Hello Beautiful People,
I’ve never met someone who doesn’t gush with praise and admiration when mentioning Michael Kimmel, and perhaps that’s because he is one of the kindest and smartest men in show business; he’s the epitome of a class act, and someone I am both blessed and fortunate to know. Kimmel is an adjunct professor of theater at Fordham University, he conceived and adapted the musical, The Last Goodbye (music and lyrics by Jeff Buckley), is the writer/creator of the musical Turn of the Screw (music and lyrics by Drew Gasparini), #UntitledPopMusical (music and lyrics by Drew Gasparini), and PainLess (music and lyrics by Zoe Sarnak). If you’re not familiar with this man’s work, I urge you to fix that immediately. And, if you’re in San Diego in the coming weeks, I would strongly suggest you go see The Last Goodbye at The Old Globe.
Now, without further ado, it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce you all to Mr. Michael Kimmel…
MM: Did you always want to write musicals?
MK: No! Not at all, when I was younger I was rather pretentious and stuck my nose up at musical theater. I wanted to do things that were political– and I wore that like a badge of honor. I was doing new plays, adaptations, and was teaching theater. I loved classics. I was working a lot downtown, adapting plays that I loved, and I found myself putting more music and live singing into all of these adaptations. Then I came up with the idea of The Last Goodbye, infusing the music of Jeff Buckley with Romeo and Juliet – and that became a full musical. In my career, I always used to work on shows where the goal and focus was to connect with the audience on an intellectual level. Jeff Buckley’s music is very emotionally based and very raw, and so when I started working on The Last Goodbye it became clear that the show was resonating with people in an emotional way, and the connection was so vastly different from any kind of intellectual connection. I’ve found that when characters sing, people tend to invest, connect, and identify with them more, versus connecting with an ideal or a thought. It’s interesting to me that the older I get, what has been most important to me in regards to working in theater, is telling a great story that people invest in, where they care about the outcome. If they walk away with something, or if they’re changed in some way that’s great. Now, I love sitting in the audience and watching a really well written play, The Assembled Parties on Broadway was one of them. But, for me, why I became so much more fascinated with musicals is because it’s they’re still special. I can pull out my phone right now and watch a great movie – I have access to that anywhere, all the time, and, for the most part, it’s not that special anymore. For me, live theater is what’s still special, and people tend to respond to musical theater from a visceral, raw, and emotional place. It’s not so much about putting a singular idea onstage; it’s about creating stories and characters that people can identify with. I don’t identify with ideas, so I don’t invest in them. I identify with people. And for me, I’m interested in doing work that explores inherent theatricality; musicals have that, the language is heightened, and the world is really visceral and interesting.
MM: What’s your writing process like? Do you outline?
MK: Yes, but outlining for me is the hardest thing, the most important thing, and probably takes the longest out of anything. Traditionally, a lot of the work that I’ve done has been based on existing properties, (like The Last Goodbye and Turn of the Screw), so outlining those shows are fairly easy because there is a preexisting roadmap. When I’m working on something like #UntitledPopMusical and PainLess, it’s harder for me, because I have to create the roadmap. I try to look for structures that I can pull from, so that I have a story outline. The outline of #UntitledPopMusical, was literally a combination of the Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan timeline – tracking their turning points and figuring out how to fill in the pieces.
MM: What books are permanently on your bookshelf?
MK: Frank Rich’s memoir, Ghostlight, is amazing, I love that book and constantly go back to it. I read a lot of James Elroy’s books, he wrote LA Confidential. I’m a huge fan of Elmore Leonard – he’s around 87 years old, and has been writing books for what seems like forever. I’ve been reading his books for the past fifteen years, and still haven’t gotten through all of them – there’s that many; his books are amazing; I’ve never read anyone who writes better dialogue than he does. When I’m down at the beach on vacation, I’ll pick up a John Grisham novel. I also love Stephen King – there’s even a line in #UntitledPopMusical that’s from It – when Justina says, “Down here we all float.” I read Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard probably once a year. Another book that I re-read is The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which is such a good book; I’d love for someone really amazing to make that into a movie. I recently read World War Z – which is nothing like the movie. It’s an oral history of this zombie outbreak, but it’s not a narrative. It’s all these different accounts about this outbreak that’s occurring in various places in the world. I find the whole process of turning a book into a film or play really fascinating – what they leave, what they take.
MM: In addition to writing musicals, you’re also an adjunct professor at Fordham. What do you teach, and do you have a favorite class to teach?
MK: I teach Introduction to Theatre – which is part theater history and part examination of the individual jobs within the theater world. My students gain an understanding about what it’s like to sit in every seat, to wear every hat. My favorite class to teach is this class that is run in conjunction with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for the third year BFA dance majors – it’s a class where I teach dancers how to act. I started doing it three or four years ago; it’s eight thirty in the morning and a three-hour class, but it’s one of the most satisfying creative teaching endeavors I’ve ever had. They’re an amazing group of students who are so physically connected and fearless.
The most important thing to me for all my theater classes is to gain an artistic perspective, especially because they’re not theater majors. They gain an artistic perspective about why a certain piece of art is important to whomever is experiencing it. I always say that Romeo and Juliet is an amazing litmus test to determine a person’s artistic perspective, what you come away with after reading that play is a great insight into how you are as a storyteller at that moment in your life. For example, you could read it when you’re fifteen and think it’s so amazing and sad because they’re so in love and it doesn’t work out. And then you could read it when you’re twenty-one and think that Romeo and Juliet are horny teenagers who have no idea what they’re doing. Then you read it when you’re my age, and a new parent, and think – why aren’t their parents around? Your artistic perspective changes depending on where you are in your life.
MM: What can you tell us about The Last Goodbye?
MK: The Last Goodbye is a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with the music of iconic singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley. It’s a new way for audiences to rediscover what I think is a visceral, exciting story that we tell through the prism of Jeff’s music. We’ve been working on this show for the last five years, and now with Alex Timbers at the helm, we are ready to unleash this monster to the world. It’s a gritty, violent take on this timeless story. We’ve taken Shakespeare’s words, and infused them with Jeff’s songs, and I think that the end result is really exciting. I hope when people walk away from the show they both want to rediscover Shakespeare and hear more of Jeff’s music.
MM: What’s the best piece of advice you could offer to aspiring playwrights?
MK: I feel like I’m still an aspiring writer, so I’m not sure if anything I’d offer would be of worth, but, I always believe that telling great stories should always be the first priority. If your goal is anything but, then it will fall short. Making a great point land comes from giving people something they can invest in and relate to.
MM: In today’s economy, arts programs are being cut. What reasons would you give to a politician for preserving the arts in schools?
MK: Arts in education provides valuable tools for all students regardless of whether or not they are interested in a career in the arts. Students gain so many skills in P.E. and math and English that are applicable in other areas, so why would we not want our kids to get exposure to everything that can help them develop and grow?
MM: Who is/was your greatest teacher?
MK: The theater faculty at Fordham University gave me everything I needed to build a career in theater.
Thank you, Kimmel!
Live, Love, Learn,