Interview: Glen Ballard And Oliver Tompsett on GHOST THE MUSICAL IN CONCERT
'The fact that it stands alone in a cold rehearsal room without any of the bells or whistles is why the show was so successful'
By: Kat Mokrynski Sep. 29, 2024
“The fact that it stands alone in a cold rehearsal room without any of the bells or whistles is why the show was so successful”
Ghost the Musical, written by Glen Ballard and Dave Stewart, is getting a new concert production for one night only at the Adelphia Theatre on 1 October. The concert will star Lucie Jones as Molly Jensen and Oliver Tompsett as Sam Wheat, with the pair being joined by original Broadway cast member Moya Angela as Odo Mae Brown, David Seadon-Young as Carl Bruner, Sam Mackay as Willie Lopez and original West End cast members Lisa Davina Phillip and Jenny Fitzpatrick as Clara and Louise, respectively. The ensemble includes Gabriela García, Kimmy Edwards, C.J. Borger, Michael Cortez and Stevie Hutchinson.
Recently, we had the opportuinty to talk with Ballard and Tompsett about the upcoming production of Ghost the Musical in Concert. We discussed the creation of Ghost the Musical, what it is like to be returning to the show after time away and what they hope audiences take away from the concert!
How did you each first get started in the world of theatre?
Oliver: I went to drama school with a dream of stepping foot on a stage and I've been very lucky over the last twenty years to step on many stages! I wanted to be part of storytelling - that's all I really wanted to do. So I started out as a swing in a musical, which is the company members that have to jump in and fill in all the spots when people are off sick and stuff like that. So I had an extension of my training in the West End, and then was ambitious and went from strength to strength until I was trusted with fantastic shows, workshops, concerts and stuff like that. Ghost is one of those shows that I was trusted with to be involved in on the workshop stage nearly fifteen years ago, and it's it's a pleasure to be revisiting the music.
Glen: Well, we're thrilled that you're involved, believe me! I'm more of an interloper than Oliver. I did get started way back in the day. I've been a songwriter all my life - if you hang a shingle out my door, it says songwriter first. And so when I was in high school, I was not involved with theatre, but because of my association with music - I was in bands and things - I was asked to direct my high school musical, Once Upon a Mattress, a wonderful one- act show. And so I started out as a director in high school - it was a successful show, at least at Natchez High School! And then for quite a few decades, I checked out into another world altogether, so my re-entry into musical theatre was, in fact, with Ghost the Musical. I'd done some movie scores before that were song scores, like The Polar Express, but it's a movie. It actually came about because Dave Stewart invited me to be involved with it and and so we wrote this musical! I've subsequently done some other stuff, so hopefully I will be accepted now as a real member of the theatre community, even though I've been slumming in the pop world for a long time!
Oliver: [Laughs] Slumming!
Glen, can you tell us a bit about the creation of Ghost the Musical and what your creative process was like for it?
Glen: It was nothing but fun! Even though there are some tragic elements to it, ultimately, the theme is very hopeful. Working with Dave Stewart and Bruce Joel Rubin, who wrote the original screenplay, was absolutely delightful. I always feel like if you're having fun doing something, it's much better than if it's a grind. Because we liked one another from the initial meeting on, we were really having fun with it, and having Bruce in the room, he was always able to tell us whether the character would feel this, would not feel this. He knew the backstory of everyone! And as songwriters, that's really what we're doing - we're trying to find out their motivation. What is it they really want in life? Having Bruce there to inform Dave and I as we wrote the musical was golden. Otherwise we would be sending it off to him, going, “Soes this make sense? Would Sam sing this?” Sam Wheat is a character who can't completely invest in success - he doesn't really trust it. And he's right not to, because he's going to end up dead before the first act! So it's a cautionary tale on some level.
We had all of these things that we had to balance in the whole show. We probably wrote fifty or sixty songs for it - the rejects are pretty damn good, too! One of these days, I'm going to pull some of those out. In fact, I might even do something like that in London! But more than anything, we were writing songs around the piano, around the guitar - it was all about the melody and the lyrics. We didn't go into production mode until after we made sure that the songs really could stand on their own in that setting. All good theatre music has to do that. If it's just a production thing, then it's just a track! So we really knew we had to earn it with lyrics and music for these characters, and it's very satisfying for songwriter to be able to do that because you have so much more to work with. You're delving into the lives of all these characters in a way that is quite delicious!
So it's been a fun journey for me, and having someone of Oliver's ability as a vocalist to sing the songs is such a gift because really, at the end of the day, it's just one song at a time. You don't sing a bunch of songs at once - you have to earn your way. And when you have a voice like Oliver's, I could give him the phone book to sing and it would be good, but I'm trying to give him more than that. We're trying to give him something that matches his talent. And hopefully we've done that.
Oliver: Even in the rehearsal room right now, just singing with piano, the songs are so beautiful and so powerful and strong. From hearing the the cast recording and stuff and seeing the show before, the production just enhances it even further, so you're totally right. The songs and the lyrics come first. What you often get with a lot of shows that come from pop is the lyrics don't evoke emotion as much. But the Glen and Dave's songs definitely do that. The fact that it stands alone in a cold rehearsal room without any of the bells or whistles is why the show is so successful - you put all the stuff around it and it becomes a spectacle. We can't wait to put it on its feet on a stage with the original orchestrations and just bring the house down!
So Oliver, what made you want to be a part of Ghost the Musical?
Oliver: When I first did the workshop and heard about it, as an actor, quite honestly, you go for every audition you get asked to go for. So I was going along to it, obviously knowing the film and there being a trend of 80s films being turned into musicals. I thought, “This is one that could really work.” You don't kill your lead off in the show, but they have! They can kill him off and he's still very present. You get the best of both worlds. And it's so witty! It's so funny, the original book from the film, but it's also a really emotive story, what Molly has to go through. It's just a classic! And it was a real pleasure to see Glenn, Dave and Matthew [Warchus], originally, work on crafting a musical. The workshops are when you learn the most as an actor. Being involved in a show and doing it for a year, you stop learning after the first couple of months. But when you're in that initial stage, that's when you really get growth and wealth as an artist. I loved doing all these workshops and to be able to be doing it as a concert, where we just get to celebrate it one time, is going to be very exciting.
For both of you, what is it like to be returning to this show?
Oliver: The score, it's hard! It's a hard sing for Oda Mae, for Molly, and for Sam. And Sam, on top of that, has got this angst-driven script and book. It's a real challenge, and I thrive on that. I love a challenge, but I also love a soaring melody, and literally every time someone opens their mouth, it's either beautiful or it has so much impact. So from a singer's point of view, it's going to be wonderful to get on mic and and have that band and orchestration around us. They're all amazing. Lucie Jones, Moya Angela, everyone was fantastic. I think you're really going to enjoy it, Glen!
Glen: It is enormously difficult to sing! I did most of the singing on the demos, and believe me, I'm so thrilled when a real singer gets involved! [Laughs] It's emotional and it's athletic, so you can't tiptoe into this as a singer. You’ve got to be able to have the chops to do it. When you have to stretch for something, as long as there's an emotion involved, it's worth it. It's not just for show - it's in the service of the storytelling. And Oliver, talking about workshops, I think there's no greater crucible for a creative thing to be born or to die in a workshop. You have to put so much energy into it. More energy that goes into a workshop than anything, because you're auditioning so many things you don't know whether it's going to land or not. It's the most challenging and fun thing I can imagine.
Matthew Warchus, our director, taught us so much about what we were doing because we just can't put a film on stage - that's the dramaturgy of taking an iconic film that everybody loves, and knowing right away that you can't put a lot of that on stage. You basically have six or eight sets within which to tell this entire story, whereas in a movie, you can go wherever you want. You can cut it as many ways as you want. So just learning the dramaturgy of translating a movie onto the stage was probably the greatest education I've ever had in theatre, and it was Matthew Warchus, who was himself a genius. He was very generous in showing us the way, so shout out to Matthew for that!
So how does it feel for you, Glen, to be knowing that you're coming back to seeing this show over a decade since the first workshop?
Glen: It feels fantastic! It feels somewhat dreamlike, actually, because I love the Adelphi Theatre - we actually have another show running in there right now! The room itself is just fabulous. And I feel like the show has never gone away. There's so many emotional elements in the show that people make personal, because everyone's lost someone that they love. On some level, this show is a way to connect in a beautiful and not sad way to whoever you're missing. And that's the theme of the show - nobody's really gone, you take them with you. And Bruce Rubin is such a transcendent human being - that's the way he thinks! So the thematic elements of the show are pretty big and deep, but we still have Oda Mae to make us laugh all the way through it.
And Oliver, what is it like to be performing in a full production of a musical versus a concert like this one?
Oliver: I would approach it the same, but with the knowledge that you've got one shot of this, so it's like press night - the stakes are higher and you have to thrive on that. You can't back down from it or be worried about it. You have to accept that there may be little things that don't go 100% to plan, but as long as you're invested in it and you just keep going. You're there to celebrate that music and to celebrate the show. The trend of concerts happening is brilliant, a way to revisit shows that people are so fond of in the theatre community that, for whatever reason, don't have the opportunity to be a viable full-time show.
Taking on a production that you know is going to run for a year, you just have a different mindset about it. You may approach it the same running up to it, but you know you're going to get a chance to sort of tweak it and change it. This is like a painting. We're gonna paint, we're gonna create something and then we're gonna leave it. There's something very exciting about that that keeps everyone on their toes. It raises the stakes a little bit, knowing that you can't come back to the canvas. It's tricky to describe! My approach is the same, but I'm probably more excited about doing something one-off than I would be if I knew I was gonna have to do it eight times a week.
Glen: At the end of every workshop, we do a sitzprobe, when the musicians and the actors get in a room together - we don't do the scenes, we just sing the songs. This is like that in that we're presenting the material as the songs. And it's pretty great, especially if the songs are good! On some level, the actors and singers don't have to act as much - they don't have to do all the physical stuff. They still are invested as characters, but they don't have to get murdered on stage or anything! [Laughs]
Oliver: Well, I think you're in for a surprise, because we are striving to give you more of the show than we actually planned! This is what happens with all these concerts. It’s “Oh, we'll do a concert version!” And then before you know it, people have put down their books and stepped away. There are times when we're going to need scripts and scores because the time is limited. But we're also striving to take standout moments and bring some of that physicality to the show, which is nice. The audience will be people who love the music, love the film or love the performers - it'll be a celebration in that theatre that night! Without spoiling too much, there's more happening. We haven't got time to make me disappear, but we're striving for everything else! [Laughs] So Glen, you're going to see some big moments and big performances.
Glen: A stage full of talented actors, some acting's gonna happen! It's just bound to happen. I love it. So whatever you get out will be delicious for all of us.
Oliver: And luckily, a lot of the people involved in the concert have an affinity with the show, have done various productions of it wherever it's been around the world. I did the workshop, but I've never done a full production of it, so I've had to catch up with the understanding of it and the detail with Lucie and David Seadon-Young, who's playing Carl, which has been brilliant. And we've got an amazing director, Paul [Warwick Griffin], who's been involved with the show since the beginning as an associate and resident director. So we've got the right team in the room to piece something together - enough people who are coming new to it to be excited about it and enough people who are familiar with it to pull us through and give us those little nuggets of detail.
Do either of you have a favorite song from the show?
Glen: It's like asking me which of my children is my favourite! [Laughs] “Three Little Words” is a duet that happens right before a very important act in the show, and I just love the interplay of that song. It feels like classical musical theatre, a dialog around a cafe table. It’s a sweet moment for me. It always ends up so tragically, but I love it.
Oliver: For me, it’s “With You.” It's become an absolute fan favourite amongst the whole theatre community. It's beautiful and Lucie sings it incredibly. But I also love the opening of Act Two [“Rain”/“Hold On”]. It's like Glen and Dave have written too many good tunes and they've gone, “Well, we’ll put them all in!” You can tell that from the early days, the people making decisions were just like, “We can't get rid of all these songs, let’s use all of them!” It's like a little mixtape of great songs, great melodies and great lyrics that serve each character individually. And the similar happens at the end of Act One with “Suspend My Disbelief”/“I Had a Life” where these songs merge together. It’s a nod to that legendary quintet at the end of West Side Story. It has a massive sense of theatricality as well as pop sensibility and a concert feel. So for people who like good music and theatre, it's just perfect.
What do you hope audiences take away from this production of Ghost the Musical in Concert?
Glen: I just want them to be touched emotionally. It's always about the emotion. I think we do have some songs that will touch you emotionally. Oliver was talking about “With You,” a song which is completely impossible for me to sing because it's got one note that goes for about three bars, and only a really great singer can sing it. The challenges of being melodic are only limited by who's singing it, and we've got great singers!
Oliver: From my point of view, considering the last time I really heard the music was probably in the workshops, and how much they moved me then, compared to how much I have grown as a human being, and how much we've all been through over those last ten, fifteen years. People who will have seen the first version of the show or were involved with the workshop, or have seen it on tour, seen it in Australia, seen it all over the world or on Broadway, all these people have seen the show before and connected with it then. So much has happened to everybody in our lives and in the world that when we revisit this music and listen to the lyrics and feel those feelings . . . Like Glen said, we've all lost people. We’re going to think of different people and different things that have happened, that we've been through. So what I hope audiences come away with is that they take a moment to take that sense of catharsis and recognise that when we lose people, we keep them with us. That people feel something, that they are moved and that they are stirred with feeling the excitement and the thrill of suspending our disbelief that spirits are with us and can still touch us and move us and help us. It’s a very comforting feeling, and that's what I think this musical does for me, especially, and I hope the audiences feel that as well.
And finally, how would you each describe Ghost the Musical in one word?
Glen: Transcendent.
Oliver: Stirring.
Ghost the Musical in Concert runs on 1 October at the Adelphi Theatre.
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