When playwright Terrence McNally asked composer Stephen Flaherty and librettist-lyricist Lynn Ahrens for the secret of their longevity—they've worked as a musical team for 22 years now—Ahrens quipped, "Coffee." The response generated a big laugh from the audience gathered to celebrate the team's songs at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City on April 4.
Flaherty added seriously that they've managed to stay together for as long as they have thanks to their skill at "surprising each other," as well as the diversity of the shows they've written.
McNally's interview with Ahrens and Flaherty was part of a program called " 'Make Them Hear You!': The Songs of Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty," featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Andrea Martin, Malcolm Gets, and others singing some of Ahrens and Flaherty's best-known and lesser-known musical numbers. Shows of the past, present, and future were represented, including "Ragtime," "Once on This Island," "My Favorite Year," "A Man of No Importance," "Seussical," "Dessa Rose" (now playing at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center), and new works such as "Legacy" and "The Glorious Ones."
McNally, who has collaborated with the Flaherty-Ahrens team on "Ragtime" (which won Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards) and "A Man of No Importance" (an Outer Critics Circle Award winner), introduced the duo by praising Flaherty's music for its "generosity [and] versatility…unequaled by any composer" and Ahrens' lyrics "for not being lyrics but poetry" with "compassion, intelligence, and joy." Interspersed among the performances, the interview covered a range of topics—from how and where their partnership started, to the nature of their collaboration, to the peculiar (and evolving) character of the industry.
They met at a BMI workshop in 1983, "a mixer for lonely composers and lyricists," Flaherty said, noting that he and Ahrens clicked and complemented each other from the outset. They have a similar worldview, he remarked, and both have written music and lyrics, yet they have different styles of working that somehow mesh. He described himself as the more "detail-oriented" member of the team.
Ahrens admitted that their early efforts didn't really pan out in any significant way, although the works were noticed. In 1988, their musical "Lucky Stiff" was produced at Playwrights Horizons and earned a Richard Rodgers Production Award. She also made the point that this was in an era when lesser-known teams could actually get launched at a place like Playwrights Horizons.
McNally asked what it is about source material that most appeals to them.
Each show has its own draw, they explained. Flaherty noted that "My Favorite Year" turned him on because it was about making a musical. "Once on This Island" intrigued him because he was called upon to write songs evoking a world-music sound. "Lucky Stiff," he said, was appealing because of its silliness: "We didn't realize how hard farce is."
Ahrens said she looks for "great stories and characters with high stakes," where the emotional intensity is so great that the characters just have to "burst into song."
McNally wondered if there was ever a time when one of them saw the potential for a musical in a source and the other did not.
"Lynn wanted to do 'Dessa Rose' for ten years before I did," Flaherty recalled. "I wasn't mature enough."
McNally added, "I wanted to write 'Man of No Importance' before either of you were ready."
That comment turned the conversation to the pair's collaboration with McNally on their acclaimed Broadway production of "Ragtime."
Ahrens recalled how Livent, the now defunct Canadian production company, bought the E.L. Doctorow novel on which the musical is based and then brought McNally on board to write the book. The producers wondered how they'd find a composer and lyricist.
"Hal Prince suggested that they audition musical teams," Ahrens said. "There were nine teams, including ourselves, who auditioned. I don't know who the others were and I don't want to. Stephen and I did four songs very quickly and submitted the demo tapes. Terrence heard them."
"I'll testify to that," McNally said. "I now have those tapes. If my next show doesn't pan out, I'll sell them on eBay."
McNally described how he and Doctorow listened to the nine tapes blindly, with all identifying names removed: "You're going to have a very different response if you know that Cole Porter has written a song. You feel you have to like it. But if it's just known as '2'…." That was the Flaherty-Ahrens tape. "Doctorow and I both picked '2,' " he continued. "This is a true theatre story where the best team won, not because they were rich and successful or because their last show had been successful. This is how it should be."
They all agreed that "Ragtime" was a wonderful collaboration all the way around.
McNally then asked whether they've ever written songs for specific singers.
Flaherty said that in fact they did write a number of songs for Audra McDonald in "Ragtime." Although originally she had just one song, when they heard her sing they realized they had to write more for her. In fact, producer Garth Drabinsky insisted that Sarah, the character played by McDonald, be fleshed out substantially.
"He said we couldn't have dinner until we wrote some more songs for Audra," remembered Ahrens. "He was one of those old-style showman producers."
They all concurred that whatever subsequent (and infamous) legal and financial problems Drabinsky may have had with his investors, he was more than generous with his creative team.
The threesome then discussed "Seussical," a musical with its own well-publicized troubles.
Ahrens pointed out that many shows that suffered travails of one sort or another on Broadway have nonetheless done very well elsewhere. "Seussical," she said, has been one of their biggest successes on the amateur and stock circuit. Despite the "bankruptcy and corruption" that surrounded the Broadway production, she insisted it was a wonderful lesson in the way a project can have longevity.
McNally noted that "we're grateful to theatres who take on shows that haven't performed four years on Broadway and won 45 Tony Awards."
Flaherty and Ahrens talked briefly about two new musicals in the works: "Legacy" and "The Glorious Ones." The former is inspired by a series of black-and-white photos of working men and other subjects shot by Ahrens' father many decades ago. The latter is about the actors who make up a theatre troupe.
The evening ended with Brian Stokes Mitchell singing the tune "I Was Here" from "The Glorious Ones." The song, about a man who has to be an actor as a way of forging a personal legacy, had profound resonance for him, Mitchell declared.
And he brought the house down with his performance. Indeed, the evening concluded with a standing ovation for the composers and all of those who performed their songs.