'MO - February 2009 - (Page 28)

p/reviews Joe DiPietro Speaks to ’mo Magazine By Miryam Gordon Memphis By Joe DiPietro and David Bryan 5th Avenue Theatre January 27–February 15 The play Over the River and Through the Woods, by Joe DiPietro, recently had a wonderful performance at Taproot Theatre. That play focused on the older generation, his grandparents, and lovingly told about their lives. DiPietro has worked a number of musicals that use music of, or the musical styling of, the older generation, about Elvis, All Shook Up, and rewriting the book (the script) for Richard Rodgers’ musicals, Allegro and Babes in Arms. His new musical, Memphis, opens at the 5th Avenue Theatre with previews starting January 27. The story of Memphis focuses on a white disk jockey in the 1950s in the South who starts to play rhythm-and-blues music on mainstream radio, a revolutionary act at the time. It also involves a romantic relationship between a white man and black woman, when interracial marriage was still banned in 16 or 17 states. The music, written by Bon Jovi band member David Bryan, is vintage rock-and-roll style, and DiPietro says it’s guaranteed to “blow people out of their chairs.” DiPietro explains, in a conversation with ’mo, why this time period was important to write about for him. “Disc jockeys who started playing R&B music on the radio for white teenagers, were not only revolutionary, but dangerous. What happened was the middle PHOTO BY KEVIN BERNE DJ Huey Calhoun (Chad Kimball) sings the blues in Memphis. of the radio dial, especially in the South, the strongest middle bands were given to the biggest radio stations and the music was very vanilla: Perry Como, Dinah Shore, and if they were African-American, they were the Inkspots and Ella Fitzgerald. Great performers, but very middle of the road. In the black clubs in the South, blues music and R&B was taking over, and it was a very exciting new sound. These sounds were only being played on the black radio stations on the edge of the radio dial. They didn’t transmit as far, and didn’t have as many listeners. When white DJs started playing it on the major radio stations, and bringing it to white teenagers … and that was the precursor to rock ’n’ roll, which exploded on the scene in 1955. “Elvis was the perfect white representative of this music. Elvis sang the music that many black performers were singing, but [they] couldn’t get the audience. He was a young, great-looking, charismatic, white guy, and he sang the same songs. You always need someone in the majority to help push the minority agenda ahead.” While Memphis had a couple of productions in Boston and Palo Alto, the production coming to Seattle is tag-teaming with La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. DiPietro and Bryan worked on perfecting the production over several weeks in San Diego and they will both be continuing their work, here in Seattle. “We were both down there for two months at the La Jolla Playhouse. Musicals are large complicated animals, so they take a lot of work. We’ll be up in Seattle for about a three-week rehearsal process and then through previews. We’re focused on making the 5th Avenue show as great as it can be, but there’s a lot of interest in taking the show to Broadway. Seattle’s 5th Avenue has great success in moving shows to Broadway. “Our lead [actor], Chad Kimball, is from Seattle. And he has a bunch of Broadway 28 PHOTO BY K EVIN BERNE The relationship between Felicia (Montego Glover) and Huey Calhoun (Chad Kimball) challenges the status quo of the 1950s. credits. He has a great voice, talented actor, and he walked in and we said, ‘That’s our guy.’ The show was a huge success at La Jolla, so we were really thrilled. David and I [just] wrote two new songs [that have never been heard, yet] for Seattle.” It seems like such a challenge to figure out when to stop working on a written piece and decide it’s finished. DiPietro says, “Every show is different, but generally once you open in New York, you’re done with the shows. Sometimes you change things for other theaters. But essentially New York is when you’re not doing any more work on it.” DiPietro doesn’t have a typical background in music. “I took guitar lessons when I was a young teenager and after about two years the guitar teacher told me he couldn’t take my money anymore because I was that bad! I grew up in the ’70s, so I was a big AM radio guy: Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Beatles, Rolling Stones, the pop-rock music of that era. In New Jersey, my folks would take us to see a couple of musicals on Broadway every year, so that put the idea of musicals in the back of my little brain. “I took a creative writing class in high school and part of the assignments was to send something to a Scholastic Writing Awards contest and I won the national contest for a one-act play I wrote. I liked the form, and I’m a big movie buff; and movies are very dialogue-rich. I probably learned dialogue writing from them and didn’t realize that. celebrating seattle’s gay community http://www.5thavenue.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of 'MO - February 2009

'MO - February 2009 Contents Letter From The Editor Voices Pet Project Gay Softball League Seeks New Players Instant Activist: Two Opportunities to Make a Difference Bailey-Boushay’s Chefs’ Dinner Pulls in More Than $285,000 GLSEN Releases Report on LGBT Students of Color Gay City Health Project: Race Relations Form & Function: Partner Workout Power Couple: Senator Ed Murray and Michael Shiosaki Montréal The ’mo Interview: Joe DiPietro New on DVD: Tru Loved Coming to CD/DVD: The Annie Lennox Collection SceneOut: People@Places AIDS Awareness & Action Day 2009 Capitol Hill Guide

'MO - February 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.