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Bea Arthur Still On for Broadway-bound Modern Millie Show By Randy Gener
NEW YORK — Though Tony-winning starlet Kristin Chenoweth (Epic Proportions) has landed an NBC sitcom, the Michael Mayer-helmed stage musical Thoroughly Modern Millie still hopes to make its debut on Broadway in the spring of 2001.
The show's co-bookwriter and lyricist Dick Scanlan told Theatre.com that his Broadway-bound stage adaptation of the 1967 Universal movie musical is still being planned to debut at a West Coast regional theater TBA in the fall of 2001.
But the ultimate fate of the musical may rest on the TV success of the petite blonde Broadway comedienne, who won her 1999 Tony as Best Featured Actress in a Musical as Sally in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and whose comedy Epic Proportions closed Dec. 19 at the Helen Hayes Theatre.
"It's rather an unfortunate timing," Scanlan said. "We're in throes of making the final plans for next year. We're literally finalizing schedules as I speak. We haven’t fully come to terms. We've received lots of offers from several different theatres, again way West. Kristin is a bit of a question mark because of her TV sitcom. I'm trusting that the right thing will happen. I want what's best for Kristin because she's an enormous talent."
All is not lost, however. Golden Girl Bea Arthur is still signed up to play Thoroughly Modern Millie's off-the-wall Mrs. Meers, the house-mother with a love for the Pacific Rim. Beatrice Lillie played that role in the 1967 film version.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT ME? A new Broadway-bound show for musical-theater lovers.
Arthur and Chenoweth appeared in the Oct. 1999 Thoroughly Modern Millie showcase reading, which also starred Yvette Cason (in the Carol Channing role), David Campbell as Jimmy, Marc Kudisch, Amanda Serkasevich, Ruth Williamson, Francis Jue and Ken Leung.
The Broadway-bound Millie, however, has been much changed from the original 1967 George Roy Hill-directed, Ross Hunter-produced, Richard-Morris-scripted Hollywood movie that starred Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore, Channing and Lillie.
Set during the crazy 1920s, the movie is a jazz-age spoof. Millie goes to New York determined to find a wealthy husband and live happily ever after. She transforms herself into a modern woman, decked up in bobbed hair and short skirt and flat chest. But things don't quite turn out as she hoped. Millie falls in love with Jimmy, an attractive and funny but very poor young man. Nevertheless, Millie goes after her boss, Trevor Graydon, a handsome, square and rich executive. Other interesting characters who figure in the movie are the sinister Mrs. Meers, who heads a slave organization, and the eccentric millionaire Muzzy Van Hossmere (Channing). Elmer Bernstein's score received the Academy Award for Best Musical Score. Millie also marked Moore's film debut.
But while the film was Ross Hunter's attempt to recapture a sense of Andrews' first musical stage success in The Boy Friend, Scanlan's stage version, co-written with Richard Morris ("The Unsinkable Molly Brown"), has been tailored, to some extent, for Chenoweth.
The Broadway-bound musical is its own show. "It's inspired by the movie," Scanlan said. "It's been so changed and rewritten. The world view is similar, but actual plot details are different. Different people end up with different people. The Asian characters are different. They have bigger roles, and they play a much more important journey. In the workshop, they were performed by Francis Jue and Ken Leung."
The music itself is also different. Two of the musical numbers ("Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Jimmy") are lifted from the film, but the rest of score has additional music by composer Jeanine Tesori (Violet) and additional lyrics by Scanlan.
"Jeanine Tesori wrote new material for the musical," Scanlan said. "I'm delighted by it. She's using our instruments from 1920s speakeasy New York. She's really basing our music to what happened in the jazz world during the 1920s, as opposed to a musical version of the 1920s, which we've been accustomed to.
"The music has not yet been orchestrated, but conceptually the sound is based on what actually occurred then," Scanlan added. "It's not a quaint, sweet jazz sound, but a hot, ragged, blazing sound, like horns of a taxi. It's unbelievably bold. It really reflects like in the early 1920s, which was very modern. One of Jeanine's gifts as a contemporary composer is that she's also a melodist. She likes sound that the ear can travel with and jump aboard with. During the 1920s, there was nothing sweet about life then. It was every bit as fast-paced and electric as it is now, if not more so. The show's music reflects that. It's created from that kind of energy because we don’t want to write pop ballads. Jeanine's music sets up a real high bar."
As for the October presentation, it was a huge success, Scanlan said. "Bea Arthur — she was unbelievable," he recalled. "She exceeded expectations, even her own. She got a huge ovation. She was simply and truly a great actress. Despite her incredible comic ability, her great love is singing. That’s what she wanted to do from the moment she started. Musicals are her passion, and she's got two huge numbers in the show. She showed enormous respect for music. Both of her numbers brought the house down, in large part because she was wonderful. She has a solo and a number with Ken and Francis."
Director Michael Mayer also took an unusual approach to the reading. Because the musical's story was presented within a confined space with no sets or costumes, he still wanted some flair. So he asked the script to be entirely rewritten, especially for the presentation, so that the actors read their own stage directions.
"Normally, stage directions try to capture the energy of the action on stage, but it's told in the third person," Scanlan said. "In our workshop, we had to change the format so that the words had to be spoken by the actors. The comic business just went way up with the stage directions read that way. Laughs were punctuated, and the experience of watching the rhythm and pace became identical to what it would be when you see the show. It was playful and really fun."
Also of huge interest is that superstar Whoopi Goldberg is one the producers backing Thoroughly Modern Millie.
"To the best of my understanding, Whoopi approached us," Scanlan said. "My understanding is that Whoopi has always loved the original movie. In a conversation with Michael Mayer's agent at William Morris, she said that she felt a good stage musical could be made out of the movie. When she was told that a musical was being prepared, Whoopi asked to see material without knowing who the people involved in it was. That was three years ago. Later on we spoke with Whoopi. We talked of our vision, which is to retain the essence of movie. We wanted to play with it. She seemed excited by our ideas, and she came on board.
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