“I & YOU: THE MUSICAL”: McCarter Theatre Center is presenting the world premiere of “I & You: The Musical.” Directed by Artistic Director Sarah Rasmussen, the musical runs through October 12 at McCarter’s Berlind Theatre. Above, from left: Jasmine Forsberg (Caroline) and Benji Santiago (Anthony). (Photo by T. Charles Erickson)
By Donald H. Sanborn III
McCarter Theatre is presenting the world premiere of I & You: The Musical. Adapted from Lauren M. Gunderson’s play of the same title, the show has a book by Gunderson and a score by composer and lyricist Ari Afsar.
The premiere brings the piece full circle for both the playwright and the director. McCarter’s Artistic Director Sarah Rasmussen, who directed the play’s 2013 premiere at Marin Theatre Company, also directs the musical’s debut.
Previews for I & You: The Musical began on September 13. Opening night is this Friday, September 19, and performances run through October 12. “The show is 90 minutes straight through; so it’s a swift, beautiful, profound, funny story,” says Gunderson. She credits Afsar with “gorgeous songs.”
The coming-of-age story depicts two teenagers who are brought together by a school assignment. “Caroline — stuck at home with an illness — and Anthony — an earnest overachiever toting Walt Whitman and waffle fries — are classmates pulling an unexpected all-nighter,” McCarter’s website summarizes. “What starts as a reluctant assignment soon sets both their worlds spinning into a soul-searching exploration of fate, friendship, and the fragile wonder of being alive.”
Gunderson describes the juxtaposition of the characters as an “’odd couple’ pairing of a very prickly Caroline and a very generous and sweet Anthony. We realize Caroline’s grit and sharp edge is because of a very complex medical issue that she has, that keeps her at home. So we have this gregarious, popular jazz nerd, boy; and a cloistered, frustrated, angry-at-the-world young girl.”
“The two of them meet in this space that allows them to see a lot of things they have in common,” Gunderson continues. “It’s a love story” with “a big mystery underneath it.”
Jasmine Forsberg portrays Caroline, and Benji Santiago plays Anthony. Gunderson enthusiastically describes the actors as “incredible Broadway talent — young, smart, curious, kind artists, who are unforgettable in these roles.” Later she adds, “They carry the whole thing; they do not get a break” while “beautifully” performing “an emotional piece.”
“Our cast is amazing; they are young artists, but so accomplished,” Rasmussen agrees. “It’s been fun to collaborate with them. They have gorgeous voices — it’s great to have wonderful singers sing to us!”
Adaption, Music, and Lyrics
The musical adaptation of I & You was conceived by the playwright. “I held onto the idea for a little while, and then pitched it to Ari, who liked it,” Gunderson says. “I wanted to bring it to Sarah and the McCarter, because Sarah directed the world premiere of the play. It felt like a nice homecoming, and a nice reconnection for us all.”
Fortuitously, Gunderson also has a prior working relationship with Afsar. The composer-lyricist appreciates that she and Gunderson share a “willingness to be able to challenge each other in a beautiful way. This is an acclaimed, well-respected, well-produced, beautiful piece of work. So to be able to adapt it into a musical, we needed first and foremost to have that trust as collaborators.”
Gunderson pitched the musical to Rasmussen and Director of Artistic Initiatives Julie Felise Dubiner, the production’s dramaturg. “We had so much faith in Lauren and Ari as a team, and the idea,” Rasmussen says. “We worked rapidly to put this together. Sometimes, musicals can take decades to come together! But with this, we felt like it’s such a strong idea that we wanted to … put our resources behind it.”
“We’re fortunate to have some major support from the BOLD Foundation, for workshops and commissioning of this show,” Rasmussen continues, adding, “This is the first commission at McCarter in my time here.”
Asked how the addition of music and lyrics enhances Gunderson’s play, Afsar observes that the show contains “so much emotion, and so many stories that are happening at the same time. So to tap into the relationships of these two characters, I think there’s nothing better than music, to be able to do that; and to really explore the growth, and then the push-away, of that relationship.”
Of the song-spotting process, Afsar says, “Lauren created an outline of different moments and beats.” She recalls a musical theater adage, “‘When you can no longer speak, you sing.’ So [we searched for] those high emotional peaks in the play.”
Rasmussen adds, “Ari’s music for this allows us to go into the interior lives of these characters, through song. We get to go inside their souls and hearts with this music. It creates a satisfying story arc.” She remarks that the musical is “deeply related to the story, but also feels like a new experience of it. Lauren has given us a story that is almost mythic in its quality. It’s about two young people in epic circumstances.” She observes that such stories “ lend themselves well to bursting into song.”
Gunderson emphasizes that the characters are three-dimensional humans, with complex feelings. “That’s where so much of the music comes from; their yearning, their hope, the growth and the change that the story asks them [to undergo],” she says. “The musicality of it is built into the original play. Each character has music that they love.”
Both Afsar and Rasmussen concur. “Caroline is obsessed with her own style of music, and Anthony is obsessed with his,” Afsar observes. “So to be able to bring those to a realistic standpoint for them to be able to express their music in a different way is exciting.”
Gunderson emphasizes the important role that the “strange, beautiful lyricism of Whitman’s poetry” plays in the show. She explains that the “innocuous” school assignment “becomes this awakening into a new philosophy, largely inspired by Whitman’s epic, beautiful, humanist, soulful poetry.”
She observes an “improvisational, free flow” in both jazz music and the poems. Afsar concurs: “Because Whitman’s poetry is free verse, without rhymes, I’ve employed this jazz technique called vocalise, where you take a jazz solo and turn it into lyrics. I’ve tried to use that as inspiration for the representation of Whitman.”
Rasmussen particularly appreciates themes of “being radical, brave,” and “in service to others” that pervade “Whitman’s writing during the Civil War. His deep love of America … at a time when the country was being torn apart, feels very compelling right now. To hear that language … set to modern music — is a lovely tension. It is unexpected, and allows me to hear the poetry in a new way.”
Production
Rasmussen says that she loves “visual storytelling.” She describes the collaboration with the team of designers — Scenic Designer Beowulf Boritt, Costume Designer Kara Harmon, Projection Designer Stefania Bulbarella, and Sound Designer Elisabeth Weidner — as a “great conversation of ‘How are the visual world and sonic world different because this is a musical?’”
The director is particularly enthusiastic about working with Lighting Designer Japhy Weideman. “You light a musical differently from a play. You lift up the show’s world differently, because it’s already elevated with music,” Rasmussen observes. “I think lighting designers actually are musicians, because what they’re doing is very rhythmic.” She credits Weidman with a “sense of mystery and restraint in his work, but also a real buoyancy. This piece takes both; it requires a complexity of allowing two things to be true at once, poetically.”
Of Weidner’s contribution, Rasmussen appreciatively says, “Sound plays such a huge subconscious, and conscious, role in the storytelling. Elisabeth’s set up an immersive system where sound will be used in innovative ways.”
The show’s music direction is by Sujin-Kim Ramsey, who arranges the score in collaboration with Afsar. Orchestrations are by Afsar and Yair Evnine.
Of the combination of all theatrical elements, Gunderson says, “It’s a play that lives in a bit of a mystical, magical space, even though it seems grounded and naturalistic. It really does take a lot to make what seems like a small, intimate show, but has got an epic heart. So we are using all of the tools that we’ve got!”
Afsar is moved by the communal aspect of both the story and the theatrical experience. “To watch a story about two individuals — strangers — starting to learn more, understand, and appreciate each other on an atomic level is something that I think we all can learn from,” she says. “So to be able to do that in community is what I hope that we accomplish.”
Rasmussen reflects that story of I & You “really strikes a chord with multigenerational audiences, because at its core it has a universal story about the power of human connection, and our potential to make the world a little more generous towards each other. I’m excited for audiences to experience the power of Lauren and Ari’s collaboration.”
Directed by Artistic Director Sarah Rasmussen, “I & You: The Musical” runs through October 12 at McCarter’s Berlind Theatre. For tickets or additional information, visit.McCarter.org.