Patricia Rozema, the writer-director of "Into the Forest," says it was hard to get a film with two female leads off the ground; Stephen Colbert could face a legal challenge over the use of his former "Colbert Report" persona; the Hollywood Bowl's production of "A Chorus Line" is directed by a member of the show's original cast.
One singular sensation: the history of 'A Chorus Line'
“Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch — again!” Fans of the iconic Broadway hit musical, “A Chorus Line,” already know what famous song lyrics come next. After a few more kicks and turns, the director shouts out: “From the top — five, six, seven, eight!” And with that, the classic 1975 stage story about the hardscrabble life of dancers unfolds.
From July 29-31 at the Hollywood Bowl, the L.A. Philharmonic presents a new production of one of Broadway’s flashiest hits. But gold top hats and high-kicks aside, the show has much more humble roots. It started with nothing more than a tape recorder and a circle of dancer friends in New York City, circa 1974.
Decades before MTV’s "Real World" or even "Real Housewives," a young choreographer named Michael Bennett had an idea for a reality show, of sorts. It would be set inside the real world of Broadway. So he invited a small group of dancers to a downtown Manhattan studio to share a cheap jug of wine and to talk about their lives. Meanwhile, Bennett recorded every word — for 12 hours. He explained to the dancers about his idea to stage a musical based on them.
“Why would somebody want to put my life on the stage?” asked dancer Baayork Lee. “The only thing I can do is 'King and I' and 'Flower Drum Song.' That was it.”
Lee was not there that night. She preferred to take a break in her country home outside the city. But Bennett was her close friend and choreographer colleague. Eventually, he persuaded Lee to open up.
“I was born to dance. I love to dance,” Lee says at a rehearsal for the Bowl show. “And he said, 'You know, I really think your story is interesting.' And so I just started talking. He just put the tape on and I just started talking. It was more personal. Just being at his house and just talking to him.”
Lee is now an esteemed choreographer and director. In fact, she’s directing the Hollywood Bowl production. But it was her career challenges early on as a petite, Asian woman fighting to work in the American theater that captured Bennett’s attention. He created the classic Connie Wong character in the show based on Lee. But Bennett's job was far from done. He still had tons of tape and stories to get though from the other interviews.
“Well, you don’t know what you are creating at the time," recalls Bob Avian, a longtime collaborator of Bennett's. (The choreographer died in 1987 at the age of 44.) “But Michael always knew he wanted to created a show about dancers. That was his vision.”
Avian says Bennett asked Joseph Papp at New York’s Public Theater for help. With Papp’s assistance, Bennett created the first of what is now commonly known in professional theatre as a "workshop."
“Joe said, 'You can come down to our space and play here — $100 a week.' And we’re going, Oh God! Alright, laughs Avian. “And Michael said, ‘Let’s try. We’ll write the show on its feet!’ So we started by transcribing the original tapes.”
Avian recalls how workshop actors would take the transcriptions and recite them as never-ending monologues. “And Michael said, ‘I can’t keep doing this all night long. The audience will go nuts!’”
As luck would have it, Bennett was good friends with a young, rising star composer who lived here in L.A. Avian recalls: “The funniest story was about Marvin Hamlisch. He had just won three Oscars. And Michael says, ‘Come on — we’re going off-Broadway [to] work for $100 a week.’ And Marvin’s agent said, ‘Are you crazy? You’re the hottest guy in Hollywood!’”
But Hamlisch rushed to his friend’s side in New York and immediately compressed hours of transcribed words into one single song about adolescence. In the score it’s called “Montage.”
And while Hamlisch was whipping the music into shape, Baayork Lee, Bob Avian and Michael Bennett were busy pounding out the dance movements. The trio interpreted the paper mountains of endless typed words into was is now iconic choreography.
“Michael was amazing at improvisation,” Lee says. “He would just look in the mirror and he would just start dancing. (Laughs) It just came out of his head. And then we would just follow or learn or contribute a step.”
During that first workshop, Bennett’s passion project looked like it was finally going to take on a real shape. Despite not knowing how it would all turn out, Bennett always knew it would. He determination was so strong that he had already figured out the title two years prior to any tape recorders turning on or dancers trying out any moves.
As the story goes, in 1972 Bennett was directing a George Furth play at New York’s Plymouth Theatre alongside Bob Avian. That show was called “A Chorus Line.” One day, Bennett told Furth that the title didn’t fit the show. Furth agreed and changed the name of his play to “Twigs” — and gave Bennett the blessing to call his musical project ‘A Chorus Line.’
At that point, Avian recalls that there was only one thing missing: “There’s a piece of chalk on the table. Michael picked up the chalk, went over to the floor and drew a line and said, ‘This is our set.’”
“It’s choreographed so that when you are above the line, these are internal thoughts, this is a safe space,” says J. Elaine Marcos, who plays the Baayork Lee-inspired character, Connie Wong. “This is where we think back into our childhood ... and then we step on the line and we get a gut punch and we realize, Oh! This is where I am right now.”
Marcos knows this story very well. Not only has she played the role on Broadway and on tour, she is a veteran of the New York stage who has opened and closed eight hit shows in a glowing career. But she’s quick to point out that every dancer has to start back in the audition room all over again anytime a show closes. Singing about the uncertainty resonates for Marcos.
“Every line, there’s ... I get choked up," Marcos says. "What do you do when you can’t dance anymore? We actually sing it: My unemployment is gone! Like, yeah! But, my unemployment is gone. So what do you do?”
The answer to that one, says Lee, is easy in this business.
“I say, Eat nails!" she growls. “And that means you get down and dirty and get into it. [Be a] triple threat! We started that phrase. You had to be a triple threat in order to do 'A Chorus Line' — sing, dance and act. And then after us came 'Cats' and all the other shows.”
Lee says artists like Marcos are the ultimate nail eaters — tough, tenacious and super-talented triple threats. These are the hard workers who inspired Bennett to create "A Chorus Line" four generations ago. The show continues to get produced throughout the world under Lee's watchful direction. She insists that she’s teaching the next “Chorus Line” casts to dig deep into these classic dance moves, the true texts, and the tough spirit of a dancer’s world.
“That is such a great satisfaction,” Lee says. “Eat nails, baby!"
"A Chorus Line" is at the Hollywood Bowl from July 29-31.
FIlmmaker Patricia Rozema had a tough time getting 'Into the Forest' made
The new film, “Into the Forest,” stars Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood as sisters who have to learn to survive in a remote mountain locale after a large-scale power outage wipes out their access to technology. It could be described as a small-scale post-apocalyptic film. But for director and writer Patricia Rozema, the film was not easy to get made.
It's an inherently conservative business because it's so expensive. If you're not repeating something that's already a success, then people are nervous.
"Into the Forest" is an intimate movie that takes a close look at how the sisters must learn to survive in nature and with humankind. And one of the factors for the film's struggle to find financial backing was due to having female leads, as Rozema explains:
Even if I had a male who was the third-largest role, but he had some real name value, it would be easier to get the money, which is sort of heartbreaking. But I've lived with that my whole life.
Rozema adapted “Into the Forest” from the 1996 book of the same name by Jean Hegland. The filmmaker previously wrote and directed an adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, “Mansfield Park,” and she’s currently a director on the TV series, “Mozart in the Jungle.”
The Frame's John Horn spoke with Rozema about why she wanted to make "Into the Forest," her recent invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and why having an opportunity to showcase her voice as a woman filmmaker is important.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
On the intense "female humiliation" scene in "Into the Forest"
The world is awash with women being degraded and humiliated, and I didn't want to add to that image bank. It was also an option just to skip over it to the aftermath. But I did want to show the severity of it and I thought the only responsible and compassionate way to represent it was to just focus on her pain and not create any images that anyone can get off on.
It's a very complicated place to be, standing behind the monitor when you're a woman watching a woman being humiliated and thinking, This is gold! — loving the power of [the scene] and knowing that it's so authentic and it's a very intense moment.
On why she thought this scene was so important to the film
Your whole goal is to make something that vibrates on a level that's outside of the understandable. There's something compelling that you can't quite understand. I aim for that. In the whole structure I want it to work as a story, but then without you knowing how it seems to be relevant in far many more things than you're actually talking about.
On why she's passionate about making films
I grew up with a very religious background. From very young I was [taught] to ask questions of origin and purpose and destiny. But I really do believe that, in this one place in my life, I have a chance to make something that could last for a long time.
On getting an invitation to be an Academy member
It's an very interesting time. I'm fascinated by the fact that there's so much conversation around female representation on screen and behind the camera. I was wondering, Why now? We started with the Suffragettes and then there was the '60s and Gloria Steinem. It went quiet for a while and then it just sort of bubbles up to the surface and then goes quiet again. Why is it bubbling again?
Is this actually a fork in the road? Is this kind of a point where [producers] say, Why is it that the men are doing all the storytelling in the most popular art form of the day? It's kind of an odd theory. Maybe you can shoot it down in flames for me right now.
It used to be that when a woman stood up and said, I'm a feminist — women deserve the same rights to storytelling to ownership of property, you could cut them off at the knees by saying: "Lesbian." Now you can still think it, but you can't actually say it publicly because of the advances in gay rights. Women are less horrified by being tarnished as a homo.
I actually think that it's a fascinating situation where a more marginalized group is helping a less marginalized group — heterosexual women. I'm gay, I'm lesbian, but I feel like that might be why we can step forward and women are not as traumatized by being called gay anymore.
On how having other women in the writers' room is beneficial
The identity of the players behind the screen has an impact on what is on the screen. I also write sometimes for other [projects] and if I'm working with just men, I can't tell you how many times they ask me quite openly, sweetly and unconsciously: Can you just have [a character] not be so secure? And can she end on a question rather than a statement?
I was just in a meeting with writers on "Mozart in the Jungle," and they're a very feminist, interesting bunch. There were little lines that women would come up with that, maybe if I wasn't there as a female director, we wouldn't put in. It might have just been passed over and maybe someone didn't have the confidence to push it. Because there's a woman behind the camera saying, Hey, that's an interesting angle. I haven't heard that. Let's have her say that. So who's behind the camera has a giant impact on what happens on the screen, and that affects the hearts and minds of women.
I always feel uncomfortable with [saying], You gotta have more people like me out there! You gotta hire me! It's such a self-promotional thing. It's not [the point]. It's a benefit to everyone to have a more complete perspective on the human condition.
"Into the Forest" is in theaters on July 29 and is also available to stream on Direct TV.
Why Stephen Colbert can't be 'Stephen Colbert' anymore
Stephen Colbert is having an identity crisis. During the Republican National Convention, Colbert revived his blowhard alter ego from “The Colbert Report” on his current CBS show. He also revived his old Comedy Central segment, "The Word," and the word was "Trumpiness."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqOTxl3Bsbw
It may come as some surprise that the people most offended by this segment were the lawyers for Comedy Central, which is owned by Viacom. Colbert has since announced that he is retiring the “Stephen Colbert” character because he could be sued for copyright infringement by Viacom.
Colbert's solution: create a new character who he called the "twin identical cousin" of "Stephen Colbert" — also named "Stephen Colbert."
To better understand this meta-mess, we rang up Eriq Gardner, senior editor at The Hollywood Reporter. He began with what the Viacom attorneys said to CBS.
They basically told the producers of the CBS show that the character from Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" was their intellectual property, which might sound a little strange. But when you work for a company, you hand over everything you create. Essentially what Comedy Central and Viacom are saying is that [character is] theirs to own.
But what Viacom is looking to protect isn't exactly clear. Their motivation likely isn't to recast the Colbert character or to profit from reruns or DVD sales. Gardner thinks it's just a preventative measure.
They might just be thinking this isn't just a Stephen Colbert issue. This could be an issue for the rest of their hosts and so they might want to set some precedence ... There's no way that they're really going to monetize "Stephen Colbert" going forward besides some clip archives.