Leading Playwrights Develop Musical Works at White Oak Lab

Playwrights Doug Wright and Terrence McNally, along with their teams of directors, musicians, and casts, recently spent two weeks at the White Oak Plantation in Yulee, Florida, as fellows in the Institute’s annual Theatre Lab at White Oak. Created as an extension of the Institute’s annual Theatre Lab in Utah, the program at White Oak is designed to support ensemble theatre work and innovative musical theatre. The Lab is a collaborative effort of the Institute’s Theatre Program and the Howard Gilman Foundation.

Coming off a season that brought his most recent work, I Am My Own Wife, many awards and accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize, Doug Wright was at White Oak to develop a musical version of the documentary film Grey Gardens. Directed by Michael Greif, the play is based on the well-known documentary film about a mother and a daughter who, despite being the aunt and the cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, live in squalor in a dilapidated mansion on Long Island.

“It was one of our wonderful composers, Scott Frankel, who had the idea to take the documentary and make it into a musical,” explained Wright during a phone call from White Oak during the Lab. “He and a lyricist Michael Korie both approached me and asked me if I could do the book. . . . I knew the film and I had always really loved it. I’d been amused by it, horrified by it, haunted by it, and thought the idea of trying to turn it into a two-act musical was positively absurd. And that was the very best reason for doing the project. I think you should always climb the most daunting mountain.”

While his work as playwright is widely known and critically acclaimed, Grey Gardens is his first foray into musical theatre. “I’m exhilarated by it,” he said. “Because there are so many other people with whom you can share the blame.”

He continued, “And writing is a solitary process, and creating a musical is social and active and you’re getting feedback and you’re fighting and you’re giggling and you’re scheming together and that’s really fun.”

“Musicals do require so much collaboration,” agreed Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director of the Institute’s Theatre Program. “There’s not only a director and a playwright, but also a musical director, and often a lyricist, so there’s more give and take. Also, the acting companies for each of the projects are made up of actors and singers, and I’d say they’re all really solid contributors to the overall pieces.”

At the Lab, each project is fully cast and equipped with technical staff. A team of dramaturgs and advisors offer creative support and direction, all with the intent to help the playwrights develop a piece that tells its story in a most compelling and effective way.

The Tony Award winning playwright Terrence McNally was at the Lab working on Some Men, a work of twenty vignettes that trace the experiences of gay men in New York City from World War II up to a time in the near future. Some Men will be directed by Himberg.

“We have done an incredible amount of work on the play,” said McNally. “You know, there’s nothing else to do here!” he continued. “And it’s not just that. The atmosphere here is so conducive to work, and I write a new scene and I have ten wonderful actors ready to read in an hour! And just being able to write something and hear it almost immediately is just amazing. .. . How lucky can you get? I’m exhausted and I haven’t slept a lot but I’m very happy.”

When asked how Grey Gardens had progressed during the time at White Oak, Wright said, “We came here with a fairly polished first act and absolutely no second act. And now we’re sort of discovering the second act together. And just to have all this active input – from very distinguished dramaturgs, from a visionary director, a first-rate cast, is making the work happen so much more quickly than it would if I were working in a dark room staring at a blank computer screen by myself.”

The Lab is specially designed to provide for an intensive working process in a retreat-like setting, where the usual pressures of theatrical production and the simple tasks of daily life are removed and the work itself is at the center of every waking moment.

McNally explained, “There is a pressure at the Lab but it’s a different kind of pressure. Our pressure is to make it as good as we can by Saturday night (when the Lab ends). But the pressure is not, ‘We don’t have the money to do that,’ or ‘the actors won’t take any new lines because they have a preview on Saturday.’ There’s just a kind of freedom here which often times you don’t get in a normal process.”

“If you’re rehearsing in New York, you rehearse and go home,” added Himberg. “But here, you’re having lunch together and dinner together and conversations continue all the time, whether you’re at the bar together or relaxing, or whatever you’re doing, there’s always a constant communication about the work and how it’s progressing.”