Interview: Adam Gwon & Giovanna Sardelli of ALICE BLISS at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley & Montalvo Arts Center Bring a Heartrending New Musical to Life

Musical theater is perhaps the most collaborative of artforms, so sometimes it really does take a village to create a brand-new musical. Such is the case for Alice Bliss, a new work based on the celebrated novel of the same name by Laura Harrington. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and Montalvo Arts Center, two Bay Area arts organizations known for fostering new works, have teamed up for the first time to help a powerhouse team of theater artists develop the show. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley is a Tony Award recipient theatre known for giving audiences an early look at new plays and musicals that go on to perform at theatres worldwide. Montalvo Arts Center is lauded for its Lucas Artists Residency Program, a creative incubator that brings multidisciplinary talent to the Santa Cruz foothills to develop and present their work. Montalvo and TheatreWorks are cultivating the haunting new musical, with free presentations for a small group of the organizations' supporters December 15 & 18, 2021.

Set in upstate New York during the Iraq War, Alice Bliss tells an intimate and heart-wrenching story of losing everything and living anyway. Commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, the musical is helmed by Mark Brokaw (Broadway's Heisenberg and Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella) and features lyrics by Adam Gwon (Off-Broadway's Scotland, PA and Ordinary Days), music by Jenny Giering (Crossing Brooklyn at The Transport Group and Jeff Award winner The Mistress Cycle), and book by Karen Hartman (soon to have an astounding 3 simultaneous world premieres Off-Broadway at 59e59).

I caught up with lyricist Gwon and TheatreWorks Artistic Associate & Director of New Works Giovanna Sardelli in separate phone conversations earlier this week, literally just hours before the first public performances of Alice Bliss. We talked about the long gestation of the show dating back to a serendipitous connection made at TheatreWorks a decade ago, the importance of institutional support in creating and nurturing new works, and their hopes and expectations coming out of these performances from the differing perspectives of the creative and production teams. It is a snapshot in time of how a new musical gets made today. Not surprisingly, the name of Stephen Sondheim was invoked repeatedly. The following has been condensed from two conversations and edited for length and clarity.

Adam, you've got quite an impressive team creating Alice Bliss. How did the show come to be?

[Gwon] I actually met the composer on this project, Jenny Giering, here at TheatreWorks, probably 10 years ago. We were both out here as composers as part of their writing retreat. Shortly after that, Jenny called me up and said, "Hey, I have this commission to adapt this novel, Alice Bliss, into a musical and I'm looking for a lyricist. Would you be interested?" I read the novel and was deeply moved by it, and I was also a big fan of Jenny's music so I said, "Yes, please, sign me up!" So this has been a long aborning project.

Given that you're quite an accomplished composer yourself, did you have any hesitancy to "just" act as lyricist on this show?

[Gwon] It's not something I do all the time, but I was such a fan of Jenny's music, I just think her music is so beautiful and captures something so special about these characters in this story, that I was like "Yes! I do want to surrender to that music, to figure out what the words are that go on top of that." And it's been really, really fun. This is the first project where I am solely the lyricist with a completely separate composer, and it has been interesting. The process of how the words and music come together is very different than when one person is doing it on their own, and it feels like a different set of muscles I get to work out.

How did the book writer, Karen Hartman, get involved?

[Gwon] We had been talking to a number of different playwrights who we thought would be a good fit to adapt this novel, and we just hit it off with Karen. The central relationship in the story is a mother and daughter, and there's also a grandmother, and Karen had some really wonderful ideas and a very personal connection to the complications of those relationships. I always think when you're working on an adaptation of something, you're inspired by that source material, but you want to have a certain freedom to take it in its own direction in how it wants to live in the new version. I think Karen has brought some really wonderful colors, especially to those relationships that aren't in the novel, but are sprung from the characters that were created in the novel, It's been really exciting to get to explore that with Karen and capture those ideas in the lyrics and in the songs.

What stage is the show currently at in terms of its development? Has it had any previous productions?

[Gwon] No, it has yet to be produced. We've had maybe three readings where we have a group of actors for a week and they learn the material and we get to hear it. But this residency here at TheatreWorks, which is two weeks with three different presentations, is the longest we've gotten to spend with a cast really diving into the material, and into the characters. It's been wonderful to have that time and to have the ability to do work and hear new pages right there with the cast.

How much are you still actively rewriting the show?

[Gwon] Quite a bit. We entered the process with a bunch of rewrites already done that we had been taking a look at on our own before the cast arrived. We had focused those rewrites around one particular supporting character, the protagonist's best friend Henry. And then since we've been here, we wrote one new song for another supporting character, the Coach. We are actually in process right now of getting rid of a song that had existed for the grandmother, and writing a new one. In fact, for the presentation we're doing this afternoon, the actors will be reading a brand new scene and lyrics that don't yet have music attached to them. So we're very much in the throes of the process. Come Saturday when we have our final reading, the hope is that we will have that brand new song in there so she'll actually be singing it. So we've been doing a lot!

That reminds me of an article I was just reading about the development of Sunday in the Park with George, and how Stephen Sondheim pulled Mandy Patinkin aside for a long chat in order to develop his part of the song "Beautiful," which is one of my all-time favorites.

[Gwon] Yeah, there's something to that, and it feels particularly great to be doing it right now, after the whole pandemic shutdown for a couple years. What I'm realizing being in this process right now is that there's nothing that can replace being in a room with your collaborators. It's the conversation, it's the energy in the air that I just find so informative and inspiring. You learn so much about your characters and your show. I get so inspired being in the room with actors, seeing what they're bringing to the material, and writing toward that. So it feels like exactly what you're saying, the alchemy that happens in the rehearsal room, and I feel so grateful to be able to get back to that after so long of being away from it.

Giovanna, how did Alice Bliss first come to your attention at TheatreWorks?

[Sardelli] Well, we've worked with Jenny Giering, the composer, a few times. She's been out for multiple festivals, and she wrote to us and said they had this musical. So we all read it as a company and we knew it would either be in the season or in the festival. The way it panned out, we made an offer to put it in the August 2020 New Works Festival, and then of course it didn't happen [due to COVID]. But we remained so enthralled by the piece and committed to these artists that we just kept moving it and moving it to find a date.

And you know who the players are - so to get these four people all available at the same time?! That's why we did it in December. It's when they all were available.

You mentioned that Alice Bliss would either be in the season or part of the festival. I realize there may be a complicated calculus in play here, but how do you decide something is more appropriate for the season versus the festival?

[Sardelli] That's such a good question. I think part of it was just a change in leadership, you know waiting to see what pieces would resonate more [under new Artistic Director Tim Bond]. Sometimes we use the festival when we know there's more work to be done, and this team they're "workingest" group of people in musical theater, so to get them together and give them that time is so important. And the work they're doing on the piece is really quite stunning. So many rewrites! Because they're finally together. So for this one we felt like having it in the festival, us getting to know all the players and letting our audience experience the piece, was the best first step.

In a previous interview, you said that you're always drawn to theatre that is driven through character and that has "some heightened something." What is the "heightened something" in this show for you?

[Sardelli] I think what's heightened about this are the stakes, and how emotionally raw and honest the piece is. What I respond to is this family coping with the unknown of a family member who's serving in the military. That's a story we don't often tell, and I was intrigued about that. So that's what draws me to this one, and the fact that it's absolutely gorgeous. It's a beautiful story, and it resonates so much deeper now because it's about a young girl dealing with unknowns, and we can all relate to that in a way that we couldn't when we were first talking about this musical.

How did TheatreWorks come to join forces with Montalvo Arts on this project?

[Sardelli] Carla Befera, our publicist, and I were speaking and she mentioned that one of her dear friends, Kelly Hudson, worked at Montalvo and she said, "You two should meet. You would love each other." So she put us in touch. Kelly and I started talking and we realized we had both been dreaming of a partnership like this. We bring these wonderful artists to our theater, but it's not really a retreat, it's not as beautiful as what Montalvo can offer. So it became this natural partnership where we are bringing them outstanding artists, creating theater for the community, and they get to play a role in the development and the hosting, which they do better than just about anybody.

What does Montalvo bring to the table that's different from, or in addition to, what TheatreWorks can normally provide?

[Sardelli] They are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, artist residency programs in the country. Each of the artists is housed in this beautiful location in the mountains, with nature. They provide dinner every night, cooked by a chef. I mean, we at TheatreWorks are excellent at hosting, but Montalvo is what I would aspire to be able to do. [laughs] They care for an artist's soul and well-being in a way that after a global pandemic felt like the kindest, nicest way to bring people back to work.

And it's just so fantastic to partner with an organization that is aligned with us in all the goals, in all the beliefs of how art is made, how artists should be treated, how joyful and soulful the process should be. This has been our first collaboration with them, but it's definitely not going to be the last.

Adam, it seems it takes a village to make a new musical. As a musical theater creator, how important is it to you to have the support of institutions like TheatreWorks and Montalvo Arts?

[Gwon] It's everything, really, because it's such a collaborative artform. And it's particularly helpful with this team and this piece. For a long period of the writing process, all three of the writers lived in different states. I'm based in New York, Jenny lives in Massachusetts, and Karen when we started the process was living in Seattle because she and her husband were teaching at a university out there. So for a good chunk of the process, we were writing from three separate locations and really relied on these kinds of artist residencies to be able to bring us together, be in the room together and collaborate in that way. I think that becomes even more important when you start having actors doing readings.

And we feel very taken care of, you know? The amazing thing about this partnership between TheatreWorks and Montalvo is that it really is set up so that we can focus all of our attention on the project and the work at hand. We've got a beautiful studio to live in at Montalvo, they cooked us dinner, they fed us. So it's just like letting our full attention and full brain power turned to the project, and I love that. It's so rare that you get to spend a solid two weeks just thinking about one single project, and I think that's exactly how you allow yourself to dig deeper and make the work better. We get to have a completely immersive experience for our show.

Giovanna, what do TheatreWorks and Montalvo Arts hope to get out of this residency? What is the goal from your perspective?

[Sardelli] The true goal is that we serve the artists in creating the piece that they want to make. Already, the amount of rewrites they've done has made it worthwhile. They're hearing the piece, they're unlocking it and discovering it. What we hope is when they leave here, they feel confident and ready to share the piece with the world.

Adam, what to do you hope to get out of this residency at TheatreWorks and Montalvo?

[Gwon] My biggest hope is just a stronger, deeper, more interesting version of the show. One thing that draws me to the material, to the story and characters of this show, is that it feels like there's always room to go deeper and make it more complicated and more interesting. It's dealing with some pretty tangled relationships, and there are a lot of emotional layers to uncover, for the characters and the situations they find themselves in. So my biggest hope is that we leave with a richer show than we came in with, and one that is able to communicate that richness and pose these questions to the audience.

One other thing that's a first in terms of this part of the process is the previous readings we've had have been for a sort of insider audience, like the staff at a particular theater. We haven't had any public presentations of the piece before. So these presentations which are open to the public and are having audience members from the community in the house is really great. I think the next step for us is gauging whether all of the story points and the character relationships and these questions that we are investigating in the writing are actually communicating out to an audience. So that's an exciting piece of it, too.

Given that this is the first public presentation of your show, how do you get feedback from the audience?

[Gwon] One way that TheatreWorks in particular handles that is they give the audience members a survey to fill out online. The questions actually come from us, the creative team, to see how an audience is responding to certain elements of the show that we're particularly interested in. So that's sort like the official way that we get feedback from the audience.

Something that I like to do is that I always sit in the way, way back when these things happen. [laughs sheepishly] You do sort of get a sense of the audience as a group and when their attention waivers, when people start shifting in their seats a lot, or like rustling with their programs. You can kind of tell "Oh, I think people's attentions are lagging during this part." Is there a way we can energize this scene, or add some more conflict so that we capture the audience's attention here?

But I also think that sometimes when audience members start shifting in their seats or you can sense their discomfort, it's just because something emotionally intense is happening onstage, you know?

[Gwon] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, how do you tell the difference between "I think we're losing them or maybe boring them." and "This scene is making people a little uncomfortable and that's OK."?

[Gwon] I often feel like part of gauging an audience's response is when it overlaps with parts that I have questions about. I always come into a piece, particularly when it's still in development, like "I wonder about this scene, or this stretch of the first act." Like are we doing enough of this, are we doing enough of that? And so when the audience's reaction intersects with those moments that I have questions about myself, I think that's when it's the clearest for me, and the most useful.

But I think you're right - it's often hard to read an audience by body language alone, so it's always a combination of checking in with the creative team, seeing how everyone is feeling about certain moments, and getting direct feedback from the audience. I wish there was some sort of step-by-step, magical, mathematical equation to figure it all out, because then it would be much easier! [laughs] Sometimes it's just trial and error, to be perfectly honest.

Do you know yet what the next step will be for Alice Bliss after this week?

[Gwon] We don't. We are hopeful that our next step might be a production somewhere, but we don't know when or where that might happen.

Whenever I read about promising new shows in development, the creators are often asked, "Do you have any plans to take this to New York" or whatever. They always respond, "We don't know yet." And I think, "Do they really not know?" So you're not just being coy?

[Gwon] We really do not know! [laughs] I don't know about other shows...

Giovanna, will TheatreWorks continue to be involved with the show as it moves forward?

[Sardelli] You know, we hope so. It's obviously a piece that we love, so we're looking at our future programming, and looking at "Are we the best theater to do it next?" Or would we need to wait a season? As much as I want to produce it, I also just want to make sure this beautiful piece is produced.

Adam, I was fascinated to learn that you had been mentored by one of my favorite composing teams, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty [composers of Ragtime, which is on TheatreWorks' 2022 season]. How did that come about?

[Gwon] Shortly after I graduated from college, I was in New York and signed up for a masterclass series with an organization called Musical Theater Works. It doesn't exist anymore, but it was an incubator-type place for new musicals. They would hold masterclasses with some very fancy artists. One of them, I think it was four weeks and there was a different guest panelist every week that you would play a song for - and one week it was Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. I remember so clearly I played my song for them and got their feedback, and then as I was packing up my stuff and walking down the aisle to leave the theater, someone grabbed my hand, quite violently. [laughs] And I turned and it was Lynn Ahrens. She said, "Give me your phone number!" And I was like, "Uh, Okay, here's my phone number!"

And sure enough, a couple weeks later, Lynn called and said, "Hey, you know I really took a shine to your work. I want to help." She introduced me to a bunch of people, and at the time they were curating a fellowship program at the Dramatists Guild. It was basically a yearlong fellowship for both musical theater songwriters and playwrights, kind of like a yearlong writers' group where we would write material, bring it in every week. And again they had guests, very fancy people come in to listen to your work, but Lynn and Steve were the main people that were there every week, and they curated the group.

So they invited me to be a part of that fellowship group. And that is actually where I wrote my musical Ordinary Days, which is where the song "I'll Be Here" is from. [Gwon's best-known composition. Check it out here.] So it was through that fellowship under their guidance that I wrote that piece, which kind of became my big break and my calling card. It was written with them as mentors throughout the process, and I'm still very close with them. They're just wonderful, wonderful people, and I'm certainly not the only person that they've mentored. They're very invested in making sure that the next generation of musical theater writers are taken care of.

That's so wonderful to hear. Something I've been thinking a lot about lately with Sondheim's death is where is the next generation of musical theater writers going to come from?

[Gwon] Yeah, and the amazing thing Lynn and Steve talk about is that Sondheim and that generation were to them what they are to me. Like they tell the story where they had the same experience when they were young writers at some sort of workshop presenting work, and it was Stephen Sondheim who stopped them in the aisle and said, "Hey, I think you're wonderful. How can I help?" So they really are passing along the torch that they themselves received from people like Stephen Sondheim.

As I say that out loud, it's kind of amazing to feel like I'm a part of that lineage in some way.

Adam, I have just one final question, and it's something I've never gotten to ask a writer before. Here you are, just a few hours away from having your new musical go up in front of the public for the very first time. What are you thinking and feeling right now?

[Gwon] Oh, gosh! Right now, in this very moment, I am mostly excited because I feel like we've done a lot of great work and rewriting over the past few days, and I'm just excited to hear it. I'm certain that the butterflies of having people watch work that is so new will be very, very strong like an hour from now. But right in this second, I'm gonna enjoy the excitement part. I'll let the nerves come later! [laughs]

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