Tina Landau on Redwood Opinions and Reviving Floyd Collins

Director and creator Tina Landau in rehearsals for the Broadway revival of Floyd Collins. “My body of labor has been a delicate replicate reduction to myself,” she says.
Photo: Marc J. Franklin

In the semi-twilight of tech rehearsal at the cavernous Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Middle, Tina Landau is scrutinizing the ride of lanterns. Unassuming in a flannel shirt and beanie, the director’s looking out at her ensemble work by a scene alternate of Floyd Collins, the musical she wrote three decades ago with composer Adam Guettel about the Kentucky explorer who modified into trapped in a cave and impressed a 1920s media circus. The direct had a quick urge Off Broadway in 1996, then lived on with a little national tour and a beloved solid recording. It’s been produced round the country and internationally since but now now not all over again in Fresh York Metropolis till now. On this March afternoon, it’s unruffled becoming what it can well well presumably be on Broadway: Crew participants device up to Landau to talk about the route of of making the ground resemble precise grime and dust, whether a test-your-power carnival machine could well presumably also additionally be struck in time with the track, as smartly as drafts of a digital rendering of the sky that will grace the LED display in the reduction of the stage. “The thing I’ve known about this direct from the originate,” she tells me, “is the more we are attempting to be literal, the less it works.” Floyd spends a lot of the ride stuck underground, a pickle rendered figuratively by having the actor Jeremy Jordan confined to a chaise longue–esque construction integrated into the leisure of the rocky stage.

Landau begins taking into consideration how the ensemble will navigate a alternate into yet another scene at the encampment that has sprung up round Floyd’s entrapment. “The final time we did this transition, it felt a runt transition-y,” she publicizes by a mic, “as against seeing the which device of these characters appealing by the dispute, being purposeful. We desire to look a passage of time at the positioning.” As a director, Landau is indispensable for her work with dispute — she’s co-written a e book on the thought of Viewpoints, a ride-basically basically basically based theatrical notice — even though she’s also taken the helm of colossal Broadway musicals. Landau introduced SpongeBob to Broadway, and earned a Tony nomination, whereas she’s also directed on a abnormal foundation at Steppenwolf. “For years, I felt I had a carve up personality,” she says, “And I’m a Gemini, so it used to be appropriate.”

This spring, Landau is taking on two musicals actual now and has written the e book for every and each. Genuine days sooner than jumping into rehearsal for Floyd Collins, which opens on April 21, she debuted Redwood, starring Idina Menzel, a semi-autobiographical half a couple of woman who works by a private tragedy by discovering herself in the California woodland. Landau found the reveals remark to every a host of in hideous methods. One goes up to the cover; the a host of down to the depths. Both reckon with loneliness and connection. Landau’s unruffled hanging together the links and disjunctions.

There hasn’t been a revival of Floyd Collins in Fresh York since its premiere in 1996 since you and Adam held on to the rights. What used to be it about this direct that made you so sure you desired to device reduction to it?
The contemporary urge at Playwrights Horizons used to be so short. We had been fortunate in 1999 to whole a shrimp national tour, and we rewrote some of it and added a recent track, but we ended that feeling treasure we weren’t done yet. From early on, talk of Lincoln Middle came up and I had this image of doing the direct at this theater. We spoke with artistic director André Bishop about it over time, but Adam namely desired to be certain he had a host of reveals in space sooner than he went reduction to Floyd. We did salvage a lot of provides from a host of parents who desired to negate it, but Adam used to be gargantuan in that he said, “No, it’s Tina’s direct.” It hasn’t been vastly done in a host of locations, but it has over the decades developed a cult following.

It is best to delight in also been in the center of rising Redwood when the offer for Floyd came up.
I undergo in tips the second we received observe that André desired to schedule Floyd for his closing production and getting observe the sigh identical week that we had a theater for Redwood. When I first received the 2 schedules, they opened the identical week. I fought for four days off between Redwood opening and the originate up of Floyd.

With Redwood, you built the direct with a star in Idina Menzel, so that used to be role from the originate up. What had been you procuring for in casting Floyd?
Casting took awhile, and it modified into clear when we started that the role of Floyd used to be more annoying than even we had remembered. You’re going to love a serious, nuanced, deep, and funny actor, and the vocal calls for are by the roof. There are now now not many folk who could well presumably insist it, so I thank my lucky stars daily that it’s Jeremy Jordan. I didn’t know at the time what the physical calls for had been going to ivolve. The outlet number, “The Name,” entails a lot of mountain climbing and sliding and acrobatics and descending a rope. Jeremy’s a monkey. He will climb on and by the leisure — he’s treasure Floyd.

While you’re staging the direct now, how worthy does your contemporary version of it follow your, I sigh, spatial memory?
There had been sure key approaches that had been phase of the distinctive production that I knew from the originate had been going to device reduction alive all over again. I had an idea about our bodies and silhouettes against the sky, and I knew I was keeping that. And there’s a sequence toward the finish known as “The Dream” whereby the solid emerges in all white. There had been also issues that had been a runt damaged and desired to be improved. In the predominant version, we had been decided to salvage every nuance and half of be taught we had done into it. The script because it’s written is in the trend some of these old college Rodgers and Hammersteins are where the dialect is written in. It’s very idiom-heavy. I’ve done a whole pass on the script to streamline and now now not delight in that stuff salvage in the trend.

However we also did issues in the distinctive writing and the enchancment because we had been in our 20s, knew no higher, and didn’t care what somebody thought. This day, each and each of us in actuality feel treasure, Would we be as mettlesome now? We decided to originate a direct with a 14-minute trend of a particular person mountain climbing solo actual into a cave. What had been we thinking?

“The thing I’ve known about this direct from the originate is the more we are attempting to be literal, the less it works,” Landau says of Floyd Collins.
Photo: Joan Marcus

Redwood is also about an individual going off into nature, and in SpongeBob as in Floyd, there’s a ship-up of a media circus. How conscious are you of these kinds of routine subject matters?
My passion takes me, stylistically, in very a host of instructions, but there are a lot of core subject matters and echoes. My body of labor has been a delicate replicate reduction to myself. The predominant pattern I identified, years and years ago, used to be that I was the least bit times telling in some agree with the memoir of an outsider, a particular person and their relationship to society — each and each the loneliness and the liberty of that lope. I sigh I delight in felt that manner my whole life. When I went to preschool, I sat in a nook and drew on paper and would now now not refer to the a host of childhood. My oldsters thought there used to be one thing amiss, however the doctor said there used to be “nothing irascible with Tina. She is rising the enviornment she desires to be in.” By age 6, I was hanging on reveals in the basement. I was walking round announcing I desired to be a director. I don’t know where that came from.

Your oldsters had been film producers, so it is best to at the least delight in heard of directing as a profession.
And we did drag to the theater the whole time. I grew up on Broadway musicals, and it wasn’t till my teenage years and in undergrad at Yale that I steeped myself in additional avant-garde or experimental theater. Half of me used to be Broadway musicals, and half of of me used to be this unfamiliar a host of stuff. It took me a extraordinarily long time to delight in they would well well meet and be elated together. In college and highschool, I directed The Song Man and I directed Guys and Dolls. I don’t undergo in tips the thought for The Song Man precisely, but it had one thing to whole with Harold Hill being out of the memoir in a Brechtian manner and organising the memoir for us. It used to be one thing treasure that.

And likewise you directed a revival of Bells Are Ringing on Broadway in 2001, even though I’ve read you direct you regretted compromising your vision on that.
I had a extraordinarily clear and sturdy thought as soon as I went into it that gradually received watered down because I was younger and attempting to thrill legends of the industry. Searching back I desire I hadn’t done that, but it used to be all phase of my learning and rising.

You’ve been a member of Steppenwolf since 1997, which, from what I understand, had reached out attributable to an hobby in doing Floyd Collins.
Frank Galati, the director, came to glimpse Floyd at Playwrights after which known as the artistic director Martha Lavey and said, “Now we want to whole this musical at Steppenwolf.” We talked about it and it modified into clear to me that Steppenwolf at the time wasn’t geared up to whole a musical treasure this, namely since it desired to, as the least bit times, solid ensemble participants and it didn’t delight in the community to form and insist this particular musical. However Martha and I started speaking about what else I could well presumably discontinue.

It had, namely then, a popularity for doing realist drama, which isn’t necessarily your stock and trade.
My first direct at Steppenwolf used to be a Chuck Mee play known as Time to Burn and it wasn’t straight-up naturalism, but there had been naturalistic aspects to it. I undergo in tips thinking it can well well presumably even be a anguish because I’m going to be in a room with other folks who want to act round the kitchen sink and hit baseball bats and know what their motivation is, and I’m bringing in this ride methodology that I notice, explain, and write about known as Viewpoints. It’s now now not rather then working from the internal out, but it is moreover that — there are methods we are able to listen to and work with our our bodies to agree with ride onstage. However I’ll by no device forget our first Viewpoints session, as soon as I said to the company to give me two hours of an originate heart. There used to be an amazing Chicago actor named Mike Nussbaum who used to be in the direct and he raised his hand and said, “I realized one thing this day.” I was treasure, Oh no. He said, “That you simply must well well presumably presumably also explain an old dog contemporary methods.” I was talking with yet another ensemble member about Viewpoints and a host of performing ways, and what Steppenwolf aspired to and what Viewpoints aspired to had been the identical values. They’re about being intrepid, spontaneous, and the final purpose’s the identical as Meisner or Stanislavski. It’s supreme a vary of methods to salvage there.

What does it glimpse treasure if you occur to introduce Viewpoints in a rehearsal room?
I with out a doubt rob a sigh quantity of prescribed time to direct what the Viewpoints are and for my half introduce them and notice them. Then the hope is that over time the company begins integrating that into their work and the performance in an unselfconscious manner. I in actuality feel treasure that’s where we’ve gotten with the Floyd company. I the least bit times direct that phase of the deal is that we’re making use of a language to the issues actors discontinue organically. If there’s a range of parents onstage at Floyd, in most cases, rather then getting to remark, “Jack, transfer stage loyal two toes. Sally, device down one foot.” I can direct, “Spatial Relationship,” which is one among the Viewpoints, and in addition you’ll want to well presumably presumably watch the whole solid adjust and reconfigure according to their spatial relationship to every a host of.

That you simply must well well presumably presumably watch a lot of that at work in SpongeBob, which to me melded experimentation with this colossal industrial property. What did it in actuality feel treasure to delight in that device into Fresh York in 2017 and salvage this gargantuan serious reception?
It used to be releasing and joyous and no more about the serious reception. I’d drag reduction to the direct on a abnormal foundation to look the audiences’ journey of glee. SpongeBob used to be extraordinary because it had precise pattern time. Nickelodeon and our producers put their money where their mouth is by manner of “right here’s now now not a money cow. That is one thing we’re rising artistically.” Every workshop we did, and we did a lot of them, used to be taking into consideration a extraordinarily particular element of the direct. What does it mean to delight in a cartoon character drag onstage? What’s the track? It used to be over ten years that we labored on it at the least every year.

You received a Tony nomination for SpongeBob, and I can imagine a host of producers coming in with provides to whole identical work. Did it in actuality feel treasure a alternate in the profile of your profession?
Customarily I agree with, Well, if I supreme did that a host of musical I didn’t join to, I’d delight in a bigger, more profitable profession. However I’ve by no device been in a assign to whole that. When I’ve done initiatives I haven’t felt the deep motive for doing, I delight in gotten in miserable health and I stop them.

Bodily in miserable health?
That happened early on in my profession. Two or three reveals I needed to leave. I’m no actual at working at one thing that doesn’t in actuality feel actual and predominant to me. So I don’t undergo in tips if there had been more provides, but I’m so picky it didn’t in actuality feel treasure a pleasant contrast. I presumably supreme said no a runt more. Plus there used to be the pandemic. Anything else that can well well presumably also desire been cooking supreme stopped.

It used to be then that you simply and Idina started talking more seriously about Redwood.
We met round the time of Rent and Floyd Collins, which had been the identical season. I was shut with Jonathan Larson, and I was there the night they accomplished after he passed away. After that, I auditioned Idina a couple of times, and she says that when she first came to me with the premise of writing one thing about somebody in a tree, that used to be partially attributable to Floyd. She used to be treasure, Well, Tina knew easy methods to write a direct about somebody in one space. By the pandemic there had been shards of tips, but when we reunited we each and each agreed that we had been now now not drawn to these shards. We went in quest of a recent direct, and emblazoned internal of us used to be this crystal-clear image of a girl sitting in a tree. We had been each and each drawn to why that mattered to us, attempting to unravel that.

Idina Menzel in Redwood. “I’ve by no device done a direct that’s anywhere shut to straight away as personal as this,” Landau says.
Photo: Matthew Murphy

This came up in some of the reviews of Redwood, but whereas the direct’s a couple of particular person’s connection to the atmosphere, it’s now now not about native weather alternate or activism. She goes on an interior lope, processing her grief over a private loss. Turned into that intentional?
Sure, and I agree with that used to be phase of our alternate from our early musings, which had been a couple of more historical memoir about sprint companies and tree logging. After we came reduction together, we had been each and each more drawn to a more personal memoir. We didn’t know if it used to be going to be a one-particular person direct or a concert or an set up half with Idina singing in the center of it, and it slowly became one thing that’s a runt little bit of all this stuff. However yes, it’s the memoir of a girl’s transformation more than somebody learning about …

Peep, I’ll be candid and direct it: I was damage by a lot of the reviews. I can’t argue with somebody’s journey or taste and I’d by no device want to. There are other folks who cherished it and in actuality cherished it, and there are other folks who in actuality supreme direct it’s irascible. That used to be hideous to me. In some instances, I in actuality feel treasure my intentions had been supreme by hook or by crook now now not translated clearly, or by hook or by crook these other folks didn’t salvage what I thought I was doing.

You didn’t request that vary of enmity or love?
No. And I salvage a lot of mail, more than I ever delight in, about that direct. Of us are deeply moved by some aspect of it and in most cases apparently oblivious to a host of aspects of it. It’s in actuality about the atmosphere or it’s in actuality about grief or it’s in actuality about escaping city life. I sigh that’s a actual thing that participants salvage in it some reflection of what they wish and want that memoir to be. Nonetheless it’s been hideous.

Turned into there a sigh design you felt that participants had been missing or misinterpreting?
No, now now not in long-established. I could well presumably want felt that manner before the entirety, but since then I delight in gotten so worthy negate feedback from audiences and strangers and other folks I do know who delight in deeply gotten what I supposed. I in actuality feel very elated and at peace with that phase of it.

You’ve talked about how there’s a lot of you in the character of Jesse. She’s a distinctive lady. Your nephew’s overdose impressed phase of the role. That must add an extra layer of investment.
I’ve by no device done a direct that’s anywhere shut to straight away as personal as Redwood. While you originate your self up, issues that aren’t the most sure sting in a sigh manner. I’m rather resilient about reviews. I discontinue read them all. With this half, I understood what a host of writers delight in knowledgeable me, which is that your logical brain could well presumably also understand it’s now now not personal, but when your soul and family is in there in an instantaneous manner, it will damage. I in actuality am at peace with it, but that used to be a recent journey for me.

What motivated you to embody that phase of your accumulate memoir in the half?
I misplaced my nephew before the entirety of the pandemic and with out thought, but out of necessity, that modified into the topic. What I desired to write about used to be that grief that I was in and the solace I found in the bushes round me shut to my home. It used to be a runt treasure Floyd at its starting up where I didn’t second-bet it. I didn’t agree with whether it used to be a wise transfer or now now not. It supreme felt treasure what poured out of me.

Were you into mountain climbing as a kid? What gave you this love of bushes?
No, and I don’t know. I agree with bushes, for me, represented destroy out. It’s that childhood fantasy that many folk half of mountain climbing up actual into a tree and disappearing into yet another world. That’s now now not that a host of from being a runt lady sitting in a nook drawing. It used to be a manner of going somewhere and inventing my accumulate truth. Later in life, I started experiencing the Redwoods. My first time out used to be to Muir Woods. I was in San Francisco and procuring for one thing to whole on my time without work and I was staggered. I had which delight in of restful distress if you occur to glimpse at the sky on an especially starry night. It makes you shrimp but in the trend of being phase of one thing elevated than you fully understand.

In Redwood, Jesse reconnects at the side of her Judaism, and in Floyd Collins, there’s so worthy questioning of God and the afterlife. How discontinue you watch faith playing into these reveals? (Spoiler alert: We talk about the endings of every and each musicals going forward. Floyd Collins’s is historical truth, but lovely warning.)
Going into the final track Floyd says, “Faith is believing in one thing you’ll want to well presumably presumably’t watch. I’ve had faith all my life.” For every and each characters, it’s in actuality about renounce to what one could well presumably call a higher vitality, or the universe, or the truth of life, which is death. Jesse doesn’t die, but her closing act is one among surrendering to one thing that she has been fending off and is now now not given into and has tried to manipulate. That’s very worthy what the sense of faith is in each and each of these reveals. It’s now now not namely about this or that God, Judaism, or Christianity.

One ends with death, whereas the a host of with reintegration.
Well, to me, each and each delight in a elated ending. I felt that in auditions for Floyd Collins when other folks kept coming in and singing “How Glory Goes.” Any individual dies. However there’s a more or less peace, joy, and freedom. Floyd goes up to the sky. Jesse goes reduction to her life, but I agree with they’re each and each moments of transformation and originate.

Floyd Collins opens on April 21 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Middle; Redwood is at the Nederlander Theatre.