Fresh off ‘Frozen,’ Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez prepare a new musical
The songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez are rushing to catch a performance. It’s just 10 days until the first previewof their new musical, “Up Here,” at La Jolla Playhouse, and the pressure is on.
This is, after all, their first major project on the heels of the blockbuster Disney film “Frozen,” for which they won an Academy Award for the ubiquitous anthem “Let It Go.” That Oscar sits on an unassuming shelf in the basement of their Brooklyn home, alongside their Emmys, Grammys, and Lopez’s Tony Awards for “Avenue Q” and “The Book of Mormon.”
Expectations may be high for their new musical, which starts preview performances Tuesday, but right now they’re scrambling to get to the summer camp recital of their daughter Annie, 6, to see her perform the Meghan Trainor song “Dear Future Husband.” Later that afternoon, their daughter Katie, 10, has a camp show of her own.
“Our kids come first, and we really put them at the top of our priority list,” Lopez said. Even if that means stepping away for a couple hours from the show they have nurtured for the last eight years.
“Up Here” was born on a slip of paper Lopez used to jot down ideas for possible musicals after he graduated from Yale in 1997. “I thought it would be really cool to show the world the inner life of someone like me, who doesn’t have a huge personality, who deals with some personal demons and is a little bit shy and a little awkward when you first get to knowme,” he said.
But for nearly a decade, it remained stashed away. In the meantime, there was much to keep them busy: Lopez went on to work on “Avenue Q” with Jeff Whitty and Jeff Marx, and “The Book of Mormon,” with the “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, while Anderson-Lopez wrote an off-Broadway musical, “In Transit.” Together they wrote new songs for the children’s TV series “Wonder Pets!”
And then came “Frozen,” the Disney movie that introduced the world to sisters Elsa and Anna, to Olaf the snowman — and to the Lopezes themselves.
“We loved doing ‘Frozen,’” Lopez said. “But this project obviously predates ‘Frozen,’ and it’s the most personal project thatwe have.”
The romantic comedy revolves around an introverted computer technician named Dan (the newcomer Matt Bittner) and an extroverted T-shirt designer named Lindsay (BetsyWolfe) as they enter into a relationship constantly interrupted by competing voices inside Dan’s head.
“The story is really a love triangle between a guy, a girl and his brain,” Lopez explained.
It’s an experiment in psychology, whimsy, and, to some extent, autobiography. (Pixar’s new “Inside Out” has a somewhat similar conceit, as do a flurry of other musicals in development.)
“It’s this dialogue between the epic world of our feelings and thoughts and very small, mundane steps in any relationships, even just making a phone call after you’ve met for the first time,” Anderson-Lopez explained. “When it happens to you, it feels epic.”
But while elements of “Up Here” were plucked from the Lopezes’ lives, and their personalities resemble those of their characters (hers ebullient, his more reflective), they insist it is not based on them. (Except for the character of Lindsay’s brother, who is definitely based on Anderson-Lopez’s sibling, they agree.)
The Lopezes, who met at a BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop in 1999 and married about four years later, had talked about collaborating on the show for years, but it wasn’t until 2007 when things really started moving. They met with the director Alex Timbers, who would later go on to stage “Peter and the Starcatcher” and “Rocky,” and he signed on that day.
“These were characters that I recognized, and it had a very larger-than-life theatrical approach to very universal ideas,” he said.
In 2008, following “The Book of Mormon,” the couple turned their attention back to their long-gestating musical. The first reading took place with just three actors in a spare room, stopping between lines for Lopez to play songs from his laptop. By 2010, they held their first workshop performance, and realized they needed a full staging to visualize the show.
It was Timbers who pitched the idea of doing the musical at La Jolla, where he had staged “Peter and the Starcatcher” in 2009. Nestled on a woodsy campus just outside the San Diego city limits, the theater is far from the glare of New York, though with a track record of sending musicals to Broadway, some successful (“Jersey Boys”), some less so (“Doctor Zhivago”).
For the creative team, one of the challenges of the musical, which features a cast of 22 and a 10-piece orchestra, has been finding ways for the audience to visualize what is going on inside Dan’s head as forces try to pull him in one direction or another.
To do this, they created a world exploding with color, playful costumes, animated projections, tap-dancing cactuses and singing miners. The score incorporates a wealth of music influences, from Stravinsky to the Beatles and the Monkees to Sondheim and Sara Bareilles.
“There are cartoons in your head, and there are very intricate feelings in your head, and that’s sort of why you can have all these different styles in one score,” Lopez said.
While the Broadway producer Scott Sanders has put enhancement money into the La Jolla production, Timbers emphasized that the musical is still very much in development. He said he’s even rushed the rehearsal schedule so the creators could see their individual work combined as a whole.
If the Lopezes are at all nervous, it doesn’t show. They joke back and forth, calmly talking about the changes they expect to make before the Aug. 9 opening.
Once they finish, they’re on to the next of numerous projects, including a stage adaptation of “Frozen,” for which they’re writing about a dozen new songs.
There will probably be a few more summer camp commitments, too.
“You hope that you can have time to do the work and listen and get enough sleep and remember to buy the baloney for the kids’ sandwiches,” Anderson-Lopez said. “Whether ‘Up Here’ goes well or not, that’s our touchstone: Life continues.”
Lopez added, “For good or bad, we’re going to be buying baloney.”