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WPCNR STAGE DOOR. By John F. Bailey. December 28, 2005: Along about this time at Westchester Broadway Theatre, the cast of Are We There Yet? the musical review that has its New York area premier this evening at the dinner Theatre for a four week run, are preparing. Meanwhile, its writers know they have a show that strikes a chord with audiences. The Wichita Eagle called it “such a fresh, rib-tickling, heart-touching romp- that you’ll leave the Theatre humming and feeling better about being human.”
WPCNR sat down with “The Writers” Tuesday afternoon at the WBT at a break in rehearsal to get their story of this “hit” coming in from the road.
The Writers on stage at Westchester Broadway Theatre: Ray Roderick, left, (who also directs the show and got his Equity Card in 1981 at WBT’s production of Oliver!), Cheryl Stern, and Jim Hindman — Creators of Are We There Yet? — which premiers tonight for the first time in the New York area at Westchester Broadway Theatre. Photo, WPCNR StageCam.
That’s because most of the new musical — created just 18 months ago — is based on true life stories compiled by its three writers: Jim Hindman, Ray Roderick (tonight’s director), and Cheryl Stern, who together weaved the “My Family’s True Story(ies)” into a 20 Sketch, 26 song review that The Sun-Sentinal of South Florida said when it ran last summer in Coral Gables, “The pace is strong and steady, as the material swings between humor and pathos, and, though staged as a light diverson, their sketches can be surprisingly poignant and moving.”
WPCNR: How did you come up with the idea for the show?
Jim Hindman: We were looking at the idea of the family and how the family over time has changed and how one defines a family. Some people, their pets become their children. There’s a family at work. There’s the internet family. People who are sports fans become a family. All these different extreme ways we define a family. We wanted to explore that and not only the whole idea of family values, but what is a family now, and how do we hold onto that in that everchanging world and how through the eyes of a family, how in our lives, which is how we got the title, Are We There Yet? Is that we say, “As soon as I get married, I’ll be there.” “As soon as we get the kid to college, I’ll be there,” “As soon as I get this, I’ll be there.”
But, we’re never there, because you do it all the way to retirement. Well, as soon as I retire, and move to Florida then are you there? When is ever there? So that is the journey we’re exploring with the show and that’s where we came up with the idea and said well let’s explore that and do a bunch of funny vignettes that try and reflect that.
WPCNR TO Cheryl: How did you get into it?
Cheryl Stern: Jim and I have collaborated before and I’ve collaborated on a piece called Christmas Survival Guide. I was a contributing writer to that piece which was done here a couple of years ago. We were kicking around the idea of doing a new review and the idea was exciting to us about the contemporary American Family. Where are we in the 21st century, how do we define ourselves today as opposed to how we defined ourselves 50 years ago.
I’ve been very interested in this whole looking at how we created today extraordinary families, through adoption, interfaith marriages, and people having children. We looked at it sort of outside the box as sort of an atypical American family and a typical American family, and the stuff that touches all of us..
Also, all these stories (dramatized in Are We There Yet?) are based on true stories, things that really happened. They are stories people gave us that we either knew from our own families or friends who we interviewed, various people we interviewed. We wanted to just look at the whole spectrum. The whole point of all of these stories is we hope everybody sees themselves in it. Each one of these stories has got something for everybody.
WPCNR: How long did it take you to write it?
JIM: A year and a half a go we had the idea. Then after six or seven months we had our first little workshop thing in Wichita. (Editor’s Note: ) and so we hurried and got a version of it up and got that together. It’s been a year and a half we’ve been working on it and exploring and getting all the research together.
WPCNR: How do you structure the various duties?
Cheryl: Primarily I write the lyrics, Jim writes the sketches, and Ray contrinutes on all fronts and we sort of work back and forth, writing and editing one another. We created an outline for the show, some ideas we had about things that had happened to us or people we knew and we created that outline and we went in and starting writing scenes and organizing them into this review format that we’re all kind of familiar with. We’ve all sort of lived it as actors, performers. Both Ray and I have been in “I love you. You’re Perfect. Now Change.” which was a long-running off-Broadway hit. So we used ILYYPNW as a bit of a role model for this piece and then went off on our own and developed and hopefully created something that’s complete original.”
WPCNR: How did you sell it to Westchester Broadway Theatre?
JIM – We did a little version down in Florida at the Broward Stage Door (Coral Gables), and two or three people came down to see it. By intermission, they said, they wanted to do this, because as Cheryl had mentioned, it’s all true stories, and what we added into the show, and what the audiences here (beginning tonight) will contribute as well, is that we will tell people’s stories at the end of the night. If people will write them down or send them to our website, www.miracleor2.com, and we are going to read them before or after or during intermission. I do not know exactly how we’re going to do it here. People will just have to come and see.
Cheryl: They may not be read at that show, but maybe at another one (Are We There Yet? Plays through January 28. )Or you may see it on the internet. There’s a part in the show where they read a story every night. Everybody’s family is important, and everybody’s
real stories are interesting. It’s just like something that may have happened in your life?
WPCNR: How many stories did you have to choose from for the work?
CHERYL: Dozens. We just kept writing
JIM: Some kind of melded into one, or as time went on, some didn’t speak, some didn’t “sing,” You had to find ones that did sing, so you could make a number about it or spoke strong enough that you wanted to write a monolog or a scene. They sort of found themselves.
WPCNR: How did the show play in Florida?
CHERYL: We were a big hit in Florida (running six weeks). We had a good older community in the summer, but the younger audiences on the weekend and we are very excited that it speaks to many generations. People in their 20s up through their 80s.
WPCNR: Did you make some cuts, additons?
Jim: We cut a couple of numbers, added a few different things.
WPCNR: How do you sell the show?
Ray Roderick (Director-Writer) : It’s in 10 or 12 theatres all over the country. And we have a production Rhode Island coming up. We’re heading to Springfield, Mass from here. Texas in March. Most of the times it’s a fresh company depending on where it is, depending on whether the theatre itself is producing it or our company is producing it. If the theatre wants the show and us to provide the show, we can. But traditionally, they’ll produce it themselves.
The early productions I’ve directed. Probably if we brought the show to New York or to Chicago there’s a good chance I would try to direct it, only because we would all want to be involved creatively to be sure those productions are of a certain level and we had control of it, and made certain someone did not make the wrong choices.
There’s already been 8 directors of this show. It’s been in Alabama, Louisiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida, Kansas. This is the first production in the New York area.
WPCNR: How’s the show coming for tonight?
Ray: We’re on track. We’re where we ought to be because this is such a tight turn around here. We added our band Tuesday night for the first time. We’re filtering our costumes in. I think we’re. We’re a little behind technically, but slightly ahead overall.
WPCNR: Tell Mr. and Mrs. White Plains about your actors
Ray: We have an astoundingly talented group of actors. A cast of four, Duke Lafoon, Susan Haefner, Beverly Ward and Kevin Pariseau. It’s a little like I Love You. You’re Perfect. Now Change, in terms of everybody playing a multitude of parts, singing in a variety of styles, and their comedic skills have to be very sharp because it’s kind of like sketch comedy meets original song, and some of the song is kind of parody takeoffs, like there’s a take-off on a Fosse number, there’s a Lieber & Stoller number, there are familiar themes meeting familiar styles.
They have to be adept in all of those styles, a rock n roll style and also old-fashioned. There’s a lot of different places they have to go. They love it.
Cheryl: Because they’re asked to play so many different characters, these are all triple-threats. They all sing and dance wonderfully. Often, as an actor you’re asked to create one role a night. In this show each is asked to create 30 roles each. So they’re asked to flip very quickly from one character to another, and they’re all terrific. You’re really a chameleon all night.
WPCNR: Why is it something for everyone?
Cheryl: We were hoping to show the whole spectrum of what it’s like to be in a family, from newlyweds, young moms, dads, divorce and getting married again. We have an older man, Bernie Buffet who sings about the second time around, he in his 80s and still dating. There is something for everyone in the show.
WPCNR: Does it connect?
Jim: We have everything from a baby to people retiring to move to Florida.
Ray: You can definitely relate.
Jim.: The best compliment we got was that people would come up to us and say even it it wasn’t them, it was someone they knew. Oh, there’s my cousin Ted, or there’s my Aunt Shirley. So they could relate to all the different people even though they had not gone through that scenario themselves.
Cheryl: You can’t make this up. It’s true, the most richest, most wonderful stories come from what’s true. There’s a lovely sequence in the second act, where there’s a guy who’s gotten divorced, and he’s never dated because he married his high school sweetheart. We actually based that on Ray’s personal story.
The show begins in a car and it comes full circle. By the end of the night, all sorts of things happen. There’s a baby doing a rap. And in the end the story comes full circle when the family is retiring to Florida. It’s the whole cycle of life.
Jim: We do wind our way chronologically, starting with birth and ending with retirement. There are 20 sketches and 26 songs.
WPCNR: What are your hopes for it in the future?
Jim: I think the main thing is to reach as many people as we can. Because of the way shows are being created in New York not all the shows that are being created in New York are really right for the traditional demographic of the subscription-based house. One of the reasons we wrote this show was to not think in terms of we want to open this show on Broadway or Off-Broadway, but we want this to strike a nerve out there in the world, across the country.
We wrote this show not for the New York critics, not for the New York audience, but for an across the board American audience. Really holding a mirror up to America.
That’s why this thing has really grown dramatically. Our fIrst production was last spring, less than a year ago. For to have this many productions that quickly, and the notices we’ve gotten, the momentum we’ve created is rather astounding. We haven’t gone to NY, and we will go to New York when the time is right.
In the meantime our goal is to get this product to theatres who really need this kind of product. The subscription theatres can’t do the shows that are coming out of Off-Broadway, it’s just not possible.
WPCNR: How Do You Promote the Show?
Ray: It’s a very small community the world of theatre, and everybody talks to everybody, so when they find out there’s a new show that’s successful in a theatre, they start talking with each other. So the theatre producers and artistic directors start talking to one another and one thing leads to another.
Are We There Yet? Opens this evening and runs through January 28 at the WBT.
For information, on dinner, showtimes and prices, contact 914-592-2222
