Back in 1992, when lyricist Lynn Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty were putting the finishing touches on the Lincoln Center production of “My Favorite Year,” they couldn’t have imagined how much better the title might fit them a half-decade later.
Not only is the amiable duo responsible for the music in “Ragtime,” which has been embraced by sold-out audiences in Los Angeles and in Toronto, but they also have won good notices here with a revival of “Once on This Island,” at the La Mirada Theater. Meanwhile, Flaherty has contributed incidental music to Neil Simon’s “Proposals,” which this summer began its trek to New York at the Ahmanson Theater, and his symphonic suite based on “Ragtime” themes recently was introduced at the Hollywood Bowl.
After Thanksgiving, at about the same time “Ragtime” opens on Broadway and Ahrens’ version of “A Christmas Carol” returns to Madison Square Garden, moviegoers nationwide will be listening to the tandem’s songs in “Anastasia,” the first full-length work from 20th Century Fox’s new animation studio. At about this time, PBS also will present a “Great Performances” documentary on the making of “Ragtime.” (“Ragtime” is scheduled to reopen the long-shuttered Oriental Theatre in fall 1998.)
If they become the toast of Broadway — and it’s a safe bet they will — remember that it’s only taken the team of Ahrens & Flaherty 14 years to become an overnight success.
The writers began their collaboration inauspiciously, in 1983, at a musical theater workshop. Ahrens had already won an Emmy for her work on PBS’ jaunty “Schoolhouse Rock,” and Flaherty had recently moved to New York from Cincinnati, where as a college student he played in an orchestra that specialized in turn-of-the-century dance music.
At first, the lyricist and composer didn’t seem a natural match. She was 12 years older than he, New York Jewish to his Pittsburgh Catholic, straight to his gay, and noticeably more outgoing and chatty.
Like so many other opposites, however, they attracted.
“We had admired each other’s music from afar during our first year at the workshop . . . but, when we sat down together, we just hit it off and have loved working together ever since,” recalled Ahrens, relaxing over drinks at her hotel before the Los Angeles premiere of “Ragtime.” “The fact is, we had the same sensibilities, and, in terms of music, are kindred spirits. Our similarities are much more important than our differences . . . same as in a marriage.”
Still, several years would go by before Ahrens’ and Flaherty’s collaboration would bear fruit.
“We wrote two unproduced shows and an hourlong children’s show that went on tour,” she said. “Then, we did `Lucky Stiff’ off-Broadway at the Playwrights Horizons, followed, in 1990, by `Island.’ “
“Lucky Stiff” tells the story of an English shoe salesman who takes a corpse on vacation, while “Once on This Island” is a fable set in the French Antilles. In it, an orphan girl becomes the object of a bet between the goddess of love and the god of death.
“My Favorite Year” was their musical adaptation of Richard Benjamin’s 1982 film about a young writer on TV’s top comedy show in the mid-’50s.
The productions were well-received, and so, naturally, Hollywood beckoned. They agreed to development deals at Disney, Warner Bros. and Paramount, but it wasn’t until 1995 that the tandem was offered “Ragtime” and “Anastasia.”
One came easy. The other required some work — and luck.
“When the `Ragtime’ project came up, the producers (Toronto-based Livent) didn’t know who to use and (author) E.L. Doctorow had approval of the creative team,” Aherns said. “Doctorow was very concerned about who was going to musicalize his baby, because he didn’t like the movie version of his book.
“Marty Bell, who we knew from `My Favorite Year,’ was an executive at Livent and he had asked about six or eight writing teams to take a crack at it. We submitted four demo songs, and three of the four were on the money.”
Bell and (Livent’s) Garth Drabinsky already had brought in Terrence McNally (“Master Class,” “Love! Valour! Compassion!”) to write the treatment for their adaptation of Doctorow’s richly textured 300-page novel. It would become Toronto-based Livent’s first original musical, following in the wake of “Showboat.”
The book weaves together the stories of three New York families whose lives become inextricably linked in the early 1900s.
“Anastasia,” on the other hand, is the romantic tale of a young princess who loses her family, wealth and memory during the Russian revolution. It is loosely based on the 1956 film of the same name (with Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner).
The differences between working in film and in the theater soon became apparent to Ahrens and Flaherty.
“Even though both are set in particular historic places and times, the writing has been really different,” noted Flaherty. “In general, writing for the theater it’s much more your baby — you’re god of your universe. Whereas, writing for film is much more by committee.
“For `Ragtime,’ Terrence, Lynn and I met several times a week for 2 1/2 years. During read-throughs and workshops in Toronto, we’d be working intimately every day.”
On “Anastasia,” however, there were more than a dozen screenwriters, only two of whom Flaherty said he actually met.
“Being a live medium, theater becomes this lump of clay that you’re able to shape over time in a sequential manner,” Flaherty said. “If the audience seems confused at one point, you have to go back and analyze why . . . then, sand the rough edges to make it palatable to an audience.
“In an animated film, though, we’re basically all in the can before testing begins. Luckily, the music is going over very well and boys like it as much as the girls.”
Which must come as good news for Fox executives, who already this year have watched “Speed 2” careen into the rocks and, then, were forced to delay the release of the megabudget “Titanic.” With the tepid response to Disney’s “Hercules” and other family films this summer, many observers are wondering where the audience might be for “Anastasia.” What’s more, Disney will re-release “The Little Mermaid” on Nov. 14, a week before “Anastasia.”
Leaving little to chance, Fox already has begun marketing the movie with the same urgency it gave “Independence Day.” Ahrens’ and Flaherty’s music soon will be a major part of the hype parade, with a soundtrack album scheduled for release at least a month before the film opens.
The difference between writing songs for the Top 40 and for a musical production is great. Besides having to suit the needs of several layers of studio bureaucracy, the songs also must serve a dramatic purpose.
“The first function of the music is to satisfy the narrative and character demands,” said Robert Kraft, executive vice president of music at Fox.
“There are wonderful musical theater songs here that aren’t necessarily Russian — there’s French can-can, there’s a rock song — but the kinds of music aren’t nearly as important as the strong dramatic function the song has to take, and that’s where Lynn and Steve are so brilliant.
“Since January 1995, I think they’ve written 740 songs to fit the seven spots we have in the film. That’s an exaggeration, but, for example, they might go off and write a sad little song for Anya and everyone says, `That’s fabulous, but, guess what, it doesn’t work in this spot.’ So, they go off again and write a song that’s in another viewpoint.”
Ahrens compares this creativity-by-committee approach to “going down the rapids in a little raft.”
Along the way, “Someone shouts, `Rock left! They want a comedy song,’ then `Rock right! They want it to be a dramatic comedy song.’ We’ve learned to row our way down the rapids of scoring animation, but it’s taken two years.”
Thanks to his stint with the Fleeting Moments Waltz and Quickstep Orchestra back in Cincinnati, Flaherty had a head start with the ragtime rhythms needed to illustrate the Doctorow work. The composer wasn’t so fortunate with “Anastasia.”
“I wasn’t familiar with Russian music, so I did a lot of research and listening to Russian folk songs and composers and choruses,” he said. “Ultimately, you try to submerge yourself in the music to get the sound in your ears — the colors, the textures, the rhythms — and then you have to let go of it, and reinvent that world based on those sounds.”
Ahrens also brushed up on her Russian history, but understood that this “Anastasia” essentially was a fairy tale about a lost princess. “Ragtime” was more fact-based, and her songs clearly would come under the close scrutiny of the author of the book.
“Doctorow is a historian, as well as a novelist, so I needed to be grounded in the details of the period,” she said. “Once you’ve done the research, you can free your mind to imagine how the characters might feel in that world.”
