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THE CAPTIVATING CAST OF THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK “Alexandra [Spofford] was an artist. Using few tools other than toothpicks and a stainless-steel butter knife, she pinched and pressed into shape little lying or sitting figurines, always of women in gaudy costumes painted over naked contours….she had studied herself in the mirror, saw the cleft in her chin and the curious dent at the end of her nose…the sloping wide shoulders and gourdlike breasts and the belly like a shallow inverted bowl glowing above the demure triangular bush and solid oval thighs, and decided…she could have been dealt a lot worse.” – from The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Emily Skinner (Alexandra Spofford) BROADWAY: The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Actor’s Fund), Side Show (Tony® nomination, Drama League Award), Jekyll & Hyde, James Joyce’s The Dead, The Full Monty, Dinner at Eight (Outer Critics Circle nomination). NATIONAL TOUR: Disney's On the Record. OFF-BROADWAY: City Center's Encores: No Strings, Pardon My English, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Broadway Bash; leading roles at the WPA Theater, Playwright’s Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, York Theater, The Paramount Theater at Madison Square Garden. REGIONAL: Kennedy Center, McCarter, Long Wharf, The Old Globe, Ford’s Theater, St. Louis MUNY, Theater Virginia. IN CONCERT: Broadway By The Year (director and performer), New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, Pittsburgh Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, Merkin Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Symphony Space. RECORDINGS: countless cast albums and audio books, Duets, Unsuspecting Hearts, Skinner/Ripley Raw at Town Hall (all with Alice Ripley), Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens, The Stephen Sondheim Album, Wall to Wall Sondheim, Believe: The Songs of The Sherman Brothers, The Stephen Schwartz Album, animated feature Anastasia, and her self-titled solo CD (fynsworthalley.com). “Jane [Smart] was hot, short, concentrated like a pencil point. [She], too, was artistically inclined—a musician. She gave piano lessons to make ends meet, and substituted as choir director in local churches sometimes, but her love with the cello; its vibratory melancholy tones, pregnant with the sadness of wood grain and shadowy largeness of trees, would at odd moonlit hours on warm nights come sweeping out of the screened windows of her low little ranch house.” – from The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Christiane Noll (Jane Smart) BROADWAY/TOURS: Urinetown, The Mambo Kings, It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, Jekyll & Hyde, Grease, Miss Saigon, City of Angels. OFF-BROADWAY: A Fine and Private Place, Little By Little, Call the Children Home; City Center Encores!: The New Moon. INTERN’L: South Pacific (Australia/Thailand). REGIONAL: The Pirates of Penzance, Mack & Mabel, The Baker’s Wife, Lizzie Borden, Kept, Into the Woods, Carousel, The Student Prince. LOCAL: Washington National Opera: Trilogy - The Merry Widow w/ Placido Domingo; numerous appearances with The National Symphony Orchestra. FILM: The King & I (Singing Anna, animated feature). OTHER: Symphony Soloist with Marvin Hamlisch, Eric Kunzel, Don Pippin, Peter Nero and Skitch Henderson. RECORDINGS: The New Moon, Jekyll & Hyde, King & I, Little by Little, several Broadway compilations, Christiane Noll - A Broadway Love Story, Live at the West Bank Café, The Ira Gershwin Album. “Sukie Rougemont had nothing of what she would call an artistic talent but she loved social existence and had been driven by the reduced circumstance that attend divorce to write for the local weekly, the Eastwick Word…busy downtown all day gathering news and smiling hello, had an oscillating essence. In the Biblical desert women had been made to scrape their armpits with flint; female hair challenged men, and Sukie as the youngest of the witches felt least obliged to trim and temper her natural flourishing.“ – from The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Jacquelyn Piro Donovan (Sukie Rougemont) SIGNATURE: 110 in the Shade (Lizzie, 2004 Helen Hayes Award for Best Actress), Nevermore (Elmira), Last Garage Hurrah. BROADWAY: Les Misérables (only actor in Broadway history to portray both Cosette and Fantine), Miss Saigon (Ellen). NYC: City Center Encores!: Sweet Adeline (Nellie); York Theatre: Suburb (Alison); Zipper Theatre: Kathie Lee Gifford’s Under the Bridge (Madame Calcet, also recording); 37 Arts: The Ark (Sarah, also recording), New World Stages…NYMF: Have A Nice Life (Jackie). FIRST NATIONAL TOURS: Sunset Boulevard (Betty Schaeffer w/ Petula Clark), big (originated Susan Lawrence), Miss Saigon (Ellen), The Secret Garden (Lily) and Les Misérables (originated Cosette). READINGS: Witches of Eastwick (Sukie, Dir. Eric Schaeffer); NYS&F @ Vassar: Behind the Limelight (Hedda Hopper); York Theatre: Mrs. Lincoln (Myra Bradwell); Time & Again (Kate, Dir. Susan Schulman), Marty (Mary, Dirs. Longbottom and Brokaw), Winchell…The Musical (June Wichell, Dir. Martin Charnin). FAVORITES: Goodspeed: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Millie, 2005 Connecticut Critics Award, Outstanding Actress); Evita (Eva), She Loves Me (Amalia), Funny Girl (Fanny), Cabaret (Sally Bowles). TV: Another World, Broadway on Broadway, CBS’s The Early Show, final broadcast of The Rosie O’Donnell Show. EDUCATION: BFA, Boston University. “’And oh yes,’ Jane Smart said in her hasty yet purposeful way; each s seemed the black tip of a just-extinguished match…’Sukie said a man has bought the Lenox mansion.’ He appeared quite burly. She was struck by how hairy the backs of his hands were… Darryl Van Horne… courtly, deep-voiced, handsome in a casual, bearish way…a genial host, modest about his many enterprises, hopes to enjoy seclusion and opportunity for meditation in his new residence.” – from The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Marc Kudisch (Darryl Van Horne) SIGNATURE: The Highest Yellow (Helen Hayes nomination). BROADWAY: The Apple Tree, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Tony® and Outer Critics Circle nominations), Assassins (Drama Desk nomination), Thoroughly Modern Millie (Tony®, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle nominations), Bells Are Ringing, The Wild Party, The Scarlet Pimpernel, High Society, Beauty & the Beast, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. OFF-BROADWAY: Public Theatre: See What I Wanna’ See (Drama Desk nomination); New York City Opera: Pirates of Penzance, A Little Night Music; City Center Encores!: Broadway Bash, No Strings (Mike Robinson), The Thing About Men. REGIONAL: Los Angeles Opera: A Little Night Music. NATIONAL TOUR: Bye Bye Birdie. TV: Lifetime Network: Break In; ABC: Bye Bye Birdie; HBO: Sex & the City. Directorial credits include The Broadway Musicals of 1959 (2007), The Broadway Musicals of 1930 (2006), and The Broadway Musicals of 1963 (2004) in Scott Siegel’s Broadway by the Year concert. EDUCATION: BFA, Theatre, Florida Atlantic University. The cast also features Jeremy Benton, Brianne Cobuzzi, Matt Conner, David Covington, Erin Driscoll, Ilona Dulaski, Sherri L. Edelen, James Gardiner, Karlah Hamilton, Amy McWilliams, Brittany O’Grady, Diego Prieto, Tammy Roberts, Thomas Adrian Simpson, Scott J. Strasbaugh, and Harry A. Winter. A CHARMING CHAT WITH THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK LYRICIST AND BOOK WRITER
John Dempsey talks about the productions and his collaboration with his writing partner Dana P. Rowe The idea for The Witches of Eastwick musical came when book writer and lyricist John Dempsey and composer Dana P. Rowe were given a list of Warner Bros. films by acclaimed producer Cameron Mackintosh. At a loss for a subject for a new musical after writing The Fix , John and Dana were at the end of the list, in the Ws, when they found the film version of John Updike’s uproarious and sexually outrageous novel The Witches of Eastwick. Set in the fictional Rhode Island town of Eastwick, the story revolves around the magical and personal growth of three witches. Initially their power is minor, but it expands with their summoning of a devil-like character Darryl Van Horne. With the arrival of such a devilishly delightful demon, all hell breaks loose. Quite literally. The Witches of Eastwick, produced by Mackintosh and directed by Eric Schaeffer,opened at the 2200-seat Drury Lane Theatre in London. The huge production entertained audiences with its elaborate sets and costumes and special effects. However, the “darker” feel in Updike’s original work was stripped from the script. After the production closed, Dempsey and Rowe were driven by the desire to rework the musical. In 2003, under Schaeffer’s direction, a workshop reading was held in New York that featured Emily Skinner in the cast. Now, Signature is thrilled to welcome Emily Skinner for a revised version of The Witches of Eastwick. And John Dempsey is stationed at his lap top listening intently to the cast, ready to make any further changes necessary. Q: What was it about The Witches of Eastwick that caught your interest and imagination? In general, this story contains all my favorites: small town setting, gossipy townspeople, religion, magic, and sex. New England is my favorite place in all America. It's ripe with tension and repression and music. Conflict is built into the geography itself. The story also offered a tremendous leading man, a character so over-sized he just had to “sing.” We were also greatly attracted to the idea of writing for three women; the idea of writing trios that were not Andrews Sisters’ songs seemed a great and satisfying challenge. Indeed, looking back at the score now, it's in the womens’ songs that I think we achieved our best work. I hope others agree. Oh, and I always wanted to write for a character named Sukie. Seriously. Q: Is your musical version more like Updike’s book or his screenplay? How does your Witches differ from both? The character of Felicia’s daughter, Jennifer, is in the book but not in the movie. The character of Alexandra son, Michael, is in neither. We created the ingénue romance story to set against the rather debauched goings on at the Lenox House between Darryl, Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie. Likewise, we created the somewhat ethereal character of the Little Girl, who acts as narrator and commentator, presager and reflection of feminine power in Eastwick. She is a strictly theatrical device. She couldn't work in prose or cinema. The book ended well after the wedding, with one of the characters meeting a rather dire end. Here we end with the wedding itself, a mean-spirited nod to the tradition of ending a musical comedy with a wedding. Eric Schaeffer likes to say it’s one third Updike, one third the George Miller movie, and one third our own creation. That’s probably about right. Q: In the original London production, what aspects of the musical didn’t work the way you had intended? I look forward to going even smaller now, to explore the humanity behind the grotesques and the broad strokes. That sounds like an awfully pretentious statement for a show that is essentially about a ménage-à-quatre. But lacking truth and heart, even an orgy fails to be interesting. Q: How do you and Dana work as a team? The mechanics of it are rather boring to those on the outside and they vary a great deal from project to project. On The Witches of Eastwick, we started by reading the novel separately, then watching the movie together (the last time I’ve seen it, incidentally). We bought several books about New England and Rhode Island in particular. We spent weeks playing with chord colors and textures. Well, Dana played. I listened and agreed a lot. Meanwhile, I was very busy outlining the story in a form that I thought would suit the theater. We pinpointed the places in the story where we thought songs would come. We developed titles together. Oftentimes, I went off and wrote lyrics first. There were a few instances though, where the music came first (“Something” and “Look At Me” come to mind). The best times, for me anyway, were when we worked together in the same room on the songs from the ground up. That sort of partnership — “kinship” is probably a better word — is something that probably doesn’t exist in many other professions. When you’re writing a song with a partner, you breathe in the same rhythms, your heartbeats sync up. It’s corny to say, I know. But two minds thinking the same thoughts is a strange and wonderful feeling. I prized those days of writing the initial draft of The Witches of Eastwick. Our schedules are more hectic these days and we often have to steal minutes together to coordinate the rewrites. Luckily, we have enough of a history that the minutes are often enough. Q: When did you decide to continue working on the show? What type of work did you do? How long did the process take? Once we all agreed to undertake it, the rewriting process began. I had long been lobbying to replace Darryl's first song, and this seemed a prime moment to attempt it. The second act was made markedly darker in particular. Felicia and Clyde were drastically re-thought. It’s been about a year and a half since the decision was made to do The Witches of Eastwick at Signature and I dare say the work is still going on, even as we begin rehearsals. Come and meet John Dempsey at the upcoming Brown Bag Lunch to learn more about the writing of The Witches of Eastwick. Click here to purchase tickets to the American Premiere of The Witches of Eastwick. LONDON LOVED THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK! “Musical comedy heaven.” – Mail on Sunday “A truly magical show.” – International Herald Tribune “A wickedly enjoyable show casts its spell…” – Time Magazine “It send you out into the night with a spring in your step and a smile on your face.” – Daily Telegraph “A scintillating and theatrical musical show.” – London Evening Standard “Winning witches cast their spell…” – Daily Mail “Sexy, spectacular… an awful lot of fun.” – The Mirror “Something out of the ordinary… In every sense, a truly magical show performed, written, composed, choreographed, designed, and directed to within inches of perfection.” – International Herald Tribune “Wicked fun…astonishing — the find of beautiful, funny, glittery, joyfully stagey stuff that musical comedy dreams are made of.” – The Washington Post Signature Theatre’s production is sure to be a hit! Click here purchase your tickets to the spellbinding Witches of Eastwick. A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK
“LOOK AT ME!” sing the three exultant heroines of The Witches of Eastwick, not long after they have dispatched the devilish Darryl Van Horne in order to form their own scintillating sisterhood. And, as they converge in spirit and song for the musical’s triumphant ending, an audience is unlikely to want to look at – or hear – anything else: not in a long time has harmony been pressed into the service of so truly harmonious a finale. It’s been some years, in fact, since the commercial theater on either side of the Atlantic produced a show like Witches that dares to be – wait for it – fun. That particular “f” word has gone out of fashion, or so it seems, replaced of late by the prevalence in America of the art musical – usually courtesy of men bearing three names - and, on the West End, by the thunderous sonorities of the long-running British behemoths (Cats, Les Misérables, etc.) and their offspring. What chance, then, for a musical defiantly in a mainstream tradition that harks to a time well before either John Updike’s 1984 source novel or the 1987 Warner Bros. film, starring Jack Nicholson? Until Witches, comparable musical throwbacks were very rare indeed. Small wonder, then, that its arrival leaves one celebrating perhaps the most buoyant score that Frank Loesser, Jule Styne, Cy Coleman, or Jerry Herman never wrote. For that, credit producer Cameron Mackintosh, whose patronage of composer-lyricist teams isn’t exactly news….. But creators need time to create, and you can’t back the same horse forever. Enter Albert Poland, once the New York general manager for Mackintosh’s co-production Off-Broadway of Little Shop of Horrors who, in the spring of 1996, found himself working on an Off-Broadway musical called Zombie Prom by two young Ohioans. The show didn’t last but the association did, so when Poland tipped Mackintosh off about lyricist John Dempsey and composer Dana P. Rowe, an artistic marriage was made. Mackintosh fostered their show The Fix at the Donmar Warehouse in 1997 and then again, in a separate production, at America’s Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC. That subsequent staging brought Dempsey and Rowe together with Signature Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer which led directly to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the July 2000 Opening Night of Witches. This time around, the producer was taking no chances, having been candid in his disappointment at British critical reaction to Dempsey and Rowe’s work in The Fix. (On the other hand, the muted response probably worked in the American newcomers’ favor, spurring Mackintosh to commission the boys again in order to prove his own instincts right). Prior to the Witches opening, Mackintosh’s office took the move – by now not uncommon on the West End or Broadway – of posting a very raw sampler of songs from the show to the press. One listen, and an auditor’s faith was as justified as an inevitably partial producer’s. In their eclecticism as well as their joyous reach back across the decades, Dempsey and Rowe honor the old in a way that refashion it anew. Connoisseurs will have a field day spotting the references to Bells Are Ringing or Bye Bye Birdie, not to mention (in subject matter more than actual musical substance) Damn Yankees, a previous show about the devil. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring can be traced in “Waiting for the Music,” while “Words Words Words” is a patter song in a recognizable tradition – from Gilbert and Sullivan through to Stephen Sonheim’s “Getting Married Today.” The difference, as composer Rowe points out, is that patter songs have tended to use other people or a chorus in order to break up the vocal demands. Not here. It’s Sukie Rougemont’s song throughout – and a bravura one at that. The Witches narrative, in Dempsey’s reworking of the source material, allowed for numerous vocal and musical possibilities, which its songwriters leapt at. The opening song “Eastwick Knows,” positions the action while conveying a town turned on by gossip. Soon afterwards emerges the comely coven. The fantasist sides to the women prompt the rousing “Make Him Mine;” with the bulk of the first act then given over to Darryl’s seduction of the three women, giving each a chance to shine before they soar collectively (and literally) to the theater roof following the plaintive, “I Wish I May.” Set piece devotees will delight in “Dirty Laundry,” a towel-snapping piece for the ensemble, while the second act rewards Darryl with two company numbers, “Dance with the Devil” and “Who’s the Man?” but by the end, and not before time, it’s back to the distaff trio of the title and their jubilant conclusion, which can take its place next to Jerry Herman’s “I Am What I Am” as a classic musical-comedy moment of self-assertion. Some will, of course, scoff (and already have) at such unabashed accessibility amid a climate in which the best-reviewed scores also tend to be the most deliberately obscure: remarkable, among other things, about Witches musically is its liberation from what can only be described as post-Sondheimian drear. That’s in no way to negate the advances of a generation of theater writers, mostly in America, who really are pushing the genre forward – as was clear on Broadway earlier this year in the all too short-lived Michael John LaChiusa scored The Wild Party. At the same time, when the Witches women advance on the audience in full vocal throttle, the past and present become one: out of a time-honored tradition. THE MUSICAL THEATER IS BEING REBORN. SIGNATURE SINGS WITH THE AMERICAN MUSICAL VOICES PROJECT
The Musical Theater Composer Grants were presented to Ricky Ian Gordon, Michael John LaChiusa, and Joseph Thalken. To toast these talented composers, Signature has dedicated the last Cabaret of the season to their work. The Cabaret entitled Ricky, Joe, and Michael John will feature the work of these composers sung by some of Signature’s favorite performers – Will Gartshore, Eleasha Gamble, and Tracy Lynn Olivera. Hear songs from familiar Signature works like The Highest Yellow (LaChiusa) or discover new tunes you’re sure to love. There are only 4 performances. So don’t wait. Click here to purchase tickets. It’s one Cabaret you can’t miss! Musical Theatre Composer Grant Recipients
PLAYWRIGHT BATHSHEBA DORAN ON NEST: POST-OPENING REFLECTIONS
Launching the world premiere of Nest has been an exhausting process - in a good way. I always think writing a play is exhausting. When I'm done, I think to myself, "Now I can relax. It's someone else's problem!” But it never really works that way. A true collaboration between a playwright and director means the playwright has to maintain the energy to keep exploring the play. I’m not simply a writer prepared to make cuts and changes, but I’m a pair of eyes in the rehearsal room, trying to help turn seventy pages of text into a living, breathing production, trying to understand what that text is really about, trying to communicate thoughts to the director and cast and designer, trying to understand and respond to their vision of the play. We all work as a group to come up with a production that feels absolutely faithful to the script and at the same time is a leap far beyond it. I feel that we have all achieved that with this production of Nest. Everyone has worked so incredibly hard. When I sat in my seat on opening night, I thought, “This is why we do it.” For the hour and a half that the play was on stage, I saw the pages I wrote transformed into everything I had dreamed. Nest is a highly theatrical event — one that tells a story through lights, music, staging, and design every bit as much as it does through words. I feel enormously grateful to everyone involved for taking my play and making it every bit as much their play, because if the collaboration is right, that's the best type of theater. And that's what I feel has happened at Signature. I'm thrilled, proud, and exhausted. Nest is playing through June 24. Click here to purchase tickets.
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