By Harry Haun
06 Oct 2008
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| Graham Phillips, Elizabeth Gillies, Allie Trimm, Eric Nelsen & Brynn Williams, Joey La Varco, Malik Hammond, Al Calderon, Caitlin Gann & Delaney Moro, Eamon Foley, Aaron Simon Gross & Ariana Grande,13 band, Jason Robert Brown & Christopher Gattelli |
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
Oct. 5 being a school night, the cast of 13 — a cast of 13, all in and around that particular age — premiered their musical at the Jacobs Theatre at four in the afternoon, then went into party-hardy overdrive at Opera (nee China Club) — till the crack of nine.
Youth must be served — quickly! — and, when 21 of them awoke the following morning, they were indeed — officially! — Broadway performers. Counting the band backstage, it was the largest number of debuts ever to hit the Main Stem in a single show, all of them meshing together seamlessly, energetically in perfect teenwork.
"Something's comin'," they sang out in the title-tune opener, and they're not talking Wells Fargo Wagon here. They're talking restless hormones starting to rage, cuing a new generation of teen-angst.
Hardly the "something's comin'" that came in West Side Story, but there's still a show in this physiological phenomenon — and a universal one, at that: If you're not going through it right now, you remember what it was like with some tender toleration.
Songwriter Jason Robert Brown, a Tony winner for Parade and a Drama Desk Award winner for The Last Five Years, is the genesis and engine for 13. Thematically, he seems to be working his way backwards — from death to marriage and divorce to puberty, but his next stop won't be musicalizing "The Egg and I." He promises.
"There's really little autobiography in 13," Brown readily admitted. "I mean, emotionally, I'm all over the show — but, literally, none of the plot happened to me. There's a million impetuses — impeti? — whatever — for writing this show, but the truth is I always had a lot of teenagers at my concerts, and I really wanted to write something that spoke directly to them. So, now, I get to watch these awesome teenagers on stage doing the show, and I get to see these amazed and thrilled teenagers in the audience. Everyone who watches the show gets to know what I was doing it for. It's right up there. It's a gorgeous feeling. To have done that and still have a show I respond to — that speaks to me so specifically — that's a real reward."
Brown estimated that he "probably wrote 40 to 45 songs for the show," then pared those down to 14 (you were expecting 13, right?). "The whole thing has been a pretty hard ride. I think the song that came to me most effortlessly was, probably, 'What It Means to Be a Friend.' That has been in the show since the very first reading."
One of his best songs, choreographed to a fare-thee-well by the high-octane Christopher Gattelli and knocked out of the ballpark by Al Calderon, Malik Hammond, Joey La Varco and Eamon Foley like veteran troupers, is titled antithetically "Bad Bad News." That song was one of the last to be written.
"I didn't get to write it until we were in rehearsal at Goodspeed, just before Broadway," Brown recalled, "and I got to write on the kids themselves. I knew the four kids we had — they were four exceptionally gifted boys — and I said, 'I want to do something that really shows off each of these kids in a very specific way.'"
Similarly, a big production number has been restored to the show as a post-curtain call finale. "'Brand New You' is the song they do at the curtain call," said Brown, "and it was a chance to take some of the performers who hadn't had a chance to do something all night and give them something amazing to do. The song itself had been in the L.A. production. It was actually the finale there, and we cut it when we changed the ending of the show, but then when we all wanted to add a number to feature all these other kids, I said, 'Oh, I have 'Brand New You' from the other show so we put it in, and it worked like gangbusters. It's like I was just keeping it for this moment."
Brown tapped a Brit to direct his slice of teenage "American Pie" — Jeremy Sams — who heretofore has been variously represented on Broadway as a book writer (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), a lyricist (Amour) and a director (the Noises Off revival).
It helped, Sams allowed, to have a teenager at home (via ex-wife Maria Friedman) to gauge his direction of the 13 on stage. He said he couldn't be prouder of the uniform level of professionalism shown by all hands, even the wet-behind-the-ears novices.
Fifteen-year-old Foley, in point of fact, is a veteran Broadway campaigner and, shortly before the curtain went up, wore The Gypsy Robe which Actors' Equity awards to the ensemble member who has amassed the most Broadway credits.
The only person younger than him to be so honored is also in the show: Brynn Williams, who was 12 when she won the robe for In the Life three years ago. She and Foley have both done their tours of duty in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
The other "seasoned" Broadway troupers in the show are Mary Poppins' original charges, Michael (Henry Hodges) and Jane (Delaney Moro). He is understudying four roles, and she has blossomed into the golden girl of her peer group, namely Kendra, the blonde cheerleader.
"That was my Broadway debut, but 13 is my first show with all kids," noted Moro, who really is 13 and is turning 14 in February. She seemed to be basking in her new role of a beauty pursued on several fronts. "I love this role," she flat-out admitted. "She's optimistic, she's curious about the world and herself — it's a lot of fun to play."
She was also feeling a certain melancholy tug at her roots. "Ashley Brown and Gavin Lee are moving on today as well. After the 6:30 performance of Mary Poppins today [Oct. 6], they're leaving the Broadway company and starting up the national tour."
As in the Frank Perry film "Last Summer," there are no grown-ups allowed in 13. It is totally a teen thing that book writers Dan Elish ("Born Too Short: Confessions of an 8th Grade Basket Case") and Robert Horn ("Designing Women") have put on stage.
Horn, at the party, had the relieved look of the guy who had just finished the 50-yard dash. Color was returning to his face and everything. "I actually had a dream last night that nobody would laugh at anything, and I woke up in a sweat," he admitted. "It didn't turn out that way. I was thrilled people not only responded to the humor and the heartfeltness of the book but they related to it. It was love. Laughter is love.
"In order to laugh at the stuff that I put in there, I think people have to go to their own experience of what it was like to be that age and make right choices and wrong choices. All the people in the show — they know people like that or they've grown up with people like that. I think people responded to that, not just the fact it was funny."
Yes, Horn confessed, as a matter of fact, he is Jewish. "A thousand per cent. What gave it away?" Perhaps the preponderance of ethnic humor that generally accompanies a street-smart New York kid who suddenly finds himself, because of his parents' divorce, doomed to have his bar mitzvah in the land that time forgot — bleak and desolate Appleton, Indiana, by name — a sa-looooow lane where "UFOs go to refuel."
"I wanted to bring that Jewish humor into the show as our lead guy brings his sense of Jewishness to a world where it didn't exist," said Brown by way of an explanation. Continued...
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