When there’s a month with a fifth Wednesday, I’ll be heading Way-Off-Broadway for a look at theatrical happenings outside New York City. This summer, it’s not just flowers blooming all over the country; it’s musicals…

Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Image via theoneill.org.

Keep your sun screen and your pitch pipe handy because it’s time for summer theater development festivals. All across the country,writing teams are converging on bucolic locations to test out new musicals and pretend they’re at summer camp with cute actors. And the great thing is, you can join in (on the musicals and the cute actors). In fact, audience feedback is an essential component (for the musicals and the cute actors).

So let’s take a look (and listen) to some of the best prospects getting workshops this summer…

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Bernadette Peters on "The Muppet Show". Image via YouTube.

Anybody else need a big musical theater hug today?

Well, there’s honestly no better pick me up than this clip from The Muppet Show featuring the ageless Bernadette Peters (in full 70′s kewpie doll phase) and the song “Just One Person” (originally from the musical Snoopy) by the under-appreciated Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady. Grab a box of kleenex and sing along…

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"Crazy for You". Image via Google.

In prep for the upcoming Tonys, we’ve been taking our time machine out for a spin and doing a little decade hopping. We saw those damn hippies take over Broadway in 1972 and Jennifer Holliday tear down the house in 1982. So what will we find on Tony night in the glorious year of 1992…

…oh, sorry, I nodded off there. Sure, there are some solid and quite moving things from 1992. The Irish drama Dancing at Lughnasa kicking up its heals as Best Play. Another showdown between scrappy underdog and tourable crowd-pleaser in Best Musical (Falsettos vs ultimate winner Crazy for You.) And who can we fault any year when the grand dame Glenn Close gets some hardware (Best Actress in a Play for Death and the Maiden). So why does it all feel a little, ho hum? I suppose because as great as the performances are nothing cries out to be watched again and again at a gay bar on music theater mondays. None of this year’s clips have that train wreck quality or transcendent brilliance that makes them unforgettable.

But I have to spice this up somehow so as we watch the clips, I’ll reveal a little personal dirt. Yeah, now you’re hooked…

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Roger Rees, Alex Timbers & Rick Elice. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Who knew a little fairy dust could be so powerful?

Like its orphan hero, the Broadway underdog Peter and the Starcatcher soared, grabbing nine Tony nominations — the most nods for any play this year. Behind the stellar cast is an equally starry creative team, led by co-Directors Alex Timbers (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) & Roger Rees (most recently as an actor in The Addams Family) and writer Rick Elice (Jersey Boys).

As they prepare for Tony night and a recently announced Peter national tour, this “dream team” sat down to answer a few questions about the show, their collaboration and their careers. First up, the playwright (and a Tony nominee this year for Best Score) Rick Elice…

Kevin Del Aguila & Christian Borle in "Peter and the Starcatcher". Image via O&M Co.

Peter feels like such a collaborative, improvisational work and yet the script is so intricate and detailed. What was the genesis of the script?

In 2007, Roger Rees and Alex Timbers embarked on a series of workshops to adapt Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s novel, Peter and the Starcatchers – an origin story of Peter Pan – for the stage.  During the first “lab,” they worked entirely from the novel. But they needed some sort of introduction that would explain how narrative voices would be used in a potential play.  They called a mutual acquaintance, me, and I wrote them a prologue.  The first workshop led to a second, for which they needed some scenes, so the actors would know what to say.  They called a mutual acquaintance, me, and asked if I would supply some dialogue and some ideas for scenes that weren’t in the novel.  Dave and Ridley came to check it out.  Dave, not one to beat around any bush, asked “Who wrote that stuff?  We really like it.”  Tom Schumacher of Disney, who had underwritten the workshops, said, “That guy, sitting over there.”  (I raised my hand and grinned sheepishly.)  Then, Tom added, “He’s going to write the play.”  And sometimes, that’s how you get the gig.  So basically, it’s important to know directors who don’t have lots of friends who are writers.

Did you participate actively in rehearsals and did the cast influence the script? Is there still wiggle room for play in the piece even now that it has been “frozen” on Broadway?

I was at rehearsals every day, or close to it – (sometimes I had to do laundry).  I wouldn’t have missed them.  In La Jolla, I was rewriting whole sections, so I often sat in the room, glued to my keyboard.  I just liked being in a room with so much great, creative energy.  And I was getting to know the actors, and enjoyed the very particular pleasure of writing to various actors’ specific talents.  Between La Jolla and New York Theatre Workshop, I did major rewriting to accommodate a change in cast size, and a conceptual change that dramatically altered the two title roles – something we only learned through La Jolla’s great “Page to Stage” program, of which we were a part.   At Theatre Workshop, I was there every day, because I was jealous of the limited rehearsal time, and, by this time, had become great friends with the actors.  So to have a free ticket into the room was a treat.  Also, like a tailor at the local laundry, it was very efficient to have me there to do rewrites, and develop new sequences “on premises” – based on our finally having a set. For Broadway, we gave the actors a new script on the first day that had some big structural changes, and over the course of rehearsals, I was able to do very specific work.  I love being at rehearsals a lot.  I have the rest of my life to be somewhere else.

Wiggle room?  Well, actors of the caliber in Peter are so alive in their roles that wiggle room isn’t necessary.  Also, the physical tasks at hand require that everybody know what everybody is doing moment to moment, or someone could be hurt.  So no – the text is the text and the production is the production.  There are one or two “cadenza” moments, where the duration of certain things may vary from night to night, at the discretion of one or two of the actors.  It’s lovely when audience members say the whole thing has this entirely improvised feel, but believe me, it’s all worked out very carefully by the extraordinary ensemble of actors, the choreographer, the directors, the stage managers.  It’s a tribute to them that the play has that improvised feel.

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The cast of "February House". Photo by Joan Marcus.

FEBRUARY HOUSE

Gypsy Rose Lee is back in a musical, alongside Benjamin Britten, W. H. Auden and Carson McCullers, in a contemplative new work by Gabriel Kahane and Seth Bockley — based on the true story of a Brooklyn boarding house for artists.

“It’s the music that makes the magic…” New York Times

“Despite tackling sexual and political identity, emotional and creative turmoil, and even WWII, the show feels bloodless.” New York Post

“Its stronger elements — particularly a sometimes-intriguing score by newcomer Gabriel Kahane — don’t nearly add up to a satisfying evening.”Variety

“…the musical skips deftly from contrapuntal dissonance to an open-air folksiness that itself is a fascinating counterpoint to the cultured subject matter.” Entertainment Weekly

Mizer’s Two Cents:  A Dutch friend of mine gave me a salted licorice to try. Its burning bitterness tasted nothing like candy to me, but she grinned and ate them like they were gumdrops. This musical is salted licorice. For a very specific audience, its unusual, at times fascinating score (part Adam Guettel, part Williamsburg coffeehouse) and highly literate atmosphere will feel forward-thinking and carefully wrought. Many others will find it static, a dissertation made for footnotes, not footlights. See it if you know your LaTouche from your LaChuisa and like to be up on what will be discussed in serious musical theater circles.

Alfie Boe. Photo by Colin Bell.

There was a time when Broadway songs routinely topped the pop charts. Don’t believe me? Check out this post we did about the last songs from musicals to make it on the radio. (You know you want to listen to Helen Reddy, again.)

Now, the closest music theater gets to a top-40 station is when I leave my Follies CD on top of the bedside clock/radio. Or Glee does a cover and makes digital download millions.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped intrepid souls from mixing genres, serving up a showtune with some rock spice — usually courtesy of a duet between seemingly disparate artists. The latest to attempt a little mash-up action, Tony-winning British tenor Alfie Boe (Baz Lurhman’s La Boheme) arrives June 4 with a new album of theater classics (available for pre-order now) that show off his huge operatic voice, but he’s brought along some guest stars like rocker Robert Plant and teen idol Nick Jonas to shakes things up.

Curious how that might work? Well, lucky for you we’ve got a sneak listen to Boe and Jonas dueting on “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from Les Miserables:

You know, it’s actually quite a traditional take, no tambourines or vocoders in sight — just a rich orchestration and a sort of father/son quality to the vocal.

However, have you heard about this awesome insanity…

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Jason Butler Harner, Amanda Quaid & Cory Michael Smith in "C*ck". Photo by Joan Marcus.

C*CK

The acclaimed British import by Mike Bartlett, about a young man torn between his boyfriend and the woman he sleeps with, arrives in New York with its controversial title and gladiatorial set in tact.

“…terrific, tense little comedy.” New York Times

“Things get complicated as people fall in and out of it, but this wonderful 90-minute show renders the emotional mess with great simplicity.” New York Post

“Wittily staged in a stylized cock-fighting ring, the contest for the narcissistic love object is a battle royal of wit and persuasion that only breaks down once it becomes obvious (if not to the loveblinded rivals) that this shallow boy isn’t worth all the angst.” Variety

“The painfully funny, intense production…is crisply staged by James Macdonald, who also directed the London show.” Associated Press

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The 2011 Alliance Theatre Production of "Bring It On". Image via BringItOn.com.

Sisters are doing it for themselves in a theater news round-up energized by some serious girl power…

• The award-winning songwriting team of Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich had a great week with Heisler winning the coveted Kleban Prize (of $100,000) for most promising theater lyricist and the team’s film to stage adaptation of Ever After getting the green light for a Broadway launch in 2013.

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  "Priscilla Queen of the Desert". Photo by Joan Marcus

  Sad news though for the “gals” of Priscilla Queen of the Desert; the disco-tastic musical posted a closing notice for June 24 after more than a year on Broadway.

• Gimme a B for Broadway because the cheerleaders of Bring It On are making a surprise limited-engagement trip to NYC this summer. Producers announced that the national tour will stop on the Great White Way in July.

• Speaking of going back to school, the actress and (delightfully parodied) Fashion Plate Chloe Sevigny (Big Love) will head to Vassar this summer to star in a developmental workshop of Abigail/1702, a sequel of sorts to The Crucible by playwright Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa. Is it too much to hope that Tituba shows up?

• OK, so this one is about a boy but somehow it still feels right. Dan Stevens, otherwise known to TV watchers as the dreamy, middle-class heir to Downton Abbey, will be wooing Jessica Chastain’s The Heiress when it opens on Broadway this fall. With these two roles, he is now officially the poster boy for marrying up.

• Finally, Broadway Blog favorite Kate Baldwin is taking on another iconic role from the golden age of music theater; she’s Marian the Librarian in the Arena Stage production of The Music Man. If simply imagining that casting isn’t enough to get you down to DC (which it should), take a listen to her singing “My White Knight” in rehearsals (at 1:13 in the following video):

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Every third Wednesday, a fabulous actor/singer/dancer will fill out my nosey little questionnaire and offer a glimpse of what they look like from a bit closer than the mezzanine. For May, meet our very own superhero…

Matthew Wilkas. Photo by Rick Day.

Name: Matthew Wilkas

Hometown: Camden, Maine

Current Show/Role: Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark/ “Flash Thompson” (Also understudy for “Peter Parker/Spidey”). [Matthew is also starring in the film festival hit Gayby (watch the preview below), coming to a theater near you this year.]

The best part of the show I’m in now is: The people. I’m pretty much in love with everyone involved in this production. It’s a tight family and I feel really lucky to be a part of it.

The most challenging job in show business I ever had was: I have to say—by far—learning the Peter Parker/Spider-Man track has been unbelievably challenging in all respects—vocally, acting-wise, and especially FLYING! It’s pushed me so far beyond my limits and I’m so grateful for that. I’m loving every second of it.

If I wasn’t an actor, I would be: A playwright. I love writing plays. If I can manage it, I will do BOTH.

Places, Intermission or Curtain Call? Curtain Call. Time to relaaaax.

The best post-show cocktail in town is at: I’m not much of a drinker, so I’m gonna say Grom Gelato. They’re all over Manhattan. There’s one in Columbus Circle. I get the hot chocolate affogato once in a while after a show. It’s very decadent.

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