Deaf West Theatre's production of "Spring Awakening" started out in a small theater on L.A.'s Skid Row, and now it's on Broadway; Showtime's David Nevins kicks off our talks about the state of the TV industry; Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields deconstructs a song from the band's new album in a new installment of Song Exploder.
Showtime president David Nevins reflects on the state of TV today
The hit Showtime series, “Homeland,” returns this Sunday. It’s the fifth season for the show, which stars Claire Danes as a trouble-seeking CIA agent who also happens to be bi-polar.
Five years is an eternity for a TV show in this day and age, when broadcast and cable networks and streaming services are all vying for viewers. One cable executive even recently said that there’s simply too much content being made today.
So that made us want to embark on a series of conversations with TV executives to talk about the state of the industry. We start today with David Nevins. He’s the president of Showtime Networks, the premium cable channel that is owned by the CBS Corporation.
When The Frame's host, John Horn, joined Nevins at his office, he asked about Showtime's involvement in the resurrection of "Twin Peaks," the shows he wishes he had bought, and the network's efforts to improve diversity — both behind and in front of the camera.
Interview Highlights:
What is Showtime working on these days?
Right now in production we have "The Affair" in and around New York, "Homeland" is in Germany, "Shameless" is in L.A., "Penny Dreadful" in London, "A Season with Notre Dame" in South Bend and following the team [around the country], "Billions" is in production in and around New York, and a little show called "Twin Peaks" is somewhere up in the state of Washington.
You can't tell me where?
We're trying to keep it quiet.
Is that an actual concern, that people will go visit the set?
It's been a concern and it has been happening, so we have security measures in place now.
"Twin Peaks" has been on-again, off-again. What was the genesis of its relaunch, and how much work did it take to get everyone on board?
In the original "Twin Peaks," there's the line from the Red Room: "I'll see you in 25 years." It's 25 years later now, so I was aware of that and had been pursuing David Lynch and Mark Frost to bring the show back.
They eventually came into this very office for a meeting, and I think they were trying to judge whether I was a worthy partner. The story I was told is that David Lynch liked the paintings on the walls in here and said, "I think I can work with these guys."
One of these paintings is of a bookcase that's about to tumble onto a small child.
Is it falling on the little girl? Or is the little girl kicking it over? That's the question, you can read it either way. But then it was just a question of making David feel comfortable, that he was going to have the control and the resources that he needed to make this show and do more of what is, in my opinion, one of the great works of television in history.
Recently, a report from the Producers Guild of America looked at the audience for shows created by and for women. How would you rank Showtime in terms of casting women in parts that are not necessarily female, and putting women in creative positions behind the camera?
In terms of women behind the camera, we're doing very well — we're pretty close to 50/50 on the gender split in terms of creators and show-runners. "Shameless" was created by a man but is now run by Nancy Pimental, "Masters of Sex" was created by Michelle Ashford and has an entirely female producing team.
"Ray Donovan" was created by a woman, "The Affair" was created and run by a woman, and we need to be a gender-balanced network. I always say that premium television costs extra, so you don't want either half of the household asking about paying that money every month. On the gender front, I think we're doing fairly well, and we have a history of strong female characters.
Let's talk about racial diversity. You've said that you and other networks need to do better. [Showtime has] Don Cheadle on "House of Lies" [but] it's hard for me to think of a long list of people of color who have prominent acting parts on Showtime series.
Yeah, it's something we're working on. We have a history over the years of doing well with non-white audiences, with African-American audiences, with Latino audiences. Right now, we're a little under-represented.
I'm making a pilot right now that I have high hopes for, about growing up on the South side of Chicago, with an entirely African-American cast and African-American people behind the camera. And the Latino audience is a huge opportunity that we're not doing what we could be doing, but that's a pretty big target.
I'm curious if you can think of a recent example of a show that you just didn't see coming together and that Showtime passed on, only for that show to end up going to another network.
I was very jealous of the first season of "True Detective."
Not so much season two?
Not so much. But I actually did try to buy that show. "Transparent" is a show that I love and I wish we had it.
Did you have a shot to get it?
I didn't personally have a shot at it. But it had been presented in an early form to the network, and it's one that I regret because it's a wonderful show and I think it'd do really well here.
Deaf West Theatre’s ‘Spring Awakening’ goes from LA's Skid Row to Broadway
Almost a year ago, The Frame reported on the Deaf West Theatre company’s production of the musical “Spring Awakening,” which was then produced at Inner City Arts' small theater on L.A.’s Skid Row. The show was a huge hit and was re-mounted earlier this year at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Arts in Beverly Hills.
Well, now Deaf West’s “Spring Awakening” is getting rave reviews — on Broadway.
The show features performances by both deaf and hearing actors, some of whom have to take on singing, dancing and signing all within the same song. It might seem like a complicated spectacle to pull off, but graceful deliveries and some clever visual and audio tricks make the show a hit for all audiences.
We wanted to talk about the road to Broadway for “Spring Awakening,” so we tracked down D.J. Kurs, he’s the artistic director of Deaf West Theatre, who’s in New York with the show. Kurs is also hearing impaired, so he spoke with The Frame’s John Horn with the help of an interpreter, Beverly Nero.
Interview Highlights
Deaf West had to run a Kickstarter campaign to fund the initial production of “Spring Awakening.” You don’t even have your own theater space in L.A., and here you are on Broadway opening to rave reviews. Can you describe the journey that this show has been on?
Well you were there at the very, very beginning with us when we were in a very small theater — the Inner City Arts theater. And it’s been a wonderful journey since.
What was it like for the company to open the papers and start reading the notices that you got for the show?
It has just been wonderful. We performed on Sunday night. And after the show we went to the opening party and — modern times — we of course don’t wait for the newspaper, but we wait for our phones to show up with the reviews. We were just ecstatic. One year ago we were still in a tiny space and we could never have envisioned that Broadway was in our future within a year. We thought that if it would ever happen it would be three or four years from then. So, that night was very, very emotional for everyone. All of the actors couldn’t stop hugging each other and every face that I looked at had tears in it.
“Spring Awakening” has been on Broadway before. How do you think the play has changed in your form of the production?
We have two different kinds of audiences: people who saw [the original] “Spring Awakening who loved it; and there are people who haven’t seen “Spring Awakening” at all because it’s been eight years since it was on Broadway. So much about the production — the staging, the lighting, the choreography — has been changed. The script, of course, is the same, the beautiful music is the same, but everything else is different. So right now, for example, it’s performed in two different languages simultaneously. So that I think is a thrilling thing for people to see ... They’re able to see and hear it through two different perspectives at the same time.
And do you think it actually changes the way in which the show is received? Does the meaning of the show change? Does the relationship between performer and audience change?
Yes. One of the things that we started working with for this production is, how can we work with deaf culture? We looked at the history of the production and that it takes place in 1890s Germany, where [there] was a very strong oral education for deaf people at that juncture in time, because there was a conference that determined that all deaf students had to be taught by the oral method. So, for many, many years, deaf people were not taught to use sign language in any education settings. So, really, the play is so much about communication and different generations that are trying to be understood. And so it just adds a new layer right on top of the already existing layer and message of the story. So when we add sign language to this, the visual language is so much in support of the actual meaning of the words and the lyrics.
You’ve said it was a limited run. Given the reviews, is it still going to be [just 17 weeks]?
Well there’s another production that has already been scheduled, so we do have to get out of the [Brooks Atkinson] theater. So we’ll see what happens. And, hopefully, we can sell some tickets in the meantime.
Song Exploder: Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields breaks down 'Andrew in Drag'
Have you ever listened to a song and wondered how it really came together?
Hrishikesh Hirway is a Los Angeles-based musician and producer of the podcast, Song Exploder. He invites artists to takes a song apart piece-by-piece and then talk about how they put it all together.
Adapted for The Frame, Hirway recently chatted with singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt of the band The Magnetic Fields about the song, "Andrew in Drag." Among other revelations, Merritt reveals that he can't remember writing the song at all — he blacked out at a bar and woke up with a song in his notebook.