Tony-Nominated Scribe Robert Horn on Updating Tootsie for Broadway & His History with Ariana Grande

Tootsie hit cinemas in 1982 and became an instant success for the movie's star Dustin Hoffman and won Jessica Lange her first Oscar. Now, the acclaimed movie has become a big Broadway musical written by newly minted Tony nominee Robert Horn. "It's been a whirlwind. I grew up here in New York wanting to be a playwright, wanting to be in theater and couldn’t get a job to save my life," Horn said to Paul Wontorek in a recent interview on Broadway.com's #LiveAtFive. "I went on to L.A. and had this other career [in television] and finally made my way back to New York. This is all I've ever wanted to do. This is really my passion." 

Horn had to take calculated steps to get his stage adaptation right: "The movie existed in a time when the culture was very different; it worked perfectly for that time, but I knew those characters wouldn’t translate to the culture we're living in now," he said. " I didn’t want to write Julie Nichols as character that found her empowerment through a man dressed as a woman. I wanted the character of Michael Dorsey to find remorse and grow as a person through spending time with a strong woman who was confident. I knew I needed to change that from the movie. We had to honor the DNA of the movie but if we were precious about it, it wouldn’t work."

The scribe credits Tootsie's success to his fellow Tony-nominated collaborators: director Scott Ellis, composer David Yazbek and choreographer Denis Jones. "I was able to write that Michael [Dorsey] and Jeff [Slater] relationship based on David [Yazbek] and I. I never thought I would fall in love with a straight man," Horn said. "No one does this alone. Our entire creative team had daily conversations. It was very important that we opened up our ears and minds to the experiences we don’t have and figure out how we can write the humanity of the show. For the specificity of the characters, we really had to educate ourselves and be aware of the sensitivities."

Tootsie is not Horn's first Broadway credit, he wrote the book for 13 the Musical, which hit the stage in 2008. Though the show only played Broadway for 100 performances, it notably kicked-off the career of one of its young stars: Ariana Grande. "Her roots are in theater. Her heart is still here," Horn said about the Grammy-winning pop star. "So many of the qualities that she had then, she still has now. She has a huge heart. She's an activist and a feminist and funny and sweet, and I am so proud of her." Will audiences ever have a chance to revisit the exuberance of 13, which featured a score by Jason Robert Brown and a book by Horn co-written with Dan Elish? "There is some 13 news that is on the horizon," Horn said.  

Be sure to catch Tootsie, now playing at the Marquis Theatre.

Watch the full #LiveAtFive episode below!