From Patti and Pedro to Sherie and Sher, Jeffrey Lane's Inspirations Come Together in Women on the Verge
About the author:
When we asked librettist Jeffrey Lane to write about the origins of his eagerly awaited new musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, he surprised us by tracing no less than six inspirations and several more uncanny encounters with stagefolk who ended up working on Lincoln Center Theater’s production of the show. (The first preview is set for October 8 at the newly renovated Belasco Theatre.) Before making his Broadway debut five years ago with the Tony-nominated book of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Lane won multiple Emmys as a writer and producer of Mad About You, several Tony Awards telecasts and lots more. After reading his Women on the Verge timeline, we’re convinced that it is possible for one person’s passions to come together on stage in a wonderful way, just as Jeffrey Lane’s did!
One of the glories of the films of Pedro Almodovar is his seemingly effortless ability to recognize the wild improbabilities of life and present them as if they were the most natural thing in the world.
Winter 1979: I’m working my first job as a gofer on the daytime TV show Ryan's Hope. On a very impractical whim, I stop by the Broadway Theatre on my way back from a script run and buy a last minute full-price cancellation ticket for a whopping $27 (about 1/3 of my weekly salary.) The show is Evita, the star Patti LuPone, and the performance that night is more than worth the long walk home afterwards to save on the subway fare.
Fall 1988: I go to see a new movie comedy called Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which has just opened in the Lincoln Square art theaters. What astonishes me was how its young Spanish writer/director somehow manages to take all the elements of classic American screwball comedy and French farce and filter it through a style and vision that rearranges it into a new and original work that was like nothing I've ever seen before.
Fall 2000: I'm sitting on my couch in L.A. and watching a videotape a friend has sent me from New York. It contains a number from a new musical based on The Full Monty. I've never heard of the composer/lyricist, David Yazbek before (although I later found out he was on the AV Squad at Brown University with my brother Eric). Patrick Wilson and John Conlee are singing a song about what it means to be a “Man.” One of the lyrics states, “And when the beef comes out you do the carvin'/You hate Tom Cruise, but you love Lee Marvin.” This guy makes me laugh out loud and is clearly a little improbable himself.
Spring 2005: I'm sitting in the Vivian Beaumont watching a new musical produced by Lincoln Center Theater and based on the novel The Light in the Piazza. The show begins, and the beauty of those opening moments is one of those miracles in the theater when the music, the story, the design, cast and director who has brought them all together somehow just work in a way that leaves you speechless.
Winter 2006:. I'm backstage in Sherie Rene Scott's dressing room during intermission of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Her friend and dresser, Mel Hansen, mentions that she's just seen that same 1988 Spanish comedy and thinks it would make a good musical. I don't mention that I've been trying to get the rights for a year. I do look at Sherie and think, “Hmm...”
Summer 2008: I'm at a performance of Passing Strange in the Belasco Theatre. The person sitting in front of me is Brian Stokes Mitchell, with whom I'd done a workshop a few years before. He asks what I'm working on. I tell him I can't say yet. He says, “Okay,” wishes me well, and we sit down, waiting for the show to begin. Again I think...
Fall 2010: I'm back in the Belasco Theatre, sitting in tech rehearsals, writing this article. We're putting together a new musical based on Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
At one point during the workshops at Lincoln Center Theater, I found myself watching the film again, only this time with its director and the musical's entire creative team back in his hotel room as he gave us the gift of his live scene-by-scene commentary—sort of the ultimate DVD bonus extra.
The composer is David Yazbek, the guy whose lyrics made me laugh out loud 10 years ago and 3,000 miles away.
Patti LuPone is up there rehearsing a scene with Sherie Rene Scott. Brian Stokes Mitchell is sitting two rows over. De'Adre Aziza, whom I first saw onstage in Passing Strange, is about to make her entrance.
The director guiding us all is Bart Sher, who (along with our costume designer Cathy Zuber and set designer Michael Yeargen) created those astonishing opening moments in Piazza.
Sometimes life does make some kind of crazy sense. Or we're just all living in the world of Almodovar.
