Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘Chance’

Review Fix chats with “Chance” playwright Richard Isen and Artistic director, Anne Nygren Doherty, who discuss the inspiration behind the production and its goals for the future.

About Chance:

Performing Wednesday, July 20, 6:00 pm; Thursday, July 21, 9:00 pm; and Saturday, July 23rd, 3:30 pm  at the Wild Project, 195 East 3rd Street.

Salvation can come from the oddest places! Gregory, a 55-year-old gay psychologist has spent his adult life denying the loss he experienced as a young man during the AIDS crisis. After suffering a stroke, a strange door opens and, into his life, walks a mysterious, glamorous “lady” who urges him to engage with a male escort named Chance. Is this Lady real? And is life about to change for Greg? Or is she a figment from his now damaged psyche? Either way, Greg must face his midlife crisis and painful memories to get things right … if he’ll only take the Chance. This New York musical premiere, produced by Anne Nygren Doherty and imported from the New Musical Theatre of San Francisco, where the production played to acclaim at the Alcove Theater in San Francisco in 2013, explores the deep scars of those left behind after a tragedy and what it takes to heal and even … move on.

Review Fix: What was the inspiration for this project?

Anne Nygren Doherty: The author/composer, Richard Isen, was inspired by his reflections on what he experienced during the AIDS crisis.  Though the piece is set today, he’s addressing the subtle yet soul crunching ways past trauma can influence life choices. We can appear to be fine, believe we’re fine, yet still, be blind to our own inner pain and motivations. Fundamentally, it’s a universal story about a guy who does what so few of us can – get over himself.  It’s a very human, compassionate take on how we should deal with each other and ourselves.

Richard Isen: In the early 90s, I was living in NYC and it seemed many of closest friends were dying so I packed up my bags and moved to San Francisco and managed to get into Information Technology where I became a software engineer.  In 2006, Jim Morgan at The York Theatre was given a copy and recording of my about previous musical “A Fine & Private Place” by my collaborator, Erik Haagensen.  He wanted to produce it at The York and I took a leave of absence and had my off-Broadway debut.  A few years after that I woke up one day and thought came to me that I had run away from my previous life and decided needed to explore what that was all about.  At the same time, I ran across an article about the encounter with the Goddess archetype and how the Goddess appears often in mid-life as a powerful being that brings the hero to a new view of life.  I also went with a friend of mine to look at a room for rent, and it was in an old Victorian that had been lovingly and outrageously restored.  Inside it was filled with Erte art, posters, movie memorabilia and even a fountain in the back with cherubs.  I told my friend I would never live there.  He didn’t move in, but the memory came back; the man living there became the inspiration for Gregory, the main character.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Doherty: Richard comes at his work from two ways: 1) Richard holds earned his MFA from the Musical Theater writing program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts plus his experience in as a writer off-Broadway etc. and 2) as a artist who looks for something intriguingly “magical” about the human experience.  Richard looks for some small piece of magic that he can expand into a story. In CHANCE’s case, the magic belongs to The Lady, who is either a spirit guide or a hallucination, but who urges the main character Gregory to take up with a male escort.

Richard has been working on Chance for years.  This is my fourth year involved with the piece, having produced it in San Francisco in 2013, and a staged reading the year before.  Before that, The York Theatre did a reading.  Richard surrounds himself with good supportive people, which in itself is a talent.  He’s first and foremost a composer, so I would say that as he works he’s looking for the rhythm and soul in a dramatic moment as much as he’s looking at the story.

Isen: I think I described a lot of it in the first question but usually when I get an idea I start making connections: memories come up, articles, movies, conversations – a million of things.  I’m like a curator picking things out of the collection that seems to fit together.  Usually, I’ll get confirmations from the world around me.  Little things like I went into a bar in SF and there was a huge poster of Marlena Dietrich with a turban and cigarette – an Avedon picture – and it hit me that this was an image of The Lady. Gorgeous, glamorous, unreal and even a little scary.

Review Fix: What makes this different or special?

Doherty: The show is very unique. There’s a lot about it that’s special.  First, as I said above, it’s a show about a person who gets over himself.  Who does that? Nobody  – and we all need to, especially in these divided times.  We all need to see each other with compassion. The main character, as a victim of the AIDS crisis, could choose to stay a victim; he could choose to stay comfortable in his self-made the environment and his view of himself, but instead, he does the remarkable – he puts it all behind him and embraces another human  – and thereby embraces the present.

Second, the show is written in a magically realistic style. Thanks to the Lady, we never know what’s going to happen next.  Plus it’s loads of fun.  I’ve been describing a serious message, but in fact, the piece is just as funny as it is serious and has a lot of fun with today’s generation gap, as the prostitute character Chance is so much younger than Gregory.

Third, the score is lovely – jazz inspired but grounded in musical theater.  Plus it’s the ONLY musical at this year’s Fresh Fruit Festival.

Fourth, there’s a twist on what Richard calls the “gay culture” or “camp” aspect of the piece which is Gregory’s house and his temple to the Hollywood Goddesses of the golden era.

Isen: It’s an original story with unknown characters and it’s hard to find a musical that succeeds with an original story.  Usually, they are based on another story.  We have a lot of movies coming to the stage right now and the historical figure (Gypsy, Funny Girl, Hamilton).

Review Fix: What did you learn about yourself through this process?

Doherty: I wanted to produce it because it was the only gay theater piece I’d seen that wasn’t political. In San Francisco, as you can imagine, there’s an awful lot of political theater.  A lot of preaching to the choir, which gets old.  But CHANCE was different. It’s fresh and human. It’s about what’s going on with our neighbors. Some of the people who lost friends in Orlando may find themselves feeling like Gregory in a 10 or 20 years. How do they heal themselves once the damage has been done? I myself met Richard after a two-year period in which my husband and I lost 13 friends and relatives – some of them fairly young. It was a shocking time and during it, I had learned some of the lessons this piece teaches.

Isen: Mostly that I wanted to go back to writing musicals.  I just retired from my software engineer job and have the time and financial stability to become a re-emerging artist.  Also, I realized that it was probably a very good thing in many ways to leave the theater community.  I was the president of the union that represented all the IT workers for SF government.  I had to represent and help a lot of people through problems at work, so I have a lot more to draw on having been part psychologist and part champion against the “bullies” in management.  Having been a victim of bullying, it was great to confront them with the power collective bargaining behind me.

Review Fix: How does it feel to be a part of something like this?

Doherty: I know Richard feels exceptionally proud to have written a piece which most people describe as universal. Even though it has gay characters, it’s not a “gay” piece. People – all people – are truly moved by it. They change. And it’s amazing to see those in the audience, for whom this is truly their story, those who experienced the AIDS crisis, laugh, cry and find peace along with the character Gregory.

Ironically and coincidentally, both times I’ve produced the show it has been just after important events in LGBTQ history. In 2013, it was the Supreme Court and marriage. Today, it’s Orlando.  The show already meant a lot to me personally, but being a part of it alongside history is hard to describe.  I feel like we’re supplying a show that celebrates humanity – and somehow it heals.

Isen: I’m thrilled because it’s an audience with a certain expectation and a certain background and I don’t have to sell it with the subtle premise that if you’re a straight person, you’ll still like it. You never hear anyone having to market a hetero love story as being “universal” and that’s a problem  After Orlando, the so-called religious freedom laws popping up and all this discussion about bathrooms and gender identification, I realized how important it is to tell our stories, our history and at the same time try not put in the box marked LGBT.  I think the millennials are way ahead of my generation, and it’s amazing to see how much we’ve accomplished in my lifetime.

Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this production and for the future?

Isen: Well, Jim Morgan at The York Theatre would love to produce the show.  I have this idea about producing a digital musical for Netflix or Amazon.  They haven’t really tapped into the idea of original digital musicals.  I think there’s audience out there for it.

Review Fix: What do you think your audiences will enjoy the most?

Doherty: They will enjoy the Lady and her antics to be sure. They will talk all through intermission about the first act twist. And they will feel whole and complete by the end.

Isen: The intimacy – particularly with the music because these actors all have incredible voices and will sing the roof of the Wild Project and without any of the tinny body microphone sound audience usually hear.  You will fill the room shaking with music and high emotion and you’ll laugh until you cry.