope and forces us to re-examine difficult subjects or periods in history we might otherwise have swept under the rug…all the while entertaining their audiences. That they do this, and do it with the cherished sound of classic musical theatre, is no small accomplishment. The Scottsboro Boys is a risky gambit, but it’s the real deal, a fitting end to their career and a reminder of what great musical theatre can do. Run, don’t walk.

Broadway star Mandy Patinkin will lead the jointly-directed Hal Prince and Susan Stroman musical production of Paradise Found, which will run at the Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre from May 19 till June 26. The show is based on Joseph Roth’s novel The Tale Of The 1002nd Night, about a visit the Shah of Persia made to Europe in 1873.

David Babani, director of the Chocolate Factory, told me Patinkin will play the Shah’s eunuch. Several actors, including John Cullum, Shuler Hensley, Kate Baldwin and Judy Kaye, took part in readings of the show in New York and deals are being negotiated to bring them to the Chocolate Factory.

I suppose at least it’s a confirmation of sorts for the production. The official website for the show tells us nothing other than the fact that it’s coming soon…

Purchases from Amazon.com

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
1. The Tale of the 1002nd Night by Joseph Roth.

To purchase SCOTTSBORO: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY, click on the image above.

The new Kander and Ebb musical (with book by David Thompson), The Scottsboro Boys, begins previews today Off-Broadway in the Vineyard Theatre. The show deals with the famous “Scottsboro” case of the 1930s, in which a group of young African American teenagers were falsely accused of of raping two homeless white women on a freight train to Mississippi. Their attempts to prove their innocence and their treatment by the justice system, which provoked a national outrage, sparked the American Civil Rights movement.

The production has Susan Stroman at the helm, with John Cullum, Brandon Victor Dixon and Colman Domingo starring in the principle roles, and will open on 10 March, running through April 4th.

The official website is available here and has all the information you need for booking and of special events related to the show’s development.

Paradise Found is based on The Tale of the 1002nd Night, Joseph Roth’s novel about an impotent Shah (who would be played by John Cullum) whose eunuch (a role pegged for Mandy Patinkin) persuades his master to journey to Vienna. Once there, the Shah falls in love with the empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In the interview with Variety, Prince said that he expected to see Shuler Hensley, Judy Kaye and Emily Skinner in other leading roles, with rehearsals starting on 12 April prior to a seven week run before the show transferred to New York. The book for the musical has been written by Richard Nelson, with a score featuring music adapted by Jonathan Tunick from that of Johann Strauss II and lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh.

There are two things that make me pause for thought when considering this project. I’ve never been a particular fan of the Song of Norway-style show, in which the music of a classical composer is adapted to create a musical theatre score. I think a new composer would have been a good thing: Adam Guettel is the one that immediately springs to my mind for this. The casting of dear Mandy Patinkin as the Shah’s eunuch doesn’t thrill me either; as the French say, I find him insupportable. Other than that, I find this show really intriguing and I’m waiting in anticipation to see how it develops.

Purchases from Amazon.com

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
1. The Tale of the 1002nd Night by Joseph Roth.

To purchase SCOTTSBORO: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY, click on the image above.

The Vineyard Theatre has announced that it will host a reading of John Kander, Fred Ebb and David Thompson’s The Scottsboro Boys on June 26 at 15:00.

The subject matter of the show – the 1930s “Scottsboro case”, which saw nine young African American teenagers tried for the attack of two women on a freight train – is an interesting choice for a Kander and Ebb musical. I must admit I’d never heard of the case before the musical was announced and reading through some brief summaries of it – well, it’s all rather shocking. Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, the reading will feature John Cullum, Brandon Victor Dixon and Colman Domingo in the central roles. Attendance is by invitation-only.

I wonder what the score is like. As for the physical production, with Stroman at the helm, the reading could go either way. She either hits the nail on the head or misses the target completely. I do hope it’s the former. It would be great to see this unproduced Kander and Ebb musical, one of the last projects on which they collaborated before Ebb’s death, come to life.

John Cullum (Urinetown), Brandon Victor Dixon (The Color Purple) and Colman Domingo (Passing Strange) will star in an invitation-only reading of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s The Scottsboro Boys directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman (The Producers).

With music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman), a book by David Thompson, and musical direction is by David Loud, the musical “explores the famous Scottsboro case of the 1930′s — in which a group of young African American teenagers were unjustly accused of attacking two women — and their attempt to prove their innocence.”

Cullum, Dixon and Domingo lead a reading cast that also includes Josh Breckenridge, Jared Grimes, Malik Hammond, Jared Joseph, James Lane, JC Montgomery, Brenda Pressley, Christian White, and Dashaun Young.

The musical will be presented June 26th at 3PM at the Vineyard Theater.

ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

When John Cullum wanted to audition for On the Twentieth Century, Harold Prince said that he was the most boring actor on Broadway. And Cullum agreed. It’s a great story. I don’t think anybody can doubt Cullum’s status as one of the great singer-actors. However, I feel absolutely neutral about him.

The countdown has begun! Against the real-life backdrop of the US deployment of WMDs in Europe during the escalating cold war this dramatically involving [and] agonizingly graphic film (The Hollywood Reporter) about nuclear holocaust detonated a direct hit into the heartland of America. Starring Jason Robards JoBeth Williams Steven Guttenberg John Cullum and John Lithgow this controversial potent drama (Leonard Maltin) remains one of the most talked-about programs in history (Newsweek)! When cold-war tensions reach the ultimate boiling point the inhabitants of a small town in Kansas learn along with the rest of America that they have less than 30 minutes before 300 Soviet warheads begin to appear overhead! Can anyone survive this ultimate nightmare or the nuclear winter that is sure to follow?

The Day After is available at Amazon for $7.49. To Order click here
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