Highlights from An Evening with Ahrens and Flaherty

Musical Theater Works

October 25, 2001.

 

The format for the evening was a very open ended interview format, moderated by Richard Maltby. The conversation was very free flowing, so I have just gathered the many, many highlights into the following bulleted list:

• In terms of how they choose projects, Lynn mentioned that they look for something that transports them and moves them enough to want to explore that world. The project also has to have "an inherent musicality. It has to be something that makes Stephen want to go over and put his hands on the keys. There are a lot of projects we'll discuss where the musical world just doesn't appeal to him." Stephen also mentioned that "whatever you do informs your next project in some way." For example, because LUCKY STIFF was so crazy and intricate, there wasn't a lot of room to go to an emotional place, so after that was over, they really went in search of something with an emotional current, which lead them to ONCE ON THIS ISLAND.

• Once they have chosen a project, they generally try to write about three songs to see if they can "get into" a piece. If they can write an upbeat song and a ballad and a character song, then there is a feeling that there is someplace to go with the idea. Stephen said he always looks for there to be a musical idea on the first reading of the source material. Lynn said she likes to have a bit of music first, because, very often, "the words are on the tips of the notes." For example, in ONCE ON THIS ISLAND", the musical phrase that accompanies "Asaka, grow me a garden" came to Stephen immediately. Lynn instinctively knew that those notes were the prayers, and the whole show then seemed to write itself from there. For Ragtime, there was a lot of discussion about how the piece would take shape and where the focus would be, but the opening notes of the show presented themselves immediately. Stephen said "If I am writing a song, and I know it's a good song, I just don't want to stop playing it, and after a while the piece starts to carry you and tell you what it needs instead of the other way around. Lynn added. "If it's really hard work, it's wrong."
  
  
• Lynn and Stephen both had tremendous praise for Terrence McNally, who they said is one of the few book writers who truly understands what it means to offer up his book scenes for them to musicalize. Both "Goodbye, My Love" and "Back to Before" were songs from "RAGTIME" that came directly out of the book scenes that Terrence had written.
  
  
• Both mentioned how important it is for musical theater writers to think of themselves as dramatists first, because "It really is all about the telling of a story. I am a dramatist, and I happen to have a musical language," Stephen said.
  
  
• There was a lengthy discussion about "Back to Before." Many people may be surprised to hear that that was a "lyrics first" song. Lynn faxed it to Stephen early one morning, and that first draft remains the exact lyric that is in the show! At first, Stephen was at a loss as to how to approach it, because the sentences were so long, but after wrestling with it for a while and walking around the roof of his apartment building, he took his musical cues from Lynn's lyric, and the word "crossroad" in particular. He realized that Mother has come to a decision point in her journey, and at that moment, the song goes into a totally different key, and the chord used at that point, and the entire direction of the song, was inspired by that word. Also, in the rest of the score, Mother sings soprano, but when she gets to "Back to Before," she belts, so Stephen sums up the song as "A woman's journey to becoming a belter." Interestingly, the melody that Stephen came up with was completely different from what Lynn was hearing in her head as she wrote the lyric. She said she has never shared with him what her original musical impulse was.
  
  
• The Jewish immigrant music was the part of the RAGTIME score that was the most difficult for Stephen to write, partly because it was hard to find a fresh sound that didn't sound derivative of "Fiddler on the Roof". Garth Drabinsky kept telling Stephen that he wanted to "hear the shtetl!" He sent a fax that just had the word "balilika"!Stephen felt he owed it to try and find that sound. Ultimately, the song "Success" turned out to be a combination of the sounds of the shtetl and the sounds of the new America, which was a perfect blend for the character of Tateh.
  
  
• "ONCE ON THIS ISLAND" originally contained a song for Agwe, the god of water, that was called "Daughter of the Sea.", inspired by the scene in the novel in which Ti Moune is bathing, and witnesses the crash of Daniel's car. It was a beautiful, lyrical piece, and in the first workshop, it had been choreographed with ribbons, but it just fell flat. Feeling that the song was not active enough, Lynn came up with the idea of the God of Water causing the rain, which causes Daniel's car to skid." When they first played the song "Rain" for the rest of creative team, they were not even at the end of the number when Graciela Daniele and Loy Arcenas were bursting with ideas of what they could do with the number. Stephen said this is a good example of why "it's not a good thing to sit on your ideas until every last note is perfect.", because that number was a true creative collaboration.
  
  
• For the most part, RAGTIME was written chronologically, in that Terrence would write a scene, and then Stephen and Lynn would present their musical reactions to that scene, and then they would move on to the next scene. However, both "Our Children" and "Wheels of a Dream" were written before the book scenes were written, because they were just very obvious song moments.
  
  
• The song "He Wanted to Say" has been removed from the current tour of RAGTIME, because both Stephen and Lynn felt that even though they love the song, the second act had one too many "anthemy" numbers, and that there was no need to foucus on two secondary characters when the whole song can be summed up with "I know how to blow things up." They both have been chuckling over the fact that they are STILL rewriting RAGTIME.
  
  
• Both "Your Daddy's Son" and "Professional Show Business Comedy" were inspired by the particular peformers that Stephen and Lynn were working with (Audra McDonald and Andrea Martin, respectively.) In the latter song, Stephen and Lynn relayed this hysterical story about the genesis of the song also coming from the fact that Tom Mardirosian was not a dancer, and was having trouble learning new steps ( and lines and words, for that matter), so the only way to get around this was to write a comic number that had him bound and gagged on the stage!
  
  
• "ANASTASIA" was a very different experience in that the songs came long before the screenplay. There were 14 different screenwriters for the project (including Carrie Fisher!). Stephen and Lynn only met 3 of them.
  
  
• The directive that Stephen and Lynn were given for the feel of "In the Dark of the Night" was "Meat Loaf meets Henry Higgins."!
  
  
• On writing opening numbers, Stephen and Lynn's advice is "write it first and write it last." It's often a good way to get into a show, but the piece will change as the show unfolds." For example, when it was finally settled that "Crime of the Century" would be Evelyn Nesbit's number in RAGTIME, bits and pieces of the music were incorporated into the opening number.
  
  
• Asked whether they had ever completely lost their musical inspiration, Stephen and Lynn revealed that when they first presented LUCKY STIFF at the Dramatists Guild workshop, they got completely raked over the coals, and had to start again from square one. The original piece was very witty, and "Sondheimian", but it wasn't funny enough or silly enough."There are basically two completely scores for LUCKY STIFF," Stephen said.
  
  
• About the SEUSSICAL tour-- Lynn and Stephen are grateful to have second chance at the show. They didn't want to go into the specifics of the changes, except to say that they intend "to bring the show back to its original vision."
  
  
• About producers-- "they should always express their concerns and confusions, but should never offer solutions. In the end, no one can write your show for you, and the solution is completely the writer's domain."