![]() And The Directors Guild, of which I am president, has honored her with a courage award. Stephen Schwartz: I am getting ready to visit Trumbull, Conn., because a high school there has a drama troupe run by a girl who very bravely last year resisted censorship on their production of Rent. John Moore: So where did I find you today? He has three Academy Awards, four Grammy Awards, four Drama Desk Awards and, shockingly, no Tony Awards. Schwartz, who has contributed to Wicked, Godspell, Children of Eden and many more, is a member of the Theatre Hall of Fame and president of the Dramatists Guild. Read more about this and more in this exclusive, expansive interview with one of the leading figures in American theatre history. “And Roger Hirson, who was in his 40s when we opened, may have been the Charlemagne character.” “Bob’s was the more worldly-wise point of view,” Schwartz said. He’s just so positive and so hard-working and he keeps an innocent eye. That was absolutely the Stephen Schwartz that I got to know through this production. And then you have is the innocent side of Pippin: The loving family man, the ‘Corner of the Sky” Pippin. “When you look at the sexuality and the seduction and the violence and the eroticism of the piece,” Snyder said, “ … then we are really looking at a retrospective of Fosse’s life. “I think more and more that the character of Pippin became a great deal like me at that time.”īut what became intriguingly clear to Circus Creator Gypsy Snyder, who had never seen Pippin before the recent revival, is that Fosse is the Leading Player. Schwartz says it’s “absolutely accurate” to suggest that, essentially, he is Pippin, “particularly in talking about me at age 24,” he said. Fosse brought in Ben Vereen, fresh off his electric performance in Jesus Christ Superstar, to play the Leading Player, a narrator of sorts who leads Pippin down many dangerous roads. Over the next seven years, the Pippinproject came to reflect Schwartz’s own journey as a young man in his 20s.įosse, then 47, agreed to direct and choreograph Pippin on Broadway if allowed to make the story more dark and sophisticated. Pippin began as a 17-year-old Schwartz’s spin-off of The Lion in Winter, a play about the foibles of King Henry II in 1183. And consequently, I think the story is better told.” “Frankly, I think Diane is a better director of scenes and actors than Bob Fosse was. “But I think I can speak for Roger when I say we have been totally won over,” Schwartz said. Schwartz and Hinson were apprehensive at first. Her new idea? The original mysterious troupe would now be a circus family performing the story of Pippin. Now the young prince’s quest for meaning would be a death-defying one, set against live and often breathtaking acrobatics. And that was quite difficult to come by.”Įnter Diane Paulus, the groundbreaking director who brought the Vietnam musical Hair back to explosive life on Broadway in 2009. “So it really would need a concept that was going to overcome all that without obliterating the show. “The Fosse choreography is so iconic, and the performance of Ben Vereen (as the Leading Player) was so indelible, even to people who didn’t actually see it,” Schwartz said. ![]() ![]() “And none of the new approaches made much sense to us.”Īny revival would bring big challenges. “Frankly, I think merely reproducing the original - if that were even possible - would have felt quite dated,” Schwartz said. Hirson have been approached dozens of times over the years by artists wanting to revisit Pippin. But now at age 66, Schwartz added, “I joke that I have ironically become the defender of Bob’s vision.” “There were specific choices Bob made that I honestly thought were heavy-handed and crude, and not in a good way,” Schwartz said. “I think Bob would be thrilled with this,” said Schwartz, the composer who 40 years ago openly questioned the darkness and overindulgence that Fosse brought to Schwartz’s sweet story of a naïve boy searching for meaning in his life. ![]() Last year, a significantly reimagined Pippin won the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival, and its new national touring production will launching in Denver on Sept. Fosse was Schwartz’s legendary collaborator on the musical Pippin, which in war-torn 1972 brought a surreal collision of violence, innocence and sexuality to the Broadway stage.įosse, known for his provocative choreography and fiery temper, died in 1987. Stephen Schwartz likes to joke that somewhere, “Bob Fosse is surely looking up and laughing.” ![]() This interview was originally conducted by Denver Center senior arts journalist John Moore. Broadway In Chicago Illinois High School Musical Theatre Awards.Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. ![]()
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