Transparent's Faith Soloway on the Healing Power of Musicals and Taking ‘Big Risks’ in the Series Finale

The series finale of Transparent opens with the death of the central character of Maura and a family asking what next. Much like the Pfefferman family, the cast of the award-winning Amazon series began creating the feature-film length musical series finale in a place of darkness and grief. Broadway.com talked with the show’s executive producer and writer Faith Soloway on how healing was possible through the power of musical theater, community and through the collaboration with New York’s favorite stage stars.

Why did you want Transparent to end with a musical finale?
As we were looking at a fifth season, before things changed in our track, we were actually looking at following Shelly [played by two-time Tony winner Judith Light] making a musical. It was always part of the plot in a certain way for her to kind of go off in this little sidetrack or some kind of theater piece. It was just a case of timing, that kind of accessed the possibility. It wasn't like, "This has to end as a musical! It must!" And so it's all those different factors: a little bit of healing for what we've been through as a community. A little bit of a salute to where Shelley was going. A little salute to Dustin O'Halloran's score in the show, and the way we were introducing music every season. It just kind of quilted itself together.

Was anyone in the cast nervous to try out singing and dancing?
What started to happen is we kind of got people back together to look at the final send-off, is the cast really wanted to dive right into it. They really loved the idea. Everybody kind of wanted to take a big risk, and go out swinging as hard as we could—which is the landscape of what a musical can offer. The preparation was kind of getting everybody comfortable and finding where their voices were.

What was it like welcoming Shakina Nayfack, who plays the musical version of Maura, into the cast and writing team this season?
We were so lucky to have Shakina in this because she is musical theater. She started Musical Theatre Factory and has launched so many people. Shakina is the magical center. It was important for us—with this break [the series took some time after Jeffrey Tambor exited the show]—to have a trans woman kind of inhabit Maura if we could have that luxury. Because there's a slight resemblance to Maura, it was just sort of a happy accident. We didn't really need anybody to look exactly like these characters, but there's a slight resemblance, and she knows that. She was able to step in when the process needed her. I don't think we could have done this entire thing the way we did it without her. We made her a very central force. If you're doing theater, it just takes the whole community to be thinking in the same direction and hoping for the same thing. We were able to kind of dream and build something together, and she was a big part of that. She helped in the writing; she produced, and it was great to bring her in.

I was so excited to see Jo Lampert, Lesli Margherita and Erik Liberman play the “fake Pfeffs.” What was it like bringing them into the finale?
When we were looking at a fifth season, and we were going to do an entire season arc, we had tapped those three: Leslie, Eric and Jo. I had started these shows at Joe's Pub, and we were also auditioning these guys for a possible fifth season. So, they started learning songs before the cast did, because I had cast them as Ari, Sarah and Josh, just to sing through some songs and perform with me at Joe's Pub. There's so much great talent. But I loved how the three of them kind of made a version of the family. We actually did it with Jackie Hoffman. Jackie Hoffman played Shelly, and Shakina play Maura in the songs. We just kind of reached out to different people who we knew would have some excitement about it. They held the songs, and they were a real great backbone.

Do you think musical theater is an outlet to heal from pain and grief?
Oh, a hundred, a hundred, a hundred percent. Music was accessed to heal. Music and singing accesses emotion because we know words simply can't. I think that was part of it. It wasn't just, "Let's do a musical." It was like, "We need to heal together; we want to sing together. This feels good. This feels really good to dance and sing."

Were there any specific songs that the cast was able to use in the process of healing?
There wasn't like one song that did it for them. I think it was an amalgam of all of it. Obviously, “Joyocaust” is this way of us also saying, you know, as a trans community, as a show community, as a world community, as a Jewish community, as an oppressed community, how can we take all of the forces, the dark forces, and claim it, turn it upside down and find a channel to have joy. The last couple of years for our community was pretty dark. We were just finding our way back to the show. So, the music really helped in that way.

Could you expand anymore about the staged future of the Pfefferman family?
A stage version is in the works and would be more parallel with the simple story of what the first season was, where a parent acknowledges their truth of their gender and comes out and how it affects the family. It would obviously be the Pfefferman characters with possible satellites that we all know and love. We’re working on the structuring and what the music would sound like now. My fantasy would tonally be like somewhere between The Producers and Fun Home.

Transparent star Alexandra Billings was announced this week to be Broadway’s next Madame Morrible in Wicked. What’s your reaction to that news?
Alexandra is like... She's kinda not on this earth to me. She's a teacher, she's a leader, she's a spirit. She has so much heart and also this is so in her to be in a musical on Broadway. She has all the chops and all of the charisma and all of the things you need to actually be a Broadway star. She's followed the careers of her heroes like Patti LuPone and Bette Midler and all of those people. Broadway is hallowed ground for so many of us—myself included. I feel like the chance to work [on Broadway] will be a dream come true for me. I think this is a dream come true for her. I'm so happy for her, and, of course, we'll go out and see it!