BWW Interviews: Ella Louise Allaire and Martin Lord Ferguson Talk N THE QUEEN OF PARIS

With its World Premiere about a year away, tickets are already on sale for the Broadway bound musical N THE QUEEN OF PARIS. And 2015 is shaping up to be the year of Émile Zola, with Keira Knightley set to make her Broadway debut in the stage adaption of his novel Therese Raquin and N THE QUEEN OF PARIS bringing his novel Nana to the stage. Recently, I sat down with Ella Louise Allaire and Martin Lord Ferguson, the co-creators of N THE QUEEN OF PARIS, and Pascal Nadon to discuss the upcoming musical.

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Tell me about N THE QUEEN OF PARIS. How did you decide to bring Émile Zola's novel Nana to stage?

Ella Louise Allaire: Émile Zola is a French writer from the 19th century. He's as famous a Victor Hugo, [Laughs] but he's not as well known here in America. He's an amazing writer that is famous for his Les Rougon-Macquart (the collective title given to a cycle of novels written by Émile Zola), which is based on the history of the family, the egalitarian link between those characters, and how that affects their lives. Nana is the ninth installment of the series. In my twenties, I was a big Zola reader. First of all, for the pleasure. Nana was the very first novel I read from Zola, and I feel in love with Zola's style of writing. After that, I read a novel every year from Zola.

About five years ago, I went back to Nana. After twenty years and knowing how I changed, I was curious how it was going to feel to read it again. I said, "My gosh! It is so fabulous. Nana is like a character from a musical." So, it started just like that. I said to myself, "Somehow, I would like to try and make a musical out of it." Slowly, it took three or four years because Martin (Ferguson) and I were busy working on ICE AGE LIVE!, I started taking notes about how the book could be adapted. There were some parts of the book that I liked very much, but there were some parts that I didn't like as much, didn't feel needed to be expressed, or would be not be appropriate on the stage. It was a long process, but now we have the piece. [Laughs] I'm very excited about that.

Martin Lord Ferguson: I think one of the things we have to say regarding Nana is that Nana was a single mom in the 19th century. Nana is a single mom trying to become a full-fledged actress. She comes from the streets, moves on to cabaret, and becomes a full-fledged actress. The book starts on her first night of her first real acting job, and it covers what happens from there to her becoming "The Queen of Paris." That's why we called it N THE QUEEN OF PARIS. Nana is going to go from rags to riches, rising up to become the most famous actress in Paris.

Even though the novel Nana came before all of the icons, when the book came out she was a literary icon. Everybody was talking about that book. Any everybody was speculating about Nana, saying, "Oh! The author was inspired by this famous courtesan and this famous actress." They were trying to find the parallels to figure out who the author was referring too because there was no TV, video, or things like that.

It was the first star system type of story in France, and it was a very, very, very popular and controversial book at the time. As a single mom, she had to make all of these decisions to survive. She's this actress, but at the same time she's this courtesan. She's trying to maneuver her way through all of these decisions. At the same time, she has this love interest, Georges. He is a young man, about her age, and the novel also covers how she deals with that and her career.

For the uninitiated to Émile Zola's Nana, the biggest parallel they may have is Baz Lurman's Moulin Rouge!.

Martin Lord Ferguson: Yes!

Ella Louise Allaire: That's right.

But Nicole Kidman's character has tuberculosis instead of a baby. However, she falls in love with a young artist, but a wealthy duke is also interested in her. I read that Nana winds up in a love triangle with a young bourgeois man and middle-aged wealthy nobleman.

Ella Louise Allaire: Actually, being a courtesan has nothing to do with prostitution. It was really a state of the arts. They were aiming to get those princes and kings. One example of that is Madame de Pompadour, a commoner who ended up with Louis XV and ruling France. So, for a courtesan like Nana-a commoner who came from the low part of Paris-she knew she would never be married to a wealthy man or a noble man, but being a courtesan would give her access to France's high society. The way we present it, it is something very elegant.

Martin Lord Ferguson: I think there is a lot of humor in our show. [Émile] Zola is famous for writing novels that are very dark and heavy. He has written Germinal, which is about the coal miners. He's also done Une page d'amour, which is one of his most famous books and actually the book right before Nana in the installment. It's actually about Nana's mom, and Nana is a young child in that one. One of the things that struck me when I was reading Zola is that Zola is actually a very funny guy, but with a Coen Brothers type of humor. We kind of push that envelope forward.

People, at first, said, "Oh, you're doing a Zola? It's going to be so dark." I said, "No. It's going to be a comedy! It's going to be great!" [Laughs] And, they went, "What? Have you read Zola?" But when you read him, you think, "Well, that's actually quite funny, but with that Coen Brother, ironic type of humor." We've really focused on that and kind of steered away from the more traditional, heavy writing that he was doing to bring to light this lighter, but still meaningful, Zola.

I also read that you both have experience writing for Cirque du Soleil and that your choreographer, Jean-Jacques Pillet, also has experience working with Cirque du Soleil. Can audiences expect a Cirque du Soleil tonality or their type of imagery in N THE QUEEN OF PARIS?

Ella Louise Allaire: Absolutely not. [She and Martin Lord Ferguson Laugh] You're right. We did do a lot of Cirque du Soleil, starting in 2004 in Las Vegas with KÀ. Our contribution to Cirque du Soleil was the large score. We were always pushing for 60 pieces and musicians...

Martin Lord Ferguson: Choirs.

Ella Louise Allaire: Yes. Choir as well. This is what we did for KÀ and also for ZED, which was in Tokyo Disney. We went to record a 60-piece string orchestra as well as a large ensemble choir.

Martin Lord Ferguson: It's a valuable question because Cirque [du Soleil] is an icon where we come from-Quebec. It employs a lot of people and creative minds for that reason. Sometimes you end up at that company by accident. It's not necessarily because you had the love of circus arts when you were growing up.

Being in the music business and being in the theatre business, at a certain point we got approached by Cirque to do shows. Through them we also met great creators, like our choreographer. He's actually from the classical side of choreography. He was a French choreographer who was doing modern choreographies for ballet in Paris, and he got approached for the same reason. He was pushing the boundaries further than others, so he got noticed by Cirque. They said, "Hey, I'd kind of like to take what you're doing for modern ballet and dance and put it into a circus atmosphere."

This is a bit like what we were doing. We were doing large scores, like Ella was saying. We were writing trailer music for Hollywood and these other large, large scores, and we ended up at Cirque for KÀ for that particular reason. We were writing in that big, epic style of music, and they were like, "Oh, let's take this and bring it to the Cirque environment."

Can audiences expect your trademark large, epic sound? What size orchestra are you guys working with?

Ella Louise Allaire: In Toronto, we'll start with 12. From there we'll go to 15 or 16. On Broadway, we'll have 17 or 18. That's our goal. We have two music styles mainly. For the commoners, we have approached a jazz manouche style, (also known as gypsy jazz) with an accordion and the manouche guitar.

Martin Lord Ferguson: And gypsy violin.

Ella Louise Allaire: All the French instrumentation. Percussion as well. We'll also have the more classical, with the horn and trumpet. But, not many. 60 pieces would be too expensive, but we'll have one trumpet, one trombone, a flute, an oboe, and a couple of wind instruments to have a nice little ensemble.

Martin Lord Ferguson: Like Ella was saying, for the commoners we have this manouche music, but for the socialites and high society, we're using classical orchestrations, with strings and all of these things. We are, of course, not going to have all the musicians that we want to have in the show, so we might have to use a bit of synthesizers and things like that. Of course, this is definitely in the style of music that we write. It'll be more like the epic.

Pascal Nadon: They really like this piece though. Because the last, and correct me if I'm wrong, piece they produced for big orchestra was ICE AGE LIVE! at Abbey Road Studios, and that was with a symphony orchestra.

Martin Lord Ferguson: Yeah, for ICE AGE LIVE! we combined film score music with rock songs, pop songs, and all these genres.

Ella Louise Allaire: Bluegrass.

Martin Lord Ferguson: Yeah, bluegrass! Bluegrass was kind of fun. We had banjos with a 96-piece orchestra. That was kind of cool. [Laughs]

Ella Louise Allaire: And a large choir. For that matter, actually, we do use a lot of singers. We wrote this score (N THE QUEEN OF PARIS) for a large chorus.

Martin Lord Ferguson: That's a very good point. We did a reading two weeks ago, and I think one of the main things that made people say, "Whoa! What's happening here?" is the fact that we did a reading with 17 people on stage, and they were all signing. We have in N THE QUEEN OF PARIS these large chorus moments where a lot of people sing harmonies. For the final cast, we're looking at 24 on stage, plus the 12 musicians, to create a pretty big number of people musically pushing the envelope.

That's awesome! I also feel it's pretty smart. The big European imports that everyone seems to love all have these gigantic choruses, like LES MIZ and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Some American composers have tapped into that too. For example, RENT has a big chorus. But it seems with blockbuster shows that audiences really like to hear big choruses.

Pascal Nadon: They also write beautiful, soaring duets too.

Martin Lord Ferguson: Have you seen our web series?

No, I have not.

Martin Lord Ferguson: Oh, you have to see the web series! [Laughs] That's one of the things we have been working on diligently this year. We have this web series that has a new episode every two weeks. We have this film crew that's following us for the whole year. We call it "The Book of N," and each chapter shows what's happening. We're at episode 10, and since it airs every two weeks, we'll have 40 of those before we open in Toronto. They're all filmed in 5k, so it's really classy.

Tell me more about your partnership with Moët Champagne.

Ella Louise Allaire: We've been fortunate enough to have Moët Champagne as the official champagne of the show. This is something very interesting, and next week we are going to Épernay to film...

Martin Lord Ferguson: To film the chateau. We're going to have new experiences called the Moët VIP Experience and the Moët Ultimate VIP Experience.

Last night we were at CABARET, and we had cheese and wine while we watched the show. I said, "Hey, that was kind of fun feeling this ambience." That's something we want to do with N THE QUEEN OF PARIS because N THE QUEEN OF PARIS is a lively, joie de vivre show compared to something like LES MISERABLES, which is more about the stories that happened in the commoners part of Paris. This happened in the salons and the chic, bourgeoisie parts of Paris. So, having this bubbly, champagne atmosphere and being able to visit a champagne bar in the lobby and having rare Moët bottles for some of the VIP sections, will give a very festive ambience to the lobbies and the show.

Ella Louise Allaire: And, next week we'll have the privilege of meeting the great-granddaughter of Émile Zola, as she's still alive and she lives in Paris. Right now, she is restoring the Zola Dreyfus Museum, which is in one of the houses Zola had. She's going to meet with us, do an interview, and tell us all kinds of interesting stories about the creation of Nana, the novel, and the mythic areas of Paris like the Aquadome, where the horse race happened in the book, and the Théâtre des Variétés as well. I was very excited when she accepted to meet with us and give us the interview.

Martin Lord Ferguson: To add to what Ella was saying, I think that is what made the book a myth in its time. (Émile) Zola craftily placed real elements in his book. The Théâtre des Variétés is a good example. Nana becomes a famous star at this theatre, but this theatre really exists. That kind made people question, "Who is he talking about? Which actress?" This is what we're going to go demystify starting next week. We're going to this real theatre in Paris to film the historical aspects of that, talking with the great-granddaughter, and going under the layers.

Listening to you talk about N THE QUEEN OF PARIS, I have visions of the famous painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Is that visual aesthetic you'll be going for?

Ella Louise Allaire: Impressionism is definitely the inspiration. We'll be pulling from Vincent van Gogh's "La Chambre à Arles," with its strong yellows and strong blues. Also, Edgar Degas.

Martin Lord Ferguson: What's funny about that period is all these artists were friends. (Edgar) Degas was a very good friend of (Émile) Zola. He actually painted Nana. And, (Édouard) Manet actually painted Nana! There was a champagne called Nana that was inspired by the Degas painting. All these people were friends, living in the same time, and, of course, artists. You're a writer, you're a painter, you're both broke! [Laughs] You are not famous, yet.

Ella Louise Allaire: Michael Curry (Set and Prop Designer for N THE QUEEN OF PARIS) did some extraordinary paintings for this show that embrace that 1818 type of atmosphere.

Tickets to the World Premiere production of N THE QUEEN OF PARIS at Toronto's elegant Elgin Theatre are currently on sale. The musical will run in Toronto from September 24, 2105 through October 11, 2015. Then, N THE QUEEN OF PARIS will enjoy it's US Premiere at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre as part of the Broadway In Chicago series from November 24, 2015 to December 20, 2015. Following that, N THE QUEEN OF PARIS will open on Broadway in March 2016. Don't miss your opportunities to be among the first to see the show, and keep up with N THE QUEEN OF PARIS by visiting http://nthemusical.com, and following the musical on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.