Interview: Eli Bauman of 44 THE MUSICAL MUSICAL at Kirk Douglas Theatre

44 The Musical is an award-winning comedy composed, written, and directed by Eli Bauman, a TV writer and former Obama campaigner.  44 runs at the Kirk Douglas Theatre through March 23rd.  Rehearsal press day featured show samples with ingeniously witty, insanely catchy, soulful songs.

The show sample was amazing. I love how irreverent 44 is.

 I think we touch serious subjects, but in a not serious way, which is how I like to do it. It's not a very earnest show, but I hope it's a thought-provoking show. I want people to have fun. I'm actually very much thinking about the audience experience. I know those people who make art and they're like, well, I don't care about the audience, this is just what's in my heart.  You know, God bless 'em. But I'm also like, my dad's a performer. So I grew up in this universe.

And I was reading about that. You went on tours with him. [Jon Bauman “Bowzer” of the band Sha Na Na]

Yeah. Kind of literally everywhere.

You named this sad casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Yes, it was very sad. And my dad's show is loose, so it's not like doing opera, but still, it was like you'd be singing a song and then you'd hear a slot machine hit. And you'd be like, oh, well, someone just won a bunch of quarters. But, you know, you’re just trying to sing, the quarters spit out and it takes like five minutes. [laughs]

I know you're also a TV writer, but you weren't really a theater person until this, right?

Not at all. Not at all. Not since high school.

So was there a process in terms of getting into the vibe of theater? Did you approach certain people you know? How did you go about bridging that sort of space?

There was a kind of natural confluence of events, both happening in 2016. I got hired as a comedy writer primarily on a show called Maya and Marty, which was Maya Rudolph and Martin Short. And it was a variety show that  Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels produced. It was that whole world. And they quickly realized they didn't really have someone who could write the music and comedy in it. But basically they were like, you have a music background, can you write stuff? I was like, I don't think so. But then I was like, if it helps me get the job, let's just say yes. They said, just send us something. So I went home in a panic and was like, let me see what I can do. I wrote a song that's in 44 (it never ended up airing on Maya and Marty).  I hadn't written a song since high school and then I wrote a song, got the job.  Then it was like oh shit, now they think I can do this.

And you know that building is a pressure cooker, like every week, it's "What you got?" So I had just gotten married.  I moved two days after my wedding to New York and then I started on Tuesday and they were like, table read is on Friday. You know, it was pre kids and my wife couldn't come. So it's basically like, I'm just gonna have no life. I literally taught myself piano and just like ended up writing almost all of the music on that show which was wild. There was some SNL crossover because it's the same building so they were like yeah just go downstairs and do something.

Then the show got canceled pretty much right before the election and then the election happened and I was like this is crazy. I'd worked on the Obama campaign for a year in 2008.

I've always kind of wanted to write something musical and then finally my like skills seem to have caught up with that.  And then COVID hit.  My wife is also a writer and basically only one of us could keep working, because we had a toddler and baby born in COVID.  She was making more money so I was like, I’ll do this, I'll take care of the kids. And then from like 10 p.m. to 2 in the morning I wrote this show which is a good time to write something insane, because you have no defenses.

So Maya and Marty plus Trump kind of made this happen in a weird way.

This feels very Saturday Night Live ish, but there is something about the music that feels more soulful, more hopeful, a little less cynical.

I think that’s right. That's one of the main pieces of feedback we get, is people are like it was just so nice to live back there for a second. And they actually leave hopeful in a weird way, because it's like, you do have to remember that you did feel that way at some point, which means you'll probably feel that way again.  It just feels far away, it’s a nice little respite from what's going on now.

In regard to the racial stuff, I think there was a school of thought, like, well, you're a white dude, like don't touch it. I'd actually feel like that would be dishonest.  I feel like I'd rather live with whatever clunky decisions I make and people can criticize them, but it'd be bullshit if I just was like, I don't know about that, so I'm not gonna try to talk about it. Because to me, that is the elephant in the room, people's reaction against a seismic moment in the Obama campaign and presidency. We're living in the repercussions of that now.

Were you political at this time, or did you educate yourself later?

No, I've always been very political, and just kind of socially-minded. I had a job in 2007 and I quit and moved to Las Vegas and worked on the Obama 08 campaign.

Vegas of all places, too.

When people are like, let's go to Vegas! I'm like, no, no. [laughs]

You know, I was there for close to a year, and I was like, I went to the Strip for the first time when he  won. Because that's not what campaigning is about. It's like door-to-door. It was also right during the housing crisis. Las Vegas was like really hit by it, and so it was every fourth house you went to canvas or whatever had bank locks on it.

Did it influence you working on this as a new parent, do you think, in any way?

A thousand percent.  The one most serious song comes exactly from that place. Both process-wise and content-wise, it does. You think about the future you want to leave your kids. I don't know about how I think about legacy.  But I think all I care about is my children, really, at this point. Just what kind of world they're going to walk into and what skills they'll have.

I will say from a process standpoint, it was also unbelievably beneficial because basically my time got cut in half. And with that came a real focus where it stopped being, oh, I'll get to it someday. Like, no, I've got basically four hours and that's it. And so I just was really focused and driven, especially during COVID. It was 10pm to 2am.

And because this was like your first musical piece, were there certain things you listened to that inspired you? I know you worked with Brew, but like when you were searching for the tone, it feels a little gospel-y, a little blues-y, a little funk. You know, there's a lot in there. What inspired you through that whole process?

I just love a lot of different kinds of music. And what I discovered at Maya and Marty is basically my limitations as a musician were my strengths as a songwriter.

That's interesting.

Like, you could give me 10 years to play a Sondheim song and it's just not going to happen. I just don't have it. I stopped taking piano lessons at like 11. So, but for me, I can write a hook because I have a good ear. And so I just go that way. It's like, once I have the anchor point then the rest can flow through that. So all of the songs have hooks. The one brag I have about 44 is that Stevie Wonder came to the show. As he was driving off, he was singing the hook to the first song.  I was like, I'm retiring, I'm done. [laughs]

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