B'way's Million-to-One Millie
Roaring Twenties musical makes
incredible journey from the screen

By ROBERT DOMINGUEZ
Daily News Feature Writer

roadway's new $10 million baby owes its conception to a $2 videotape.

The show, "Thoroughly Modern Millie," has its roots in a far-fetched idea hatched in a Long Island beach house. It took a difficult detour to California before coming back East as the last new musical of the 2001-02 Broadway season.

When the show opens this evening at the Marquis Theatre, it will mark the end of an unlikely 14-year odyssey.

Sutton Foster (c.) stars in 'Thoroughly Modern Millie,' a musical about a farm girl in the big city that opens tonight at the Marquis Theatre.

"Millie's" back story is reminiscent of a shmaltzy Hollywood movie, with improbable plot points including: an unknown writer; the death of the co-creator, and even an understudy who becomes the star.

Dick Scanlan, the creator and lyricist — who worked from the 1967 movie starring Julie Andrews — calls the show's evolution "an odd genesis."

The News details the birthing of a Broadway musical:

In the summer of 1988, Scanlan was a struggling writer and sometime actor spending the summer in a Southampton beach house. There was no cable hookup.

"The only two movies we had were 'Thoroughly Modern Millie,' which I had taped off the TV, and 'Caligula,' which my housemate brought," says Scanlan, referring to the infamous X-rated film.

"When people would visit, I'd ask them to choose one. I'm happy to say, week after week, they chose 'Millie.'"

After so many viewings, Scanlan says he fell in love with the frothy story of an ambitious Kansas farm girl (Andrews) who lands in Jazz Age Manhattan.

"She comes to New York to reinvent herself, and the story was resonant of my own experience [moving] here," says Scanlan, who's from Maryland.

	Foster (r.) and Gavin Creel star in the adaption of the 1967 movie.

He then decided to adapt the film to the stage. "But I put it on hold for a while because I didn't think anyone would ask an unknown, unpublished writer to write a [big-budget] musical."

Three years passed before Scanlan seriously set about turning "Millie" into a theater piece. By 1991, he had gained notice as the writer and star of Off-Broadway's "Pageant." Scanlan figured it was the right time to contact Richard Morris, the film's screenwriter, who owned the dramatic rights to "Millie."

"Morris slammed the phone in my ear," recalls Scanlan. "He said, 'I don't know who you are, go away! I want to adapt it for Broadway, and I don't need your help!'"

Undeterred, Scanlan flew to Los Angeles and somehow convinced Morris to meet with him. "He was the kind of man who trusted his instincts," says Scanlan, "and we just clicked."

Over the next five years, Scanlan and Morris collaborated on the book and completed a first draft in February 1996. Two months later, Morris died of cancer.

"I was absolutely determined to keep going ahead," says Scanlan.

With finished script in hand, Scanlan then turned to Michael Mayer, a boyhood friend who had gone on to direct such Broadway shows as "Side Man."

That fall, they held a staged reading in Manhattan. "It was done to see if the new approach to the story would work [rather than] to attract producers," says Scanlan.

One production company, however, did sign on. Fox Theatricals "really loved it — but they found the score wasn't satisfactory," he adds.

For the next year, Scanlan collaborated on a new approach with songwriter Jeanine Tesori ("Violet," a 1997 New York Drama Critics Circle Award winner), whom Mayer had recommended.

"I had never seen the movie, and it didn't sound like my kind of thing," admits Tesori.

But the two ended up composing nearly 50 new tunes, of which more than a half-dozen made it into the final product (the rest are from the movie or are refashioned songs from the 1920s).

By fall 2000, as the show was being readied for a tryout at the La Jolla Playhouse in California, the rest of the producing team fell into place — including Nederlander Presentations and actress Whoopi Goldberg, a big fan of the film.

Loads of Trouble

That run, however, "was a mess," says Mayer. "It was a brutally difficult tech and preview period, where nothing was working right."

Mayer cites revolving sets that wouldn't work and parts of the set that went crashing to the floor. But the biggest problem arose when the actress playing Millie was fired just a week before previews began.

Suddenly thrust into the spotlight was understudy Sutton Foster, a relative unknown whose biggest role to date had been Eponine, the adopted waif in "Les Mis�rables" on Broadway.

"I was freaked-out and had no idea how to deal with it," says Foster. "I thought, 'You're making a mistake!' I was terrified of the responsibility. The rest of the run was just a blur."

Yet the La Jolla run was a huge success. After a glowing review appeared in Variety, Scanlan knew he was Broadway-bound.

The New York opening would have to wait, though. Their first choice for a theater, the Marquis, was unavailable, and then, a day after the first rehearsal, came the Sept. 11 atrocities. It was not until March 19 that "Millie" finally started previews.

Despite the various setbacks and delays — plus rewrites, scene trims and song changes that were still going on up until a week ago — Mayer says he never doubted "Millie" would make it to Broadway.

"It took a little longer than anticipated, but things worked out well," says Mayer. "The extra time to work on the show turned out to be a blessing."

All that remains to be determined now is whether Broadway audiences will give the show their blessing.

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