Festival has ‘Great Expectations’ for world premiere musical

Billy, meet Chuck.

Chuck, this is Billy.

Rather informal introduction, but appropriate as William Shakespeare hosts Charles Dickens this summer when the Utah Shakespearean Festival goes curtain up on the world premiere of "Great Expectations," a musical adaptation of Chuckie's classic novel.

Ambitious and long in gestation, "Expectations" harbors hopes of reaching beyond the mountains of Utah to the fog of London and the streets of New York.

"We think it has potential," says R. Scott Phillips, the festival's executive director. "Of course it's also a risk doing these types of projects."

Based on the familiar story of the orphan Pip's journey to adulthood, "Expectations" has evolved onstage since 2001 in readings, workshops and one "developmental production" -- Cloris Leachman and Faith Prince are among the marquee performers who have participated -- with modest budgets in 99-seat Los Angeles theaters. Creators nipped and tucked it into shape, adding and cutting songs and scenes.

Arriving in Utah, it comes fully formed for the first time, with complete cast, sets and costumes, earning it the "world premiere" label. Having last mounted a newbie in 2007 -- a musical take on "Lend Me a Tenor" -- the festival, as the show's producer, is shouldering the cost: $800,000, which is $100,000 more than its typical show. Should "Expectations," well, meet or surpass expectations and generate some Dickensian buzz around the theater world, advancing to London's West End and Broadway's bright lights could earn millions.

"We have future performance rights, and we do have a theater in London very interested in it, and we're inviting a lot of theater producers to come," says Phillips, citing a smashingly successful precedent -- "A Chorus Line" spent its infancy as workshop productions at the New York Shakespeare Festival.

Premieres, Phillips adds, also lend the Utah fest a cool cachet. "You're showing your peers and audiences that you're constantly searching for new material and new choices to give them, along with the financial remunerations that can come from it."

Logistics and long-held admiration drew the "Expectations" creators to Utah. "They're Tony award-winning," says lyricist Steve Lane, referring to Utah's 2000 honor as the country's best regional theater. "They were the best offer we had. We really wanted to do a great, full-out production, and we thought this was the one that could launch it. And this year is the 150th anniversary of the book, and the 200th anniversary of (Dickens') birth is in 2012."

Given the novel's hallowed standing and gaggle of characters, audiences might expect an epic sweep to "Expectations" onstage, echoing "Les Miserables," but this show is smaller in scope. "We had to cut some out of the book, or it would take us five hours to do the show," Lane says. "Pip's story is about romance, coming of age, the prodigal son, and it's universal. You don't need pyrotechnics and millions of dollars to tell that kind of story. We thought intimacy is what Dickens really wanted to portray."

Just as New York critics have blasted the dearth of original scores on Broadway in recent years, owing to revivals and jukebox musicals, "Expectations" composer Richard Winzeler says he and Lane have returned to the form. "I have a hard time with the jukebox approach to stories that look like Vegas revues," Winzeler says.

"Substance is better than flash, and all our songs move the story along. My co-writer and I come from a pop-songwriting background, but when you think about musical theater back in the '30s, '40s and '50s, lots of pop came out of musicals. We try for songs you can remember. Some feel like traditional Sondheim -- though I don't like to compare -- others feel more like pop songs that have a chorus and they're memorable. There are a lot of themes people can hook into."

As Lane recalls, Winzeler's invitation to team with him prompted a telling response: "I said, 'I can use vocabulary other than 'baby, baby, baby?' " he says. "We are totally original, no Frankie Valli or Elvis songs. The style is eclectic and the musical has the flavor of the old-fashioned, but not in a bad way."

Hold no great expectations for jukebox pop.

Unless history misled us, we're fairly certain William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens were not Jersey boys.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.