BWW Reviews: Conversations at the 2013 Dramatists Guild Conference in Chicago

Last weekend, August 22-25, 2013, the Dramatists Guild of America held its second ever national conference in Chicago, at the Hilton Chicago on South Michigan Avenue. The Dramatists Guild is the professional association of playwrights, librettists, lyricists and composers writing for the stage. And with almost 7,000 members, that's a lot of creative energy!

The conference included keynote speeches, legal and business seminars, workshops and conversations with some of the most successful and well-known writers working in theater today, all under the leadership of the Guild's President, Stephen Schwartz ("Wicked," "Pippin," "Godspell," etc.) Musical theater writing was one of the "tracks" that conference attendees could follow, and on Friday afternoon, August 23, there was a combination of four sessions that was of particular interest to those interested in this particular, and particularly complicated, endeavor.

They were "ASCAP presents Writing WICKED," with Michael Kerker hosting Stephen Schwartz (music and lyrics) and Winnie Holzman (book), "BMI presents Forms in New Musical Theatre," with Patrick Cook hosting Lin-Manuel Miranda ("In the Heights") and Robert Lopez ("Avenue Q," "The Book of Mormon"), "Adaptation/Translation," with John Dietrich hosting David Ives ("White Christmas"), Doug Wright ("Grey Gardens"), Winnie Holzman and Carol Hall ("The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"), and "A Conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda," with Larry Dean Harris hosting Miranda.

These lively and engaging conversations with successful contemporary writers, some of which have been posted online for viewing, held many facets: odd bits of trivia, fascinating stories of development struggles, legal entanglements, work styles and writing philosophies. And prompted by an audience member's wish, Robert Lopez (whom everyone calls "Bobby") and his wife, writer Kristen Anderson-Lopez, sang an unrehearsed but polished version of their novelty song which I believe is called, "I Wish That I Had Written Something Sondheim Wished He'd Written," inspired by the legendary composer-lyricist (and former Dramatists Guild President) Stephen Sondheim's now-famous list called, "Songs I Wish I'd Written (at Least in Part)," compiled in 2000.

Schwartz and Holzman were very forthcoming about their process of writing "Wicked," one of the most successful Broadway musicals of the 21st century. Gregory Maguire's book was recommended to Schwartz by the folk singer Holly Near while the two were on vacations in Maui in 1996, and Schwartz described the long process of convincing producer Marc Platt that a movie of the material wouldn't be able to show Elphaba's inner life the way that songs in a stage musical could. That legal and negotiation process took until 1998. Meanwhile, television writer Holzman ("My So-Called Life") owned a copy of the book, but hadn't read it because she heard that someone else was writing a screenplay based on it. But the two developed an outline in Los Angeles by the end of 1999, based on three moments established by Schwartz's vision of the adaptation, the opening, the end of the first act and the end of the show.

It was Holzman's idea to make Glinda more important that she otherwise might have been, and eventually the writers realized that, "It's the girls, stupid," as they reminded each other with written signs to keep the spotlight on the relationship of the two leads. However, in finding Kristin Chenoweth, and hoping to write a part so good that the Tony-winner would agree to be in their show, they realized that by the time of the San Fransisco tryout in 2003 that Elphaha's centrality to the story needed a bit of clarification. They also learned during the workshop and tryout phase that the legendary MGM movie was so central in audience's minds that it could never be contradicted. They treated it "like it was a documentary," Schwartz said. But all the while, as Holzman stated later in the afternoon, the two writers carried on a conversation with each other. "What's the story? What do we have to have, what do we like, and what would we like to change?"

Tony and Grammy winners Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bobby Lopez both attended New York's Hunter College High School, and both attended the same elementary school as well, and both had been well-trained and oriented to Broadway musicals from an early age, both as writers and performers. "West Side Story" was an early touchstone for both, as was "Into the Woods," a poster of which was on the side of their teacher's piano. And both men feel that the work and aesthetic of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II is core to their own writing. Lopez stated that "The Book of Mormon" is structurally the same as an R&H show, except that religious fervor replaces love as a motivation for the songs, and of course the subject matter is vastly different. Miranda stated that he conceived "In the Heights" in terms of a Rodgers and Hammerstein structure, and that each character has his/her own musical style, whatever that may be. More than once in the afternoon he stated that when two of his characters sing together, their musical styles mesh and create a unique sound in that way.

Lopez further expressed his feeling that the worlds of comedy and musical theater are converging. And both men agreed that musical theater no longer has to be just about romance, or be family-friendly, and that this is exciting.

Miranda realized as a child that his favorite rap songs and his favorite musical theater songs did the same thing--they told stories that took the listener to a different world. He realized that musical theater traditionally has valued exact rhymes, but that in hip-hop the rhymes are often not exact, and for a purpose. It's not lack of craft, but rather a desire to surprise the listener with something unexpected. But he knows that it's a challenge to not overload a theater audience with too much verbal content and detail in a rap song. He summarized the overlap between musical theater and hip-hop this way: "Verbal dexterity that takes you to a different place, and when joined with the right music, transports you."

Miranda spoke several times about his new project, which fans know as "The Hamilton Mixtape," a through-composed musical and/or recording that is based on the life of Alexander Hamilton, which he called "the quintessential immigrant story" and one based on a "force of personality" like "Gypsy" and "Sweeney Todd." He stated that he couldn't conceive of a musical about Hamilton as being anything else but hip-hop, due to the former Secretary of the Treasury's verbal dexterity and tendency toward verbosity. He's been working on the show for four years, writing backstage while still performing "In the Heights," and that currently the show "has 30 songs in act one!"

David Ives, adapter of 33 of the shows performed by the "Encores!" series at New York City Center, stated that he feels Shakespeare to be his model, as 35 of the Bard's 37 shows are based on someone else's work. Carol Hall revealed that she, Larry L. King and Peter Masterson first discussed adapting King's magazine article into a musical over dinner after seeing the play, "Vanities." And she and playwright/librettist Doug Wright attended the same high school in Texas, albeit at different times. Both were excited to write about Texas, she with "Whorehouse" and he with "Hands on a Hardbody."

Wright said he felt a great responsibility to the source material he adapted into the stage musicals "Grey Gardens" and "The Little Mermaid," saying that the films by the same names were "cultural icons" for segments of the population. He has to serve two masters when he adapts, the source material and the demands of live theater. He thought that "Grey Gardens" would never work as a stage musical because the beloved documentary film has no narration, no story. But when Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, who wrote the score, came up with the idea of going back in time to the 1940s, everything fell into place for Wright. He stated that he has not seen the HBO film version of the story, which starred Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, because "I spent three years of my life dancing with these women, and I am not yet ready to see them dance with a different partner." But he heard it was a triumph for those involved, and he's sure he will see it someday.

And these writers were not the only musical theater figures speaking at the Dramatists Guild conference. George C. Wolfe ("Jelly's Last Jam"), Gretchen Cryer ("I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It On the Road") and John Weidman ("Assassins") were also on the schedule. Not to mention the playwrights of plays. I wish I had been able to hear them all. As a writer about the theater, and as a writer FOR the theater, where else was I going to be?

PHOTO CREDIT: Paul W. Thompson

PHOTOS (from top): Lin-Manuel Miranda and Larry Dean Harris; Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman and Michael Kerker; Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Patrick Cook; Lin-Manuel Miranda; David Ives, Doug Wright, Winnie Holzman, Carol Hall and John Dietrich

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