An interview with Dave Malloy about the work of theaters

So I am Dave Malloy and I’m a composer and playwright and sometimes performer.

What are yourfavorite works? Yeah, most of my works tend to come from adaptations of classical literature of some kind. I think a lot of that is that I was both a music composition major and an English literature major in college, so I’ve always had this great love of the classics. And I kind of stumbled my way into theater. I didn’t think I was going to be a theater maker when I was in college or even right after that. I just kind of slowly seeped into my life.

So as I started writing things, it was like a way for me to use my English literature kind of obsessions and dive back into these classical texts that I loved studying so much back then. And it also just felt to me like there’s all these incredible stories that are just there, just stories that are in the world. So I really enjoy that process of adapting stories and then also telling them from a contemporary point of view and doing that musically as well. Andalso alot of the shows I do are classical texts but with more modern contemporary music, which is an anachronism, these kind of time periods butting against each other that I really enjoy. Yeah, for me the most interesting thing about reading old texts, texts that were written 100 years ago, 500 years ago, thousands of years ago, is how little humans have changed. You know how in all of these classic texts you see these characters doing things and thinking things and saying things that you yourself said just yesterday or you had friends who did these things as well.

So for me, I really like bringing that out and showing that these classic pieces of literature are still very, very relevant today. And I think that the musical has a really cool and kind of unique way of doing that in that I can tell these classical stories, but I can then layer on top of it this very contemporary thing, which is the style of music. Sorather than having great comedy, all 19th century Russian music, instead there’s a lot of 21st century electronic music in it as well, which I think kind of speaks to that idea of, okay,these are old thoughts, but these are modern day actors performing them in a modern day vernacular to kind of show that the time periods have things in common. It was actually very easy to pick the translation I used because I just used the earliest one because it’s in the public domain. So I didn’t have to deal with copyright issues. But that said, I definitely read that one, but I also read pretty much every other translation I could get my hands on. And it’s so interesting to read different translations because you can read the same sentence 10 different ways.

And as a lyricist, that was incredible because I could look at the first translation and go, ah, that word isn’t quite right. And then here’s 10 other possible words that this Russian word could also be translated as. So, yeah, that was very fun to kind of look at all these different interpretations of the same text. I mean, I think one of the most amazing things about this production is the work that our director, Rachel Chavkin, and set designer Mimi Lin have done in terms of transforming a Broadway theater into a completely immersive space that everyone is present in.

Separation into actors and performers

So there’s no division between the actors and the performers. There’s no stage audience division at all. There’s audience members on stage and then actors run out into the audience all the time. AndI think, and again, that design choice was very driven by Tolstoy, by the source text, and wanting to kindof paint this picture of all humanity. But I think even in my wildest dreams, Ihad no idea that Mimi would succeed so smashingly in making that happen and just transforming this theater into something that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

And then Rachel then using that space in every single possible conceivable way. So it’s just an exhilarating experience no matter where you’re sitting in the theater. All of my works share in common that they are taken from some piece of classical source material. So Great Common and Moby Dick are based on novels. Three Pianos was a piece based on a Schubert song cycle.

But it still was very much based on this 24 song cycle written by Schubert with poemsby Wilhelm Mueller. So we definitely used that as the source material. And again, like told that story both from Schubert’s point of view and from the other characters’ point of view and from our point of view as I made that show with two other amazing playwright, performer, composers, Alec Duffy and Rick Burkhart and Rachel Chavkin directed it. And so we were again telling the story of Schubert through the eyes of 21st century New Yorkers.

And then Preludes was kind of a little bit of a different thing, but it was still based on like a historical event and it was based on lots of pieces of classical music. So that was based on this tiny period in Rachmaninoff’s life where for three years he underwent this profound depression following the premiere of his first symphony. And during those three years, he didn’t really write anything and then he eventually cured himself through hypnotherapy. So itwas kind of this meditation on writer’s block and on depression and on the inner mind and all these things.

But again, it was very much based on this kind ofclassical record. Andin those three years, Rachmaninoff went and visited like Chekhov and Tolstoy and the Tsar. And so there’s like documents, historical documents telling the anecdotes of all those interactions. So all those interactions found their way into the play as well. Yeah, Imean, Iguess the one thing I’ve never really done is just like written a completely new story from scratch. Again, because I just have such an interest in old things that I always want to start with something old and make it new in some way. Oneof the coolest things about theater is it’s such a collaborative process. So, you know, there’s a period when I’m writing alone in my room and I’m just like locked in my head. But then you put it in front of other people and they make it so much more than you ever could have imagined. So Rachel is my, you know, my closest collaborator and she’s not just the director. Shealso basically works as the dramaturg on the piece. So she was on both Comet and Mobidik.

She’s been with it since day one, since like me telling her the idea. So she always is giving incredible feedback on the script and incredible feedback. Andshe’s just also very character driven. I’m a little more plot story and music driven. And she really hones in on the characters like, ah, like this beat is missing in this character’s arc. So she’s given invaluable feedback on that. And then, you know, with theater also you get to develop it, you know, with actors, which is amazing. So every time we did a development process, we would bring, you know, actors into the room. And some of those actors like, you know, Britton Ashford and Gelsie Bell were literally in the first workshop and are still with the show today. So they’ve had a profound impact on who their characters are. You know, every time I would watch what Britton would do with Sonya, it would tell me a little more about who Sonya actually is in my show. And so then when I went back to writing, Iwould like be writing it now with Britton’s voice in my head. And every time a new actor came in, youknow, Lucas Steele came in, I think, on the second developmental process. And his rendition of Anatole was so startling and amazing and alien that as soon as I saw that, it made me like go back and kind of rewrite his role again. And that happened with our Natasha’s as well, youknow, but Pippa Sue is kind of responsible for the song and no one else. Because after watching her do another version of that song for a while, Iwas like, oh, like, it was amazing. Natasha’s amazing. She needs a better song. So it’s very much very much a collaboration. And then our music director or Matias is incredible. He, you know, his his fingerprint is all over the score of the piece, down to every oboe line and cello line and vocal line.

And then, of course, our other designers, youknow, our lighting designer, costume designer, sound designer. We’re allall in the room, you know, from the fromthe developmental process and discussing everything. I think by this point, most of the cast has read War and Peace. Imean, certainly all the principals. I think certainly everyone has read at least this section of War and Peace. And for some people, Imean, a few of the cast members like I know, Gelsie Bell and Nick Chokese, both of them had already read War and Peace before they got involved in theshow. And it was one of their favorite novels. So they were, you know, they jumped at the chance to be in this piece. And yeah, and it’s really cool, too, that everyone kind of knows where their character comes from and where they go. So, like, youknow, Sonja has a kind of a small role in this particular part of the story, but she actually has quite an extensive backstory and quite an extensive life after the comet as well. So I think it’s fun for all the actors kind of have that in their heads and they use that right before our section of the show.

I think most of the characters, Sonja and Dolikov have kind of a moment where Dolikov proposes, youknow, asks for Sonja’s hand, but Sonja refuses him. And then Dolikov gets really mad and basically bankrupts their family in a poker game. So when Sonja and Dolikov are on stage together, like they share these little glances at each other. Again, they’re not, you know,in the show, but they’re just like this nice little piece of backstory for them as people who have read the book and then for anyone else who’s read the books as well. They can, you know, see these little tiny Easter eggs hiding in the show. So with with War and Peace, it was just a 70 page sliver that kind of sang out to me.

I didn’t really think of myself as a theater maker until after college and I just started doing theater randomly. But once I started doing it, I realized that musical theater was kind of the perfect vessel for doing the things that I want to do, which is that I love telling stories and I love investigating things and I’m obsessed with music. So this is a way to kind of combine these two things together, storytelling through music.