INTERVIEW: James Morgan celebrates 20 years at helm of York Theatre Company
James Morgan has served as producing artistic director of New York City’s York Theatre Company for 20 years, and the institution that he has given so much to over the years has decided to throw a party. On Monday, April 17, the York family will come together for a special concert celebrating Morgan’s contributions. The evening will be hosted by Charlotte Moore, artistic director of the Irish Repertory Theatre, and Richard Maltby Jr., lyricist and director. Performers will include the cast of Cagney the Musical, Gretchen Cryer, Nancy Ford, Sheldon Harnick, Robert Creighton and Tom Jones.
The anniversary has given Morgan the chance to look back on his past successes and also to ponder where York is headed in the future.
“What we’re celebrating is my 20 years as artistic director, but I’ve been involved with the company for 42 years,” Morgan said in a recent phone interview. “Prior to that, I was the set designer, scenic designer and graphic designer. I never had any ambitions to run a theater, and, as I got more involved and worked with Janet Hayes Walker, who was the founder, we hit it off and found we had similar tastes. And so when she passed away, to have it turned over to me was both exciting and daunting because I didn’t really know what I was doing, even though I had been helping her run it for a number of years. I had no management background or anything, so to now realize it’s been 20 years, it’s kind of amazing. It is exciting, and I’ve learned a lot. Every show is a learning experience. You go into them thinking, well, we know how to do this. This will be easy, and then something will come up that you didn’t expect at all. And you have to deal with it, but that’s part of the fun of it, too. Very seldom are there flat-out disasters. I mean, well, there was one. Anyway, you learn from it, and you go on because you have to. Your job is to keep the place going, and we have. So it’s exciting.”
Over the years, Morgan has been able to keep a happy balance between his responsibilities as a theater artist and his responsibilities as an administrator. He relies on his dedicated staff and management team to help with certain tasks so he can focus on the productions. Many times, Morgan actually designs the sets for York shows. That creative outlet keeps him involved with the theater side. Plus, he knows the Midtown East building where York is housed better than anyone else, and that means he can plan accordingly.
“I can squeeze more money out of a budget in a creative way than most people can, so it’s very useful for me to step in there,” he said.
The York Theatre Company, which is located at 619 Lexington Ave., is dedicated to celebrating musical theater by mounting new shows and reviving classics. They pull their team members together thanks to a reputation that includes decades of fine work in Manhattan, and that means they can rely on a network of creative types to fill the many jobs that need filling. However, Morgan also stressed the need for the company to find new talent.
“It’s also finding new people who have a unique voice or a unique take on life or present an idea that no one’s ever put on stage before,” he said. “The writing has a lot to do with [choosing a new show]. A good book is essential to something that tells a story clearly, but the songs are really what grab me first. If they’re wonderful songs, wonderful melodies, wonderful lyrics, it’s much easier for me to get on board with something. … Our phrase is ‘where musicals come to life,’ and bringing a musical to life involves looking at and listening to a new piece and saying, well, there’s something here. It’s not there yet, and a lot of people would say, this is not worth doing. But what I love to do is give the writers a chance to work with a wonderful director and us to find the potential in their piece, and so it’s too easy to dismiss something at face value the first time you hear it. I’m more interested in saying what could be here, what might we find, what could this become and giving the authors a chance to deliver on that.”
York honors the musical-theater tradition by staging older shows, including in their Mufti reading series. Mufti stands for Muff’ Tee, or in street clothes without the usual trappings. They are not looking to rewrite musicals or “fix them,” unless the author would like some updates and modifications. Most York revivals honor the original book, lyrics and music.
“We may have to edit it to bring a cast of 60 down to 12, but that may be combining a few characters or things like that,” he said. “Ours is not to do a new take on something. Ours is to do as closely as possible to the spirit of the original production for people who saw it originally and loved it, or people who have known it for years from the recording and have always wanted to see it, or for people who know nothing about it, but they will come away with at least a rough sketch of what the original production might have been.”
On occasion, Morgan and the company have worked with authors who have offered some changes. Sometimes they will delete a song or fix a particular scene that did not work in the original production. “There are people who have horrible experiences on Broadway that close because they had the wrong director or the wrong producer or the wrong theater or the wrong star, and finally get a chance to revisit their work in a very simple production,” he said. “We’ve had really wonderful experiences bringing shows back to life that have had a terrible reputation.”
One of their best examples is Enter Laughing, which ran on Broadway in 1976. However, those who know the original production will identify the show by its less catchy original title: So Long, 174th Street. The musical has a book by Joseph Stein and music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, and it’s based on Stein’s play, which was itself based on Carl Reiner’s novel.
Morgan said the show had various problems, including that title.
“It didn’t run very long and was basically written off as not worth doing, and we proved very much otherwise,” he said. “Stan had just passed away when we started work on it, but Joe, working with the director Stuart Roth, found an incredibly wonderful show in it that we ran in two extended runs and has been done at various theaters. And there’s still talk of it coming to Broadway. Whether it will happen or not, I don’t know, but we redeemed it in a big way. There was a new recording made, and just right up front, Joe said, ‘You know, we made a big mistake with the title.’ No one could remember what the title was. They would say, ‘I’m going to see this show called So Long Some Street.’ He said, ‘We have a novel called Enter Laughing, a play called Enter Laughing, a movie called Enter Laughing. I have no idea why we didn’t call it Enter Laughing the musical. Let’s change the name.’ So we did. And that was a big step forward right there, so it was a classic example of giving an author a chance to revisit something. And some of the songs were used differently, so they came off better and helped tell the story more clearly.”
In Morgan’s role as artistic director, he is required to look ahead into York’s future. He is not that interested in expanding the company into a larger theater. He is quite content with their recently reconfigured space, which holds 170 seats. Part of the charm of the York is its location away from the busy Theater District and its intimate size where shows can run without amplification.
“I’m not interested in becoming a gigantic theater organization,” he said. “So the idea of building a gigantic new complex is not high on my list. There have been, for example, people who have said we’re at a great disadvantage because we’re not in the Theater District. I’m not sure that’s true. Part of what makes us unique is we’re across town. We’re near 59E59 [Theaters]. We need one other theater over there to have a Midtown East Theater Consortium or something, and I’m personally much happier not being in the horrendously crowded Theater District where you can barely walk down the street most of the time. I think a lot of people enjoy coming to our theater because it’s out of all that craziness.”
As far as retirement, Morgan said he has no plans. In fact, much of his attention nowadays is on York’s next production, Marry Harry, which begins performances April 25. For the time being, he will remain at the helm of the company he’s helped shape for decades.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The York Theatre Company will celebrate James Morgan’s 20 years as producing artistic director at a special concert event Monday, April 17. Click here for more information and tickets.
