‘Triangle’ a musical testament to tragedy, love, engaging life

[...] rising 10 stories in Greenwich Village, was a building he recognized from one of his father’s books about famous fires.

Formerly the Asch Building, it was the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a 1911 tragedy that, in only 18 minutes, took the lives of 146 garment workers, mostly immigrant women ages 16 to 23.

What struck me in that moment,” Mizer says, “was that the factory had been full of young people trying to better themselves, and now, 100 years later, the building is part of the New York University campus, a science lab, and it’s still full of young people trying to better themselves.

Mizer and his writing partner, composer Curtis Moore, also a Northwestern alum, sneaked into the building to take a look at the floors where the fire was.

“It’s still a big, open space, though instead of wooden sewing tables and sewing machines, there were stone tabletops and Bunsen burners,” Moore says.

In a sense, there were ghosts in the space, which gave the room a sort of epic feel.

Inspired by their visit, the duo set out to write a musical that captured the layering of history, and after 10 years of on-and-off development, that musical is about to have its world premiere.

“Triangle” is the first show of the new TheatreWorks season, and it’s directed by Meredith McDonough, a former director of new works for the company who is now an associate artistic director at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

McDonough, another Northwester colleague of Mizer and Moore’s, has worked on “Triangle” throughout its development, most recently when it was part of TheatreWorks’ New Works Festival three years ago.

“The building looks so much the same today,” she says, but inside are these chemistry grad students working where there was a terrible tragedy.

[...] here’s this piece of musical theater that bridges both worlds and offers a huge, beautiful memorial to who those people were, what they went through and the changes that happened because of their tragedy.

Mizer and Moore stress that though “Triangle” involves a tragedy, it also offers laughs and entertainment.

“I think we will have done our jobs if we’ve written a show that is entertaining, makes you laugh and gives you songs that make you want to dance a little and cry a little,” Mizer says.