Are you having visions of nowness? (If you are, they’re probably filled with haunted Christmas ghosts, dancing leg-lamps, and all the other recurring Christmas characters who pop up on stages everywhere this time of year.) Do you feel like vacation’s all you ever wanted? Then join Iron Crow Theatre for a refreshing Christmas alternative this holiday season. They’re producing the regional premiere of The Go-Go’s Head Over Heels and in a TheaterBloom exclusive interview with stage-adapter and Broadway playwright, James Magruder, we’ve sat down to talk shop all about the show!
Thank you so much for giving us some of your time, James! We know you’re James Magruder, but what are your official ‘credits’ as they were when it comes to Head Over Heels?
James Magruder: So my official credit, and therein hangs a tale, I am the adapter. Jeff Whitty wrote the original book, it was his original concept. I was brought on after a couple of years once he sort of stepped away from it. It took him two years to sign off on anything, I mean it was his baby and a brilliant, brilliant idea. It was just so cockamamie to combine The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia with The Go-Go’s. So when the Director, Michael Mayer— who I worked on with Triumph of Love and he’s one of my oldest, best friends— he said, “Magruder, we have a situation. We’ve had this workshopped at Vassar and Jeff Whitty isn’t showing up.” It was clear that Jeff was ambivalent about continuing work on it with a new team. The project had been done, in 2015 at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Charles Isherwood, the disgraced New York Times critic, he came out and liked it well enough. What you want is for the critics to like it well enough that you can continue working on it. They got a slot at New York Stage & Film and basically when all was said and done, by the time Michael called me up, the only original person left from Oregon was Bonnie Milligan, who played Pamela, and Jeff’s story and original draft of the book.
Michael told me to come look at it, and he asked me what I thought, did I want to work on it, and I said, “sure.” My first decision or choice was “do we want to keep it in blank verse?” And I said, of course! Let’s honor that. Honor what Jeff did. And we worked on it. You know how you read things like A Strange Loop took 18 years, Next To Normal took eleven, Triumph of Love took two. And then my contribution to Head Over Heels took two. I’ve had my experience with longer projects, I mean my third novel took 19 years start to finish and it took me eleven years just to figure out who the narrator was.
Head Over Heels was really quick. I’ve worked on musicals with composers and lyricists, but I have to say, it was just a gift to have The Go-Go’s song catalogue already there. Those are your parameters. This is the catalog and you invent the context for these songs. Tom Kitt (musical supervisor joining the project in 2016) souped it up with different arrangements, but the songs were the songs were the songs were the songs. You didn’t have two other gigantic egos in the room of a lyricist and a composer who may or may not get along or who may or may not agree with what you’re doing. The other thing I loved about working on it, besides reuniting with Michael Mayer who is one of my favorite people on the planet, is that I’m not a ballad person. Head Over Heels? There’s only one ballad!
Then there was a moment where we all thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election. We had a workshop focusing on the book two weeks before the 2016 election, and we were just thinking it was all going to happen. And that sort of informed one of the beautiful decisions in the show— Gynecia gets to take over the throne.
You said it was a blessing and a gift to have that prefabricated catalog, The Go-Go’s song catalog because it’s already there and those are your parameters and you don’t have to contend with extra creative egos in the room. Do you think that The Go-Go’s song catalog is the best fit for this particular story or would another song catalog have made for a better experience?
James: This was Jeff’s idea. And I wanted to honor that. Of course that started me thinking that we could do a Jetsons musical with The B-52’s catalog. Michael said to me, “Don’t even bother reading The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. I did flip through it. There was an 18th century theatre adaptation, but at this point, he wanted me to make it my own. Originally at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the show was three and a half hours long, and it was 45 minutes before anyone sang. And it was considered a “fun idea” at the time to play the songs on period instruments: lute, sackbut, tambour, etc.
I did what my credits say— I adapted it, yet half of the final text is my invention. I stuck to the verse, I stuck to the characters, I added some characters— I added the non-binary character. There was a court jester narrator that made no sense, so I got rid of him. When all is said and done, I love that every single one of the eight principals has a journey to go on. They’re changed by their time on the road.
Now the non-binary thing, I have to say—
That’s actually a perfect segue into my next question. Since you just mentioned that you specifically introduced the non-binary character and it wasn’t a part of Jeff’s original. Having seen a production of Head Over Heels, I would never have known the non-binary character was not a part of the original script.
James: So this all goes back to different graduate students that I’ve had over time, who want to know about gender representation as they’re working on their thesis papers. So I went back to different email chains and this came up during the casting workshop, the “Hillary Clinton election” workshop as we were calling it. And I was thinking of changing the story around. Pythio was there in the original. But Pythio sang “Vision of Nowness”, came, and went and that was it for that character. When we were discussing who we thought it would be fun to cast in that role, Jim Carnahan in New York had mentioned some non-binary performer and that got me thinking. I was brought onto this project in July of 2016. And on September 4, 2016 I started to write that ‘…Pythio appears from a surprise entrance, the mouth of a giant snake, and spooks them…’ meaning the King and Dametas ‘…with their very non-cisgender appearance and manner…’ And once we did that we just ran with it. We weren’t setting out to change the world or break barriers it just happened. We just went with it and it works really well.
That’s incredible. Is that the only sort of discovery you made as you were making this project your own?
James: Michael and I realized, during previews, that Head Over Heels is not snarky. It’s not self-referential. It does not refer to other musicals. It doesn’t know that it’s a show. It doesn’t cannibalize showbusiness the way some of these other shows do, like Something Rotten! or The Producers. It is not self-aware that way. It is a joyous celebration of all these issues that are facing us today but doesn’t hit you over the head with them. It’s all there— toxic masculinity, size acceptance, the gender spectrum, what is good ruler, climate change— we built that all in there. And in sitting at this preview, I said to Michael and said, “I can’t believe, considering what bitches we are, that we’ve created this open-hearted, generous, loving show for really heartless times.”
There was one review that said “This show is Trump’s worst nightmare.”
This musical converts everyone. We kept trying to keep it open on Broadway, and the rich woman who bankrolled us and kept us open a couple of moths after we should have closed, she would bring in Republican investor types from Texas. By the end, they’d just given themselves over to it. For example, the British guy who’s directing (Tom Jackson Greaves, director & choreographer of Head Over Heels at Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester, England, due to open in 2023) it, when asked why he wanted to direct it, said “it’s mounds of silliness.” And that’s great. This show is just a celebration of human potential and not in the way we planned.
And we just went with it. We’d say something like “what happens if they lose the beat?” Well then the planet dries up or freezes over or burns down in a fire. The critical question when you do a jukebox musical is do the lyrics to the existing songs fit the story and how? What fits and what doesn’t? People won’t buy every single contextual shoehorn, but we did our best. Now there were one or two I wasn’t crazy about how we made things fit to those particular songs, but that was the challenge. That, and counting to ten on my fingers for two years.
How do you think Head Over Heels reads to the younger generation? Or even to the older generation? You have a complete collision of worlds here, where you have The Go-Go’s song catalog, which is music from the 80’s and a narrative that is definitely along the very-progressive (and we all detest this word, but we’re using it anyway) ‘woke’ agenda lines. And it seems like there might be a disconnect with the newer generations who will love and embrace and appreciate the narrative but not know or appreciate the music and the older generation who isn’t necessarily in-tune with the progressiveness of the story but loves and knows and appreciates the music. How do you think this is reading to the varying audiences?
James: Well it’s not Neil Diamond’s catalog, but it’s getting produced in high schools and colleges all over the country. Without trying to be woke and popular, it’s woke and popular. It was ‘woke’ ahead of its time. We hit the alarm before ‘woke’ happened. We never set out for it to be this thing and yet here it is as this thing.
How closely have you been working with Iron Crow Theatre for this upcoming regional premiere that opens quite soon?
James: I’ve been parlaying with Sean (director of Head Over Heels, Artistic Director of Iron Crow Theatre) and I went to some of the rehearsals. And I think they were a little afraid of me— but there is no reason to be terrified of me! I said, ‘read the bible’ I wrote a prefatory “Advice to the Players” that’s included in the licensed version of the script about what we learned all throughout the process of adapting and building Head Over Heels for Broadway. And it’s ten key things, so I guess it’s like The Ten Commandments. Never act like what you’re saying is funny or you’ll have three cheese omelets on your face. And the end of it is embrace the blank verse, it’s who you are.
This show is going to live, based on how many productions there are currently floating around. I just wish the original marketing campaign had stressed the fact that it was in blank verse. The reviews would say “…in this kooky, Elizabethan-sounding thing…” and I wish they would have just put that in the press release. That it was blank verse. The writers, Jeff and Magruder, have endeavored to put ten syllables in every line. It’s higher than you think. And I hope the audiences hear that. The iambic foot is the essential beat to the spoken English language.
What other things are you hoping that the audiences will take away from coming to see Head Over Heels?
James: I’m hoping that they will get the message that the world can be a better place. It’s not so much listen to one another as it is understand and accept your community. It’s all about community. You know, watching Iron Crow, which has developed its community over the last however-many years, and Sean was telling me all the things they’ve gone through to get where they are today, they’ve gotten to that place of community, that’s I think the takeaway. Find your community and make the world a better place.
What would you say, having been involved with this project since the semi-middle-of-jump-street, has taught you about yourself as a playwright, as a human being, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community?
James: I guess I’m a softer person than I thought. That I could do the blank verse. That wasn’t always evident that I’d be able to come up with jokes and fit them into blank verse. Queerness has gone so far beyond what it was when I was coming up and coming out. It’s such a different world now. Cisgendered, old, white male— I’ve aged out. I’m still gay but that’s not money under the mattress anymore and that’s okay. Cis, straight, white men killed the planet, so it’s time to move over and let this new generation fix and change the world. And you hear it, “Okay, Boomer.” Or “Stand aside, you old gay white man.” And I get it. The stories that are being told and the people that are telling them have expanded so far but I don’t feel like I missed out because I’ve certainly had a successful life, but if I were starting out today… I wouldn’t know where to start.
People ask me all the time, “Magruder why don’t you write for TV?” Well the fact that I’ve never owned a television set is sort of my commentary on the media. But on the other hand, I’ve binged on Hacks and I love it. I thought, if I were in my 20’s, I would run out to Hollywood and try it. If I could run out there and create something like Hacks, White Lotus, or Succession, I would do it; this is a golden age for TV. I think I’ve learned that my time is mostly ‘step to the side now.’
What has been your biggest challenge in being involved with the Iron Crow Theatre production for Head Over Heels? It’s not every day that a regional, professional theatre gets a Broadway writer-adapter to work with them during the rehearsal process.
James: I’d say dealing with how cold the rehearsal hall was! The biggest challenge is just letting them be. I’ve seen five or six post-Broadway productions and I’ve learned not to see it more than once during a run while I’m visiting because the things that bug me during the first night of seeing it, bug me even more the second time because I can’t do anything about it. Perfect example, I said to the Iron Crow voice coach (Text Coach Ann Turiano) “I don’t care what your dictionary says, it’s Terp-sick-ary.” Instead of Terpsichore. I want “Terp-sick-ary.” I think it’s an alternate. I’ve been away for a while, from their rehearsals, so I’m wondering what it’s looking like now that they’re finally in tech. I’ll give notes to Sean at the dress rehearsals if I think there’s something way off, but really I’ll just let them be. They’ll change some wordings here and there… better not change ‘Terp-sick-ary’ though.
Why do you want people to come see the Iron Crow Theatre production of Head over Heels?
James: Baltimore paid no attention to this show when it came out. I know there’s no print media left, but still. This is a chance for people to pay attention to it this time. And it’s a celebration and— what the British guy said— a mound of silliness. I want people to come and enjoy. And hey— one of The Go-Go’s, drummer Gina Schock, is from Dundalk. And she’s probably going to come see the show one night. I’m just thrilled that Baltimore is finally going to get to see Head Over Heels. If you missed out on it in New York, now it’s here. So don’t miss it this time.
If you had to sum up your working experience with Head Over Heels in just one word, what word would you use?
James: Joy.
Head Over Heels plays December 2nd through the 18th 2022 with Iron Crow Theatre in residence at Baltimore Theatre Project— 45 W. Preston Street in the Mt. Vernon district of Baltimore, MD. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 410-752-8558 or in advance online.
