Out director Gary Griffin finds it a bit odd when people ask if he's feeling overwhelmed at directing two works co-created by out composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim back-to-back for Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
"To me, it feels very great because I'm still home at my home theater," said Griffin, who is Chicago Shakespeare Theater's associate artistic director and happy to have an extended work stay in his hometown concentrating on the 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy and the 2008 off-Broadway musical Road Show. Being in one spot, rather than immediately jetting off to other theaters for his next project, has meant that Griffin has had the luxury of more time for both shows in rehearsals and some interesting context overlaps.
"One thing I realized when I looked at both pieces is how much they have in common. These shows are about the American character, about very colorful show business-type worlds and how people hear notions of the American dream and how they pursue those," said Griffin, adding that both shows also feature mothers who shower their love and attention on one of their kids while neglecting the other. "These shows are very much about families, so it's a fascinating thing to put them together to see how they speak to each other."
When Windy City Times spoke with Griffin, Gypsy had recently opened to rave reviews, particularly for its Canadian star Louise Pitre ( Mamma Mia! ) as the indomitable stage mother Madame Rose. Griffin had already shifted focus from Sondheim's earlier work co-created with playwright Arthur Laurents and composer Jule Styne to Road Show, Sondheim's most recent ( and the one with perhaps the lengthiest and most troubled gestation ) with playwright John Weidman based upon the real-life ambitious and scheming brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner, whose fame and notoriety were at their height in the early 20th century.
Now if Road Show sounds slightly familiar to long-time Chicago theatergoers, it's because it is the final version of Sondheim and Weidman's earlier show, Bounce, which opened at the Goodman Theatre in 2003 before journeying to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Despite having Harold Prince—Sondheim's most significant directorial collaborator from the 1970s on shows like Sweeney Todd, Company, Follies and A Little Night Music—aboard, Bounce never made it to Broadway.
Sondheim and Weidman went back to work on the piece, eventually finalizing Bounce as Road Show, which played off-Broadway at New York's Public Theater in a production by director John Doyle that also journeyed to London's Menier Chocolate Factory. Though Road Show hasn't found rapturous acclaim and massive success thus far, Griffin feels that audiences and critics just need time to catch up to the piece.
"We don't see the problem. This all seems to work very well," Griffin said, commenting on some of the responses from his actors in the Road Show rehearsal room. "I think that's a reflection of where the piece is now. If you look at a lot of Sondheim shows, it has taken time for them to be embraced more fully. Take five years after [Sondheim and George Furth's] Merrily We Roll Along came out, people were still calling it this massive failure. Well over time, what is moving and exciting about that show has evolved."
Notably for LGBT audiences, Road Show features the first Sondheim love duet between two men. The song "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened" sung in Bounce for Wilson Mizner and his wife has been shifted to Addison Mizner and his younger lover, Hollis Bessemer, in Road Show.
For Griffin, staging Road Show and Gypsy so close together in two contrasting-sized theater has been a joy. He's enjoyed the blend of intimacy and grandeur of exploring Gypsy in Chicago Shakespeare's Courtyard Theatre, and now the immediacy of Road Show in the building's Upstairs Theater studio space ( where Griffin has previously staged award-winning production of Sondheim musicals like Pacific Overtures and Sunday in the Park with George ).
And musical-theater fanatics should be on the lookout, since Griffin said that Sondheim and Weidman are slated to come and see both shows at Chicago Shakespeare Theater at some point during their overlapping runs.
"We're planning their arrival early in the preview process for Road Show, so they can see it and offer feedback and be involved in the process," Griffin said, adding that he isn't too nervous about a Sondheim visit because "he's wonderful and supportive."
Once Griffin finishes up with Road Show, one upcoming project is directing Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra for the Stratford Festival in Canada. Also on the horizon is an eagerly anticipated Broadway production of the Jason Robert Brown musical adaptation of the film Honeymoon in Vegas, which received glowing reviews when it played regionally at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse last year.
"We'll see what happens in New York," Griffin said about Honeymoon in Vegas. "We'll go in when the right theater is ready."
Gypsy continues through Sunday, March 23, in the Courtyard Theater space of Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Performances times are 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays ( also 6:30 p.m. March 1 ) with 1 p.m. matinees Wednesdays. Tickets are $58-$88. Road Show runs from Thursday, March 13, through Sunday, May 4, in the Upstairs Theater space of Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
Performance times vary, but are largely 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays ( with extra 6:30 p.m. shows select Sundays with 1 p.m. matinees select Wednesdays ). Tickets are $40-$68. All performances at Navy Pier, 800 E. Grand Ave. Call 312-595-5600 or visit www.chicagoshakes.com .
