A spoken-word play is transformed into a musical — more than 35 years after its debut
During 60 seasons of presenting theater, South Coast Repertory has commissioned more than 350 new plays and staged dozens of world premiere productions.
Now the Costa Mesa theater births for the first time a fresh novelty: “Prelude to a Kiss, The Musical,” a newly commissioned work, based on a non-musical play SCR premiered more than 35 years ago.
Under the guidance of company artistic director David Ivers, a 12-person cast of Broadway pedigree talent begins preview performances this weekend, with the official opening April 12.
Finishing touches on playwright Craig Lucas’s new work have been under way since February, marking the culmination of a journey that began in 2016.
“Musicals take a long time — between six to 10 years, in my experience,” says Lucas, who has written more than a few, including “The Light in the Piazza,” which won six Tony awards in 2005.
Addressing what’s different about musicals, Lucas says “there’s a different energy of what’s carrying the story.
“A wonderful thing about doing a musical versus writing a play is there are simply more brilliant people in the room to ask questions that wouldn’t occur to you when you’re arguing with yourself.”
For Ivers, “This has been a long and really exciting process.
“Based on (Craig’s) fantastic source material, and with this creative team, including him, we’ve been sorting out how to use song and choreography and create a story for now.”
Lucas is animated talking about how this musical has come together.
“Emotion is released in different storytelling ways that require you (in a musical) to kind of shake the Etch a Sketch.
“I think it gets to a depth of about what it means to fall in love with someone and means to fight for that love that only music can do.”
Ivers describes the new version as a modernistic fable.
“It’s set in 2024, in the Northeast. It’s a population of young and old, dealing with vulnerabilities, triumphs and challenges for people.”
The original play, which debuted at SCR in 1988, was about a woman who fears for the world against the backdrop of the plague of AIDS.
Yet she decides to wed and after the wedding is kissed by an older man, a stranger. A fantastical event subsequently causes her husband to grapple with the future of their marriage.
“Prelude to a Kiss” is one of six of Lucas works seen over four decades in Costa Mesa. It made its way to Broadway in 1990 starring Alec Baldwin and Mary-Louise Parker, then became a 1992 movie with Baldwin and Meg Ryan.
Lucas had long since moved on.
“I don’t tend to look back. I’m not somebody who likes to go see new productions of my old work.”
But, in 2016, a friend introduced him to lyricist Sean Hartley, who felt the story could fund a modern musical. Intrigued, Lucas introduced Hartley to musician Daniel Messé.
With all three juggling other projects, a few pages of script and a couple of songs emerged.
Reacting to the initial efforts, SCR paid for a commission draft.
But, Ivers explains, commissions come with no guarantees of a final work: “They only become a guarantee of a fee (to the creative artists, in this case Lucas, Hartley and Messé).
“And then, if we want to extend an option, a theater pays more. And then, if a theater wants to go into development, we pay more. … The chips kind of start to become all-in.”
By 2018, Ivers was arriving at SCR to become its artistic director. He saw a videotape of an early workshop of the work.
Important to Ivers are “dramatically active songs that propel the narrative.
“I heard an early song called ‘I Haven’t Slept in Years’. I called Paula (Tomei, SCR’s longtime managing director),” says Ivers. “I said, ‘I want to greenlight (a full production).’”
A kick-the-tires public reading at the theater’s 2019 Pacific Playwrights Festival gave both SCR brass and the creative team a chance to see how audiences were responding to a draft.
Everyone’s response: Let’s keep working,
And then COVID-19 stalled life everywhere.
In the pandemic’s aftermath Lucas and Ivers noticed societal attitude changes that could shed new light on how the show might land for audiences.
One of the songs is called “Age of Anxiety.” “Is there a better title for 2024?,” asks Ivers, tongue only slightly in cheek.
“In 1988, the young woman is very fearful for everything, a worldwide plague occurring,” says Lucas. “People back then thought it was charming, even funny, that the character had such an exaggerated sense of the peril of the world.”
He paused with a rueful chuckle.
“But when you do that same story now … interesting! Everybody kind of goes, ‘Oh yeah, well, she’s right.’”
Beyond the text, the work had evolved during workshops. Out of town, one workshop was dedicated to “movement.”
“And (Ivers) brought in a brilliant choreographer (Julia Rhoads),” says Lucas. “It’s creating a vocabulary through movement as well as music and sound that I’m very excited about.
“This isn’t like your cheesy, overly familiar jazz hands, American musical-comedy way of dancing. More in the style of a Twyla Tharp or Merce Cunningham.”
In separate interviews, Lucas and Ivers seem to have something of a creative bromance going on, though perhaps neither is quite aware of it.
“This director is quite smart,” says Lucas. “What’s heartening about working with David is that he is not interested in replicating anyone else’s success. We feel to be working to come from an authentic place.”
For his part, Ivers values Lucas’ willingness to explore.
“He brings a tenacity and voraciousness for clarity of storytelling across all disciplines,” says Ivers.
“He is a very dedicated, hardworking playwright and about the hunt for truth to make sure that the story is being served in the way that we have to follow these characters.”
After the South Coast Repertory run, the creative team will assess the new show’s further needs.
A second staging, with the same creative talent pool, will take place at Milwaukee Repertory Theater from September through October.
And after that …
“Look, live theater remains sustaining,” says Lucas. “People actually do like to gather and face in the same direction in the dark and pay attention to an experience that they’re having collectively.
“Because as a species, we need to tell and be told each other’s stories.”
Ivers offers a slightly more prosaic timeline ahead.
“We’ll put it on (in Milwaukee), we’ll see what the changes we’ve made, how they work,” he says. “And from that point on, I don’t know…
… sky’s the limit.”
‘Prelude to a Kiss, The Musical’
Where: Segerstrom Stage, South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
When: April 5-May 4 (previews, April 5-11; regular performances April 13-May 4). 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays. 8 p.m. Fridays; 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. (On Sunday, April 7, there is a 7 p.m. performance, but no 2 p.m. performance).
Tickets: $34-$112
Information: 714-708-5555; scr.org