Over the weekend I got the opportunity to interview the 2022 Larson Grant recipient, Christie Baugher and Broadway choreographer Danny Mefford who is now directing Baugher’s show, The Fitzgeralds of St. Paul. I got to pick their brains about the show before they staged a reading of it at Adelphi University. I also got the chance to ask them about their lives and experiences prior to working on The Fitzgeralds of St. Paul.
Question: To start off, for those who don't know, what is Fitzgerald of St. Paul about?
Christie Baugher: I can let you answer that one (pointing to Danny).
Danny Mefford: Hold on. I wanna say this well, I wanna say it really well. The Fitzgerald's of St. Paul is a two person memory musical that follows the famous F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald through their love affair, through meeting, through wrecking cars through Paris, and getting drunk in New York City, and having a baby, and their mutually destructive relationship, and how they were both dealing with mental health issues. And it's really about a love affair. It's about anyone's love affair, though. It's set with F. Scott and Zelda, but it's really just about a relationship between two people and how gorgeous it can be and how painful it can be. And it's also very funny and witty and full of their trademark kind of reckless intelligence.
You feel okay with that? (asking Christie)
Baugher: I do.
Question: Christie, when did you begin writing music? And is composing musical theater something you've always wanted to do?
Baugher: “Yes” is the short answer to all of that. I started writing music and musicals as a kid. The first musical I wrote was in seventh grade for a class assignment and it's the thing that I have known that I wanted to do since I was 11 years old.
Question: Danny, I've mostly known your work as a choreographer, but now you're directing Christie’s show. Have you always wanted to get into directing?
Mefford: That's an interesting question. So I met Christie when we were in high school together. We went to high school in rural Indiana together, in a little town called Floyds Knobs, Indiana.
Baugher: Yeah, we've been friends for 25 years.
Mefford: Yeah and we've been collaborating since basically the moment we met, actually. You know, Christie would write things and we would talk about them. And, so this feels... It's like a long time coming. And also just like being home with Christie, you know what I mean? I definitely love directing, but I started out as a performer. So, you know, I feel like in the theater I've been lucky enough to kind of wear a couple of different hats now, that have helped me get to the place that I even really understand what a director is supposed to do, you know? So, I am hoping to do more directing, of course. And it feels wonderful to be doing that with Christie who's such a long time and loved collaborator.
Question: Christie, what made you first interested in writing about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald?
Baugher: So, I've always been a fan of The Great Gatsby. I first came to it in middle school. A teacher that I loved gave it to me and said this is my favorite book. Read it now, but also promise me you'll read it again when you're older and so it was always a favorite book.
But I was going through a period about ten years ago where I wasn't doing so well in my career. I was broke. I was the, you know, “starving artist of New York” story and I didn't know if I had it in me to keep going and if it was worth it to keep going. And my brother sent me a link to an NPR story about a book that just came out about the history of The Great Gatsby.
And in this NPR story, the woman who wrote the book read a letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald to his editor in the last year of his life asking for money. And in that, he talked about how The Great Gatsby was not a success during his lifetime. It became the book that we know basically five years after he died because it went out of print. And, when World War II happened, they sent copies of all of the like lesser selling titles, the publishers did, off with the soldiers to war. And so The Great Gatsby was one of those books that they had to just, you know, read in between fighting. And, all of these soldiers came back from World War II saying, “oh my gosh, where has this book been our entire lives?” And at that point, F. Scott Fitzgerald had been dead for five years.
So, in the last year of his life, he wrote this letter where he talked about how he knew that his work was good. That even if the world didn't know, that he knew. And, that's how I found him. So, I went from there, I started reading about him and then I started reading about Zelda. I started reading things where I was like, “oh, that's a song and that’s a song and that’s a song”. And I just started writing and it started taking shape.
Question: Are you a believer that F. Scott Fitzgerald plagiarized Zelda’s work?
Baugher: A hundred percent. And that's dealt with in the musical.
Question: Tell me more about how you began working on this project, Danny.
Mefford: When Christie started sending me this stuff, because Christie is so funny and so witty herself, like, being able to speak in their voices came very naturally to her, I think. And that is a really, really great gift about this piece. In particular, it feels like their wit is really present on the stage while you're watching it. And I knew from the moment she sent me a couple songs. (speaking to Christie) 'cause you didn't have a full show the first time I heard. Some of it I was like, “oh, this is special”. Like this is really, really, really special.
Question: I wanted to also ask you about some of your work as a choreographer, Danny. I like how your choreography is kind of minimalist and how in Kimberly Kimbo, during the song “The Inevitable Turn”, you make the characters all stand akimbo. What inspires your choreography?
Mefford: That was a great question and I also thank you for just noticing. I never know how to talk about choreography, to be honest with you. What I know is that, like, when I watch people do physical things, it either feels right to me, or it doesn't feel right. And it mostly feels right whenever I feel like the story is being told the best it can possibly be without a lot of artifice. Okay, so when I think about choreography I definitely start from a story place. It's the same way I'm approaching directing too, now that I'm directing. Like, I think about the story, the characters, everything is about what is written. And I try to make a visual corollary, a physical corollary, in front of me that eeks everything out of the writing that you could possibly find, and in my experience of doing theater, that's about getting the container right, like you have to get the container of the show right, and if you do, it becomes very clear what should be and what shouldn't be. But getting the correct container is incredibly difficult.
I want a show to feel like it just happens in front of you, effortlessly. And like, it's all inevitable. And to create the right container for each specific show, because it's different for each piece of writing, where that can happen is like... where a lot of the work comes. I know that's not about choreography at all.
I start moving around in front of my mirror. I'm like, “that move feels right. that move doesn't feel right” and, just keep going. Octavia Butler writes this in an essay of hers, and it's meant a lot to me since I read it over the pandemic, which is that, if you are an artist, and you look at your work and you say “that could be better” and you don't do anything about it, then you're not being true to yourself, you know what I mean? Like everything I do, I go like “how can I make that better? How can I make that better? How can I make that better? How can I make that better?” And I just keep doing that until someone says, “it's opened you can't do it anymore.”
Question: As a huge Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson fan, I was wondering what inspired your choreography for the show? I know Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman did not want the show to come off campy whatsoever, but do you feel that your choreography is camp? I think it kind of fits with the overall vibe of the show.
Mefford: I don't even know. I was an actor when I got that job and so I just did what felt right to me. And when I look back on it now, I'm like, I don't even know how I made those dances, to be honest with you. I just made them. If it made me laugh, I thought it was right because it's a madcap crazy thing, right? So it's like, if that move- if I get a giggle out of it, I'll put it in the show. If I don't get a giggle out of it, then it doesn't belong.
Question: Going back to your work, Christie. Does your story underscore the misogyny that Zelda faced?
Baugher: One thousand percent. That is a big piece that drives my interest in their story.
I mean, especially as a female artist. I found a lot of parallels in Zelda's story, too. And felt a lot of empathy for the things that she went through, especially not only as a woman making art, but also a woman dealing with mental health issues and how that colored how people received her art. So yeah, that is the absolute core of my show.
Question: I listened to some of the music and I instantly fell in love with it and it's very reminiscent of 1920s jazz. It seems like no one has yet to write like a successful The Great Gatsby musical. Is that something you've ever considered?
Baugher: I'm, I'm just going to say no because there are so many others (laughs). But also because I think that the more theatrical story is theirs [Zelda and F. Scott]. I mean, obviously it's one of my favorite books of all time. So much of their writing is very beloved, but, to me the thing that I wanted to see on stage was their story.
We never say the words The Great Gatsby in this musical, either. Very deliberately.
Mefford: Yeah, and his writing of course is super important and her writing is important too, and how he is, you know, both inspired by her and plagiarizing her at the same time is really, really important. In many cases, their work that was published under his name at certain times.
Question: As you know, today is the anniversary of Michael Freeman's unfortunate passing (September 9th). This past year I’ve been doing some research on him and his music. Did you work closely with him? And do you feel like you carry on his legacy in any way?
Mefford: I was not clocking that, so I'm, thank you for bringing it to my attention.
I worked very closely with Michael. Michael and I did three shows together. We did Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. We did Love's Labor's Lost in Central Park together. And we did another President's musical that never went anywhere together called Here's Hoover!
And I did all three of those with Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman. And Michael was, like, the smartest guy in the room. And also the most volatile.
I was having a really bad day one time and I reached down and touched his leg because I needed to talk to him about something and he went, “why are you touching me? What's wrong with you?” I think about that moment- I think about him a lot. He was a prickly character with the biggest heart in the world. Some of his songs, I think are gorgeous and incredible. I really, really wonder what he would have written if he had gotten to have a longer life.
Do I think I carry on his legacy? I hope that I do. I do know that I learned a ton from him as a young stager because he was the composer whose work I was staging. And he believed in me. Both he and Alex are kind of the reason I have a career at all. Because they were working and they brought me into their world so that I could work, too, and other people started seeing my work.
And there are lessons I learned from him that I will carry with me forever, and one of them is to not be overly sentimental. And he was the king of that. He didn't want any sentimentality on the stage. As soon as it reeked of any sentimentality, he was like, “no, no, no!” And strangely, my favorite songs of his are the songs where he just let a little bit of that vulnerability into it
Question: And how do you feel like you carry on Jonathan Larson’s legacy through your work, Christie?
Baugher: Wow. That's a big, heavy question. It was really meaningful to me to receive the honor of the Jonathan Larson Grant in particular because the moment that I decided to start writing was within a week or so of Jonathan Larson's passing. So I've always felt this sort of kinship. And so, I hope by telling stories that are meaningful to me, that ask questions that people carry with them for days, and weeks, and years outside of the theater, by, writing melodies that people love to hear and love to sing and lyrics that, you know, delight people, that I am a good steward of that legacy.
Question: Is there any advice you want to give to young people who want to go into the theater industry and/or become choreographers, directors, or writers?
Baugher: In this economy? No. We joke, we joke.
Mefford: My advice is to make sure that of all of your interests, you follow them.
Baugher: Yes.
Mefford: Because theater is a love, but it is informed by many, many other things, right? It is informed by your life. And so you have to live your life and make theater while you are living your life.
Baugher: I mean, the two biggest pieces of advice that I can give people are keep working. Like, whatever's happening, just keep writing. I started writing this at you know, a low point for me and I just kept doing it. I didn't know if it was going to go anywhere, but I kept writing. Even in moments where it felt like nobody cared. I wrote for me. Write for you and make friends. Everything that I've gotten to do, and the most joyful things I've gotten to do, and the best things I've gotten to do have been things that I've gotten to do with my friends.
Mefford: Yeah, that's right. Also, it's about community. One of the reasons people who love making theater love making theater is because a little community gets built, and like, you all create something together, and it's ephemeral, right? Like, then that's over and you go away, but having people you love collaborating with, nurturing those collaborations, cultivating them, you know, trying to really see how it takes the entire village to make the play, and to honor that, and to like, create space where that is like, cherished. Because I think it's quite rare in the world, actually. I think it's super important, and in a more kind of like, business oriented way, the best advice that I ever got for how to like, make a living in the theater, is your best connections, follow them. The connections that are gonna lead to the thing that you want the most, you gotta follow those connections.
So, people talk about networking and stuff, I don't know what networking means. Like, I don't know how you go to a party and you meet someone. That's never happened for me.
Baugher: I'm an introvert, that's like my nightmare.
Mefford: Yeah, it's like, that's never happened for me. But I do know that there are very important mentors, figures in my life, I nurtured those relationships and that led me somewhere, you know?
Question: That’s most of the questions I have for you both. But I do just want to ask because I run a Mike Faist fanpage (@dailyfaist on Instagram), what was it like working with Mike Faist, Danny?
Mefford: What was it like to work with Mike Faist? It was wonderful. I mean, like, he's hilarious, he's warm, he's great. He's one of the best dancers you'll ever meet in your life, actually. So it's kind of sad to me that we don't get to see him dance. I mean, I know he did West Side Story, but in the theater he hasn't been, like, dancing much lately. I couldn't tell you one bad thing about Mike Faist, you know? He's the best. I haven't seen him in a while.
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