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Opening at NY's Theatre Row: new Gay Musical based on Dan Savage's "The Kid"

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Aloysius J. Gleek:


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/theater/07kid.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all


A Gay Adoption Becomes a Musical

From left, Andy Monroe, Michael Zam, Jack Lechner, Christopher Sieber and Scott Elliott of
the musical “The Kid,” which opens on Monday.

By PATRICK HEALY
Published: May 6, 2010

WHEN the musical librettist Michael Zam first read “The Kid,” a 1999 memoir about a gay couple adopting a baby, he was certain that he wanted to turn it into a musical. He loved the acerbic tone of the book’s author, the syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, and the frank portrayal of a gay man’s dream for a family. But rather than plunge into adaptation, Mr. Zam made it a long-term project, because he felt it would take time — years, it turned out — to wrest a successful show out of this particular book.

Among the challenges posed by a musical version of “The Kid,” which opens Off Broadway on Monday at the New Group at Theater Row, was adding narrative tension and intrigue to a gay adoption story that was, in the memoir, funny and touching but relatively incident-free. Most of the unrest and angst in the book take place in Mr. Savage’s head; how best to dramatize that? And while the journey of a gay couple adopting a baby was a fresh read in 1999, would it feel dated a decade later?

“We also wanted to create a musical that was true to the experiences of Dan Savage and his partner, Terry, capture the essence of who they were, without just imposing our own plot and music on their lives,” Mr. Zam said in a recent interview. “But it was also thrilling to create a show around a person who is not your standard role-model character, who is insightful about his foibles and admits to them and who has all these powerful emotions that we knew — somehow — could be turned into powerful songs.”

As with many books-turned-musicals, the art of creating “The Kid” was one of fits and starts, with initially important characters like Dan’s father ultimately cast aside and the depiction of the baby’s mother — a homeless teenager named Melissa — carefully considered and reconsidered. Aiming to appeal to a wide audience, the creators also wrestled with how explicitly to render both the graphically sexual jokes in the book and the politics of gay adoption, which the creators — most of them gay men — did not want to shy away from in the musical.

“One of the great parts of the book was that it was political without being political, that it tells a story of two guys creating a family without having to shove the politics of that experience in America down audience members’ throats,” said Scott Elliott, the director of the musical and the artistic director of the New Group. “But we were also conscious of the delicacy of turning a popular book, particularly one man’s deeply felt memoir, into a piece of theater.”

For every book that has successfully inspired a musical, like “Les Misérables,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Wicked,” there are many more musicals that have met with mixed results in trying to faithfully adapt the sprawling plot, subplots and array of characters from popular novels. Recent musicals like “A Tale of Two Cities,” “High Fidelity,” “James Joyce’s The Dead,” “Ragtime” and “The Color Purple” sought in various ways to pack a novel’s worth of ambitions into two-and-a-half-hour shows; in response, theater critics often judged the shows to be overstuffed.

Memorably, in 1998 the Broadway musical “Scarlet Pimpernel” was extensively overhauled and trimmed a year into its run; the show, based on the 1905 novel, went from being “bloated, flabby, and listless” to having “discipline, focus, and a newly streamlined shape,” Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times.

For “The Kid,” Mr. Zam and his creative partners, the composer Andy Monroe and the lyricist Jack Lechner — all of whom are making their Off Broadway debuts with this show — began their work together in 2005 by confronting a central question for artists creating a musical as opposed to a straight play: Why did their characters need to sing?

The answer came quickly, Mr. Lechner said, thanks to Mr. Savage’s heartfelt prose about wanting to have a child.

“A musical needs a great big protagonist with a great big want — a hope or goal that is so overwhelming that the protagonist is moved to sing about it,” Mr. Lechner said. “The dream of having a family is about as big a hope as you can get.”

But the creators also determined that while adopting a baby would form the arc of the plot, the musical would hold audiences only if the story was about far more than the step-by-step process, anxieties, politics and gallows humor of the book’s will-we-get-a-baby narrative. At the heart of the musical, they decided, would be a love story between Dan (played by the two-time Tony Award nominee Christopher Sieber) and his younger, relatively new boyfriend, Terry, whose seemingly one-night-stand of sex turns into a relationship after they bond over their mutual interest in Gore Vidal.

A song titled “Gore Vidal” was among the first that the creators wrote, as was “Terry...,” about Dan’s trying to coax Terry (played by Lucas Steele) out of a hotel bathroom where he has locked himself after the two have had a fight about controlling the car radio and the singer Bjork. These were two of the songs that the team first played for Mr. Elliott at the New Group’s offices in late 2006 to try to capture his interest.


Lucas Steele, left, and Christopher Sieber in "the Kid." The plot of the musical
follows a gay couple who adopts a baby.


“I had never thought of this book as a potential musical until they came in,” Mr. Elliott said. “But I was impressed with how the internal life of Dan and Terry had been captured in these songs, how they showed, for instance, the way that two partners could be having a fight through a bathroom door that was about much more than Bjork.”

While parts of the musical involve Mr. Sieber’s Dan addressing the audience, the creators wrote scenes — some reflecting anecdotes in the book — to dramatize the stresses on Dan and Terry. They argue; they make up; they quiz friends who have children; they unwind at a nightclub; and they talk through their concerns with an adoption counselor, Anne, played by Susan Blackwell (“[title of show]”).

The character of Dan’s father ultimately seemed dramatically uninteresting, so the creators focused on his mother (Jill Eikenberry) and gave her a song, “I Knew,” in which she soothes Dan’s nerves about raising a child by recalling how she sensed he was gay as a boy and never interfered with his development into a gay man. Songs like “I Knew” also reflected the politics that the creators wanted for the musical: that being gay was a normal state that should be regarded as equal to heterosexuality in every way, including adoption.

The birth mother, Melissa, and the biological father, Bacchus, meanwhile, were enlarged for the musical to introduce more tension and trouble-making. Unlike the memoir, the musical leaves open for a good while whether Dan and Terry will ultimately adopt Melissa’s baby. But the creators also said they spent time rounding out Melissa and Bacchus to be more than plot devices — chiefly by giving each of them a distinct, hauntingly worded song.

While the creators said they decided, in the case of Melissa, not to be strictly faithful to the memoir, the real-life Mr. Savage — who was not involved in the musical — said in a phone interview from his Seattle home that he pushed them to make changes in her character because he felt she was rendered as unflattering.

Over all, Mr. Savage said, he was happy with his own musical family portrait, though he found watching a recent performance to be “a surreal experience.” (He, Terry and D.J., their son, now 12, will be at opening night. They also plan to see “La Cage aux Folles” while in New York.)

“I don’t think about the memoir much now, but every day I live with the experience of adopting D.J.,” Mr. Savage said. “It was the most harrowing experience of my life. And being a father has been the happiest. Is that the stuff of a satisfying musical? I don’t really know, but I hope audiences think so.”

Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://www.thenewgroup.org/season3.htm


THE NEW GROUP
APRIL 16 - MAY 29, 2010

The Acorn Theatre
Theatre Row
410 West 42nd Street, New York
(212) 714-2442

The New Group's first musical since the Tony Award-Winning Smash Hit AVENUE Q!

Based on the best-selling memoir by DAN SAVAGE

Click here to visit the full website for The Kid!
Featuring cast & creative team bios, headshots and special features!





Winner of the 2009 BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre,
THE KID is based on the true story of what happens when sex columnist Dan Savage and his boyfriend
decide to start a family.

Book by MICHAEL ZAM
Lyrics by JACK LECHNER
Music by ANDY MONROE
Based on the book by DAN SAVAGE
Musical Staging by JOSH PRINCE
Directed by SCOTT ELLIOTT

Featuring
KEVIN ANTHONY
ZACHARY BERGER
SUSAN BLACKWELL
JANE BROCKMAN
JILL EIKENBERRY
JEANNINE FRUMESS
ANN HARADA
TYLER MAYNARD
BROOKE SUNNY MORIBER
JUSTIN PATTERSON
CHRISTOPHER SIEBER
LUCAS STEELE
MICHAEL WARTELLA


CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS!

SUBSCRIBERS!
CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR TICKETS!
OR CALL TICKET CENTRAL
212.279.4200

Production Schedule
Mon @ 8PM, Tues @ 7PM, Wed-Fri @ 8PM, Sat @ 2PM & 8PM

The Kid runs approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.

Aloysius J. Gleek:


The Book:





The real Dan Savage (left), the real Terry Miller (right)
and the real "Kid" (son D.J.)

Aloysius J. Gleek:

Dan Savage      Terry Miller

Aloysius J. Gleek:


http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/theater/reviews/11kid.html?hpw



THEATER REVIEW | 'THE KID'
Just Like Other Dads (Well, Almost)
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: May 11, 2010


Christopher Sieber, one-half of a
gay couple (with errant sex toys)
going through the throes of
adopting a child, in the musical
“The Kid.”



Jeannine Frumess, left, and Brooke Sunny Moriber, with Lucas Steele and Christopher Sieber, who are refreshingly
honest when a social worker comes to visit.


Vibrators, leather bars and good old-fashioned sodomy have never looked more wholesome than they do in “The Kid,” the easygoing, sentimental new musical about a gay couple trying to adopt a baby. The homosexual partners at the center of this surprisingly unsurprising production, which opened Monday night on Theater Row, feel like truly ordinary people, folks you’ve met many times before in depictions of American spouses in pursuit of parenthood.

Their worries about being prepared enough, mature enough, loving enough to bring a new life into their home; the anticipatory jitters that lead to sniping, yelling and romantic reconciliation; the warm, wise grandma-to-be who steps in to calm their fears: all these needlepoint-sampler elements are set to gently effervescent song in “The Kid,” based on a memoir by Dan Savage and directed by Scott Elliott.

So what if Dan (Christopher Sieber) and Terry (Lucas Steele) shared their first passionate clinch (on their first meeting) in a men’s room stall and now leave sex toys lying around the house? Compared with the anguished and deluded suburban family in “Next to Normal,” this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, these guys are as reassuringly average as the Brady Bunch.

Such an accepting attitude befits a work adapted from a book by Mr. Savage, a wry syndicated sex-advice columnist who provides a commonsensical approach to all things erotic. Mr. Savage is also known for his mordant wit and polemical anger. But these traits, while occasionally in evidence, are also secondary in this production from the New Group.

In its book (by Michael Zam), songs (by Jack Lechner and Andy Monroe) and even its direction (by Mr. Elliott, with musical staging by Josh Prince), the primary objective of “The Kid” is to make the potentially confrontational seem all-embracing and prosaic. From the moment the show begins, with Mr. Sieber walking across and straight off the stage (returning with a cup of coffee), its rhythms are disarmingly those of life as usual. Even more than a sitcom like “Will & Grace,” whose homosexual characters are more epigrammatic and better dressed than most people, “The Kid” keeps telling its audience, “Gays, they’re just like us!”

This message is transmitted with a consistency and a thoroughness that are rare in contemporary musicals. In following the not-so-winding road of the adoption process for Dan and Terry — who are brought together with the 16-year-old pregnant (and homeless) Melissa (Jeannine Frumess) — “The Kid” moves at a gentle, uninterrupted canter. Mr. Monroe’s score feels like one sustained, simmering vamp, threatening to break out into different full-fledged pastiche styles (from disco revelry to torch ballads), but always pulling back at the last minute.

And while the plot has a certain guaranteed suspense factor — will our heroes be allowed to end up with a baby safely in their arms? — it also deliberately keeps defusing tension. Dan and Terry go to an adoption counseling group expecting to be rejected as the only gay couple there. But guess what? Their fears are for naught, and they are almost instantly approved, though they are told that adoption isn’t easy for anyone. (“Man or woman, gay or straight,” the counselor sings, “What you’re facing is a long, long wait.”)

Similarly, when a social worker comes to their Seattle apartment to see if it’s a suitable environment for child-rearing, Dan and Terry just can’t stick to the cosmetic lies about themselves that they had invented for the occasion. Not to worry. The social worker finds their honesty refreshing.

Of course, there is the possibility that Melissa, who is reunited with the father of her baby (Michael Wartella), might renege on her promises. But “The Kid” is not in the business of making its audience anxious, though it might be more compelling if it were.

This is not to say that Dan and Terry aren’t nervous themselves, particularly Dan, who feels the best insurance against disaster is to imagine the worst that could happen. (He and Terry develop a sardonic defensive mantra: “Babies are born dead. Birth mothers can change their minds.”) But as Dan’s mother (an appealing Jill Eikenberry) tells him: “If you think this is scary, wait. Do you know how terrified I was when you first had measles?” Then she sings a ballad of comfort about how, in being a parent, “sometimes just showing up is enough.”

Mr. Sieber — who delivered exaggerated, Tony-nominated comic performances in the Broadway musicals “Spamalot” and “Shrek” — is equally at home with the low-key style demanded here. Stocky and slovenly as Dan, he develops a charming, self-deprecating rapport with the audience early on. And he never oversells Dan’s stand-up-style comic lines, some of which are very funny. (He remembers telling Terry, when he first meets him, that he has a pretty mouth, then thinking, “I sound like the rapist from ‘Deliverance.’ ”)

Nor does Mr. Steele overdo the histrionics as the more emotional — and naturally parental — half of the couple. The supporting ensemble members, many of whom play an assortment of parts, are engagingly relaxed and on-key. Their best moments come in video sequences in which they appear as sexually perplexed correspondents writing to Dan for advice, with problems that touch on bestiality and, especially, uh, special forms of fetishism. (Aron Deyo’s video and Jeff Scher’s animated sequences work perfectly with Derek McLane’s comfortable, mutable set.)

But the only character who fully captured my imagination was Melissa, a “stinky, acid trippin’, liquor guzzlin’ pregnant teenage mom” (in Dan’s words), who has been living on the streets of Portland, Ore. As Ms. Frumess plays her, Melissa is affectingly affectless, her numbness a sort of prophylaxis against a toxic world. When she describes her daily life in “Spare Changin’,” the show’s best song, we realize how genuinely conventional Dan and Terry are.

Their haunted, baffled expressions as Melissa sings mirror our own responses to this young woman, whose presence offers a passage to a world most of us don’t know at all. As for the rest of “The Kid,” you’ve been there before.

THE KID

Book by Michael Zam; lyrics by Jack Lechner; music by Andy Monroe; based on the book “The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant,” by Dan Savage; musical staging by Josh Prince; directed by Scott Elliott; sets by Derek McLane; costumes by Jeff Mahshie; lighting by Howell Binkley; sound by Ken Travis; animation by Jeff Scher; video by Aron Deyo; musical supervision, orchestrations and arrangements by Dominick Amendum; musical direction, orchestrations and additional arrangements by Boko Suzuki; associate artistic director, Ian Morgan. Presented by the New Group, Mr. Elliott, artistic director; Geoff Rich, executive director. At the New Group@Theater Row, 410 West 42nd Street, Clinton; (212) 279-4200. Through May 29. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.

WITH: Kevin Anthony (Reg/Others), Susan Blackwell (Anne/Others), Jill Eikenberry (Dan’s Mother), Jeannine Frumess (Melissa), Ann Harada (Ruth/Others), Tyler Maynard (Chad/Others), Brooke Sunny Moriber (Susan/Others), Justin Patterson (Josh/Others), Christopher Sieber (Dan), Lucas Steele (Terry) and Michael Wartella (Bacchus).

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