INTERVIEW: Meet the new star-cross’d lovers: Romeo and Bernadette
Photo: Romeo & Bernadette stars Anna Kostakis and Nikita Burshteyn. Photo courtesy of Russ Rowland / Provided by Richard Hillman PR with permission.
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet may be the most famous story of all time — top five at least. Fans of literature, movies and pop culture can easily recognize the story of the Capulets and Montagues, star-cross’d lovers and that famous balcony scene. Think of all the adaptations, from West Side Story to — ahem — Gnomeo and Juliet.
Off-Broadway will now play host to a new version of the classic tale. This one is a musicalized adaptation courtesy of Mark Saltzman, who wrote the book and lyrics for Romeo & Bernadette, playing through Feb. 16 at the Mezzanine Theatre at A.R.T. / New York Theatres in Midtown Manhattan. The show comes to New York thanks to AMAS Musical Theatre and producer Eric Krebs.
“It began as a screenplay,” Saltzman said in a recent phone interview. “As it happens in movie-land, it got passed around and passed around and optioned. I always liked writing musicals, too, so one time the option came up. I was like, OK, I’m going to try and make this a musical and actually see it put on. That’s what happened. I was more interested in getting it done as a stage musical and happy about that.”
Romeo & Bernadette follows the same structure as the Bard’s original, but this one is set in 1960s Brooklyn and features classic Italian melodies. One of the complications for Romeo is that Bernadette is a foul-mouthed daughter in an infamous crime family, according to press notes. Can they overcome their differences and find true love? Who knows — but there will be plenty of laughs along the way.
“I always liked classic singing,” Saltzman said about the decision to include Italian songs. “Bernadette’s mother plays Puccini when she’s cooking white sauce and Verdi when she’s cooking red sauce, and I had a friend whose mother did exactly that. I don’t think she was so particular about the composers, but classical Italian music made the sauce better.”
He decided to set the narrative in the 1960s because he saw that as the height of mafia activity in New York City, and audiences will know the time period because it has been dramatized by several movies and shows (most notably The Godfather).
“That seems to be when it was at the peak,” he said. “It just seemed like the mob influence was strongest then, so if we’re going to get Romeo involved with rival mob gangs, that seemed to be the place to go. Generally musicals set in the past, audiences are more comfortable with because of the artifice of musicals. When you put them in the past, somehow you can be accepted. Maybe back then people did sing to each other in the streets.”
Over the years, the musical has gone through a great number of changes, and this off-Broadway premiere will have new features that previous audiences didn’t experience. For one, Romeo & Bernadette has a new opening number — a part of the show that Saltzman always finds the most difficult to write.
“They often get written last, so I did my tinkering with that,” he said. “There’s more dance in it because our director, Justin Ross [Cohen], is also a choreographer, so the movement and dance are a lot stronger. I think there’s a unified design that never was done before, and that’s also different from rolling in sets and rolling out sets. This flows much quicker. The scenery concept that Walt Spangler came up with, it’s just nonstop movement, so there’s never a halt in the action for a scene change or anything like that. That’s a big concept when you’re doing a musical. It really matters, especially if you’re doing a runaway kind of farce, like this is. You just don’t want to pause the action, so that was another discovery was how to design it.”
Bringing the tale of two star-cross’d lovers to life is a cast that consists of Nikita Burshteyn (Newsies), Anna Kostakis, Carlos Lopez (Man of La Mancha), Michael Marotta (Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical), Judy McLane (Mamma Mia), Michael Notardonato, Ari Raskin, Troy Valjean Rucker (The Scottsboro Boys), Zach Schanne (Pippin) and Viet Vo (The Mikado), according to an official press release.
Saltzman has been working with the cast through rehearsals and previews, which has afforded him the chance to return to the Big Apple, a city that holds an important place in his life and heart.
“I’ve been here the whole time,” Saltzman said. “I’m from New York, so I’m back here two or three times a year anyway. I relish my time in New York, so this was a joy. They gave me an apartment right near the theater on 50th Street. I can walk to everything, and I’m back to living like a real Manhattanite, which I did for about 15 years in my 20s.”
In the intervening years, Saltzman has stayed busy with many projects. He worked with the Muppets and on Sesame Street. This latter job found him winning seven Emmy Awards. His theatrical shows have played a number of venues, including Soho Rep, 13th Street Theater and the Village Gate. He even wrote the screenplay for the beloved children’s classic, The Adventures of Milo and Otis.
That Sesame Street gig was the job that kept on giving, and how he found himself in the company of Big Bird, Bert, Ernie and their friends was actually because of his work in musical theater.
“Like everything in New York and musical theater, there was an off-Broadway revue called A … My Name Is Alice in the ’80s that ran a pretty long time, and I was one of the co-writers,” Saltzman said. “And there was an actress in the play named Alaina Reed, and she was also on Sesame Street. She was Olivia on Sesame Street, while she was kind of moonlighting on this show. I loved writing for her on A … My Name Is Alice, and we got to be friends. When it was over, she basically threw me over her shoulder and said, ‘I’m taking you to Sesame Street,’ and I was pretty happy about that. And that was really it. I made sure I was always writing good stuff for Alaina’s character when I was working there. It was really a direct line from musical theater to TV for me.”
And now he’s back in musical theater, musicalizing one of the famous stories of all time.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Romeo & Bernadette, with a book and lyrics by Mark Saltzman, will play through Feb. 16 at the Mezzanine Theatre at A.R.T. / New York Theatres in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
