Shakespeare and silliness — with songs
What would it be like to be a playwright in Elizabethan England vying for the spotlight against William Shakespeare? And,what if Shakespeare were the Tudor equivalent of a modern-day rock star, complete with giant ego and adoring fans?
Throw in a few songs and you just might come up with “Something Rotten!,” a loving spoof of Broadway musicals and Shakespeare that opens Tuesday at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.
Of course, it helps if you’re a good buddy of Kevin McCollum, the risk-taking producer behind the Tony Award-winning “In the Heights,” “Avenue Q” and “Rent.”
Brothers Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick wrote the musical’s score. Karey collaborated on the book with British comic author John O’Farrell. None had written a musical before.
The Kirkpatricks had been kicking around ideas for 15 years when Karey solicited McCollum’s advice in 2010 about how to pitch their musical.
Karey Kirkpatrick, 53, is a screenwriter and director best known for “James and the Giant Peach,” “Chicken Run” and “Over the Hedge.” Wayne Kirkpatrick, 56, is a record producer and the songwriter behind tunes such as Eric Clapton’s “Change the World” and Garth Brooks’ “Wrapped Up in You.”
Karey and McCollum have been friends since they met 35 years ago, when McCollum was a young actor singing at a Disney World supper club and Karey was performing with an improv street theater group at Epcot.
McCollum offered not just advice but encouragement.
“Look at my shows,” McCollum
said from New York. “I don’t
have any fear when it comes to people not having been on Broadway before. I advocate for talent.”
When the Kirkpatricks met with the producer they had a concept and five songs.
“I thought it was a funny idea — a backstage musical about the world’s first musical set in Shakespeare’s time,” McCollum said.
In the show, Nick Bottom, who runs a theater company with his brother Nigel, consults a soothsayer about what the next big thing in theater will be, so that he can best Shakespeare — whom he envies and detests. When the soothsayer tells him about a show where people sing and dance, he’s incredulous, but he goes for it anyway.
McCollum brought in director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw, whose shows include “The Book of Mormon,” “Aladdin,” “The Drowsy Chaperone” and Monty Python’s “Spamalot.”
At that point, “it was, can we do this?” Wayne recalled. The fear of falling on his face was “a daily thought,” he said.
He quickly learned that writing for musical theater is different from composing Billboard chart-toppers. Records are an audio experience, but “when you’re writing for theater it’s equally a visual experience,” he said. “Just because the song works well coming through the speakers doesn’t mean it will work on stage.”
Nicholaw became like a fourth collaborator, contributing ideas from a veteran showman’s point of view, Wayne said.
For example, he turned “A Musical,” originally a modest tune for the moment when the soothsayer relates his vision, into a full-scale showstopper.
At his suggestion, the brothers wrote a bouncy new chorus. Nicholaw and others piled on more humorous references to popular musicals, added a chorus line number and dressed up the scene with feather fans and an arched backdrop.
At another point in the show, Shakespeare swans in and embarks on a calland-response recitation of his greatest hit sonnets with his fans.
The musical had a 20-month run on Broadway and racked up 10 Tony nominations before beginning a national tour in January 2017. Wayne said he’s thrilled to be embarking on a new chapter in his career.
The story isn’t over. The brothers, O’Farrell and McCollum are teaming up on another musical.