From the Tony and Olivier Award-Winning Director of Les Miserables And the Creators of Jane Eyre   Daddy Long Legs Music & lyrics by Paul Gordon Book by John Caird Based on the novel by Jean Webster Running Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes SEPTEMBER 16, 2010 - OCTOBER 24, 2010 Presented by Northlight Theatre in association with Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Rubicon Theatre Company, Theatreworks, David Elzer and Michael Jackowitz. Jerusha Abbott's prayers seem answered when the generosity of an anonymous gentleman that she knows only as "Daddy Long Legs" allows her to move from orphanage to university. Through her grateful letters, Jerusha shares her life with her mysterious benefactor as she grows into an intelligent, independent New American Woman and discovers a budding romance with a wealthy young suitor. Yet there is one startling fact that Jerusha has yet to uncover - one that will change her life forever. A charming and unique musical love story! Featuring Megan McGinnis and Robert Adelman Hancock

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The Art of Patience

By Paul Gordon, Daddy Long Legs Composer & Lyricist

Having worked on several musicals at this point in my career, I've come to appreciate the Art of Patience. Indeed, it takes a lot of focus and energy to create a musical, find the right creative and business partners and develop a project so that eventually it reaches audiences. To be sure, songwriting is important. Picking the right source material and finding the best collaborators is important. But perhaps nothing is as crucial as knowing how to sit and wait. And wait. And wait.

 

This was true of Daddy Long Legs. In fact, the project sat in a drawer for more years than I'm permitted to mention. Althought, it did get off to a fast start. It was originally conceived as a one-woman show and the first draft was written in a reasonable amount o ftime (less than a year). But soon after, book writer and director John Caird felt that we needed the character of Jervis to really tell the story properly. So another rewrite was crafted, songs were added and our first reading was staged in Los Angeles with Jayne Paterson (who played Helen Burns in the Broadway production of Jane Eyre) as Jerusha Abbott. John Caird and I both played Jervis in the first reading. (Yes, it took both of us to do one role. John spoke the lines and I sang the songs.)

 

But the project stalled for a few years until John came up with the idea of doing the show with The David Parsons Dance Company. It was quite a great idea, actually. David's dancers would be all the other characters in the story, including barnyard animals and inanimate objects. A workshop was done at The Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida and we had two weeks to stage several numbers. The response to the dance version of Daddy Long Legs was fantastic. But ultimately this configuration proved too costly and complicated to give the show the kind of life we felt it needed, so the project was put back in the drawer, where it again remained for several more years.

 

Finally, a chance meeting with producer Michael Jackowitz resulted in the project finally moving forward with the first production. Perhaps it was just the right time. After countless readings and workshops, the stars were apparently aligned and Daddy Long Legs opened at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura, California, in October of 2009 launching this current four-city production.

 

Why do some projects take years and years and others seem to ride the fast track? I have no idea whatsoever. But I know whenever I choose a new musical to write I have to ask myself this question: "Am I going to be happy and excited knowing and living with these characters for many, many years to come?" If the answer is not a resounding "yes," then I had better look for something else to work on. ‘Cause you just never know how long it may take.

 

Article courtesy of Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

 

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An Interview with Broadway Designer David Farley

TheatreWorks Dramaturg Vickie Rozell talked with Daddy Long Legs scenic and costume designer
David Farley.

 

VR: You designed the much-heralded Sunday in the Park with George revival on Broadway.

 

DF: That started off as a crazy little project in a 150 seat off-West End theatre. It's a very unusual space, the Menier Chocolate Factory. The director and the artistic director had this idea of...using projected animation, bringing a whole new concept to the piece...and then, when we got these amazing reviews, we were asked to take it to the West End, and that became my first West End show...and then Broadway, so my first Broadway show, the second show I'd ever designed in the US...and two Tony nominations.

 

VR: You design set and costumes, which is uncommon here.

 

DF: To be honest, in the UK it's more of the fact that youhave to...there's a budget line for a designer-set and costumes-that's it...But I have to say doing both does mean that you get to have complete coherent visual control over the show, particularly if you have a good working relationship with your light designer.

 

VR: How did you get involved in Daddy Long Legs?

 

DF: I have known John Caird, the director and writer of the show, for a number of years socially...I'd designed a show for the Rubicon Theatre [7 years ago] and he was one of the co-producers, so when...the Rubicon was interested in producing [this], my name came up.

 

VR: What intrigued you about it?

 

DF: The music. That was the first thing, some really lovely music...and an opportunity for some very simple storytelling... It's much easer to get away with things with a large cast and a lot of scenery. The challenge of making this intrigued me.

VR: What stands out from the design process?

 

DF: One thing that came through from the text was this idea of Jervis being a very secluded person...The image of him in his study, reading these letters was a very permanent image. Jerusha describes everything that she does and where she goes, we didn't need to give her much at all. In contrast to his real world, she can live in this wonderful, imaginative world of...storytelling in which a trunk becomes a café table and so forth. With her imagination we can change the mood and the space.

 

Interview courtesy of TheatreWorks

CAST

		Megan McGinnis (Jerusha Abbott) originated the role of Jerusha at the Rubicon Theatre (Independent Award), TheatreWorks and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (Acclaim Award).  She was last seen on Broadway starring as Eponine in the revival of Les Miserables.  She originated the role of Beth March in the Broadway musical Little Women and played a year-long run as Belle in Beauty and the Beast.  Other Broadway credits: Thoroughly Modern Millie, Parade and The Diary of Anne Frank.  National Tours: The Sound of Music (Liesl) and James Joyce's The Dead (Lily).  Television & film: Dear John; Sister, Sister; Wings; Blossom (recurring); Anywhere But Here and A Goofy Movie.  Megan can be heard on the original cast recordings of Little Women and Parade, and most recently, on Sutton Foster's album Wish singing the duet "Flight."  Megan would like to thank her parents for absolutely everything.  And John, Paul, and Jayne, for helping her find Jerusha. www.meganmcginnis.info
		Robert Adelman Hancock (Jervis Pendleton) National Tour: Mamma Mia!  New York: College the Musical, New York Musical Theatre Festival.  Regional: Daddy Long Legs (TheatreWorks, Rubicon Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), James Joyce's The Dead (Court Theatre), The Fantasticks (Utah Shakespearean Festival), Hair (Hangar Theatre), Route 66 (Original Cast - Milwaukee Rep), Forever Plaid (Barrymore nomination - Delaware Theatre Company), Muscle (Pegasus Players), A Christmas Carol (Westport Country Playhouse), Fiddler on the Roof (Rubicon Theatre Company).  Television & Film: Guiding Light and The Liver.  Mr. Hancock has performed as a soloist with the Tokyo Philharmonic and is a member of The Music Theatre Company of Chicago.  For more information, visit www.robhancock.com

PRODUCTION

John Caird (Director/Book) Broadway: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Les Miserables (Tony Award), Jane Eyre (Tony nominee), Stanley (Tony nominee).  International: Macbeth (Almeida Theatre); Hamlet, Candide, Peter Pan, The Seagull (with Judi Dench), Stanley and Humble Boy (National Theatre); The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night and Dance of Death (Royal Dramatic Theatre, Sweden); A Midsummer Night's Dream (New National Theatre, Japan); Jane Eyre and The Beggar's Opera (Nissay Theatre, Japan).  Television & Film: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, As You Like It, and his adaptation of Henry IV for the BBC.  Additional credits include The Siegfried and Roy Spectacular in Las Vegas, numerous operas including Brief Encounter and Tosca at Houston Grand Opera and Don Carlos at Canadian Opera Company in Toronto.  He has recently published a book about directing called Theatre Craft.  Mr. Caird is an Honorary Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and Principal Guest Director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm.

 

Paul Gordon (Music, Lyrics and Orchestrations)  Broadway: Jane Eyre (Tony nominee).  Regional: Emma (TheatreWorks and The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis; Daddy Long Legs (TheatreWorks, Rubicon Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park).  Mr. Gordon's other works include Lucky Break, Death: The Musical and Analogue and Vinyl.  He is currently working on Little Miss Scrooge, a contemporary retelling of the Dickens classic.  He has written several number one pop songs and is the recipient of nine ASCAP Awards.

 

Laura Bergquist (Music Director) conducted National Tours of The King and I, Titanic and Miss Saigon.  She is a frequent guest conductor in regional theatres and a clinician in universities and churches.  An ASCAP Awards recipient for composition, her personal catalogue includes more than sixty works in print and several recordings.  Ms. Bergquist was the original Musical Director for Jane Eyre (the first John Caird and Paul Gordon collaboration) and has worked regionally in theatres including Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Rubicon, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, Music Theatre of Wichita, Stage One and Theatre of Stars, as well as the New York Emma at The Old Globe.  For my mother-in-law, Mildred Bergquist who lived in an Oklahoma orphanage from age 4 to age 18 and blessed the world with her charity, faith and spirit until age 93.

 

David Farley (Set and Costume Design) Broadway: A Little Night Music, 13 The New Musical, Sunday in the Park with George.  International: Kiss Me, Kate! (Stratford, Ontario); A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George and Little Shop of Horrors (London West End); Rocky Horror Show (European Tour); Aspects of Love, A Little Night Music, La Cage Aux Folles, Take Flight, Tick Tick Boom! and The Last Five Years (Menier Chocolate Factory); Sweeney Todd (Gate Theatre, Dublin); Corpse! (Salisbury Playhouse); Macbeth (Sheffield Crucible Studio); Oklahoma! (Chichester Festival Theatre).  Regional: Take Flight (McCarter Theatre); Sunday in the Park with George (5^th Avenenue Theatre); Tick Tick Boom! (Rubicon, Coronet, Westport County Playhouse.  Awards: Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Set Design, Sunday in the Park with George, Studio 54 Theatre; Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics Circle Award for Best Set Design for Sunday in the Park with George, Wyndhams Theatre, Menier Chocolate Factory. www.davidfarley.co.uk.

 

Paul Toben (Lighting Design) Broadway: The Story of My Life; Associate Designer for Next to Normal, Bye Bye Birdie, Sunday in the Park with George and Pal Joey.  Off-Broadway: The Realm, Wild Project; Romeo and Juliet ( Columbia Stages); Too Little, Too Late (HERE Arts Center); When in Disgrace (Examined Man Theatre); The Redheaded Man (Fringe Encores).  National Tour: Associate Designer for A Bronx Tale, Annie and White Christmas.  Regional: Daddy Long Legs ( Rubicon Theatre Company, TheatreWorks, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park); Shining City (Shadow Lawn Stage); Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Theatre By the Sea); three seasons at the Williamstown Theatre Festival including designs of Caravan Man and Demon Dreams; Associate Designer for Broadway: Three Generations at The Kennedy Center and Shamu Rocks! at SeaWorld Orlando.

 

Cecil Averett (Sound Design) has designed sound and composed music for theater, film, multimedia and civic installations.  He is also a software designer and co-founder of cs|designgroup, a production and multimedia design company.  Some of his regional theater credits include The Marvelous Wonderettes and Grey Gardens at Northlight, Passion Play at the Goodman, and productions at Arena Stage, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, and Marriott Lincolnshire.  Other recent designs include the off-Broadway production of Beyond Glory at Roundabout, and Cap21's premiere of Waiting for My Man, also off-Broadway.  Mr. Averett was the recipient of an AfterDark Award (original music) for his work on Eclipse Theatre's production of Frame 312 as well as a Joseph Jefferson Award nominee for sound design of Passion Play.

 

Nell Balaban (Associate Director) Broadway: Associate Director for Golda's Balcony.  New York: Associate Director for Rooms (New World Stages); Director for Lips Together, Teeth Apart (Wingspan Arts); Katharine Heller's Boy in the Basement (Outstanding Director Award - New York Fringe Festival); staged reading of Lucky Break (Manhattan Theatre Club); Heartbreak House (Brave New World).  Regional: Associate Director for Much Ado About Nothing (The Alley Theatre), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Paper Mill Playhouse); L'il Abner (Goodspeed Opera House).

 

Rita Vreeland (Production Stage Manager) is delighted to be collaborating once again with the talented people at Northlight.  Previous Northlight stage management credits include Low Down Dirty Blues, Awake and Sing!, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Mauritius, Grey Gardens, The Miser and Gee's Bend.  Elsewhere, her recent credits include Footloose, The Christmas Schooner, Knute Rockne - All-American and many other productions at Theatre at the Center in Munster, IN; the world premieres of Free Man of Color and Court-Martial at Fort Devens, among others, for Victory Gardens Theatre; Once Upon a Time in New Jersey and Into the Woods at Marriott Lincolnshire; and 18 productions for Apple Tree Theatre in Highland Park.  Rita has been the set designer at Harold Washington College since 2001 and is a member of the  Route 66 Theatre Company in Chicago.  She is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado and a proud member of Actors Equity.  Special thanks to the amazing Northlight crew! 

photos by Jeanne Tanner

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Behind the Scenes

Winning performances carry Northlight's 'Daddy Long Legs'

PIONEER PRESS
September 30, 2010
By Catey Sullivan

 

With "Daddy Long Legs," Northlight Theatre debuts a new musical that's slight of plot but big in winning performances. The two-hander is the latest incantation for Jean Webster's 1912 epistolary novel, which may well be one of the most adapted stories you've never heard of. There are three Hollywood film versions of Webster's book (1919, 1931, and 1955), one Broadway play (1915), an animated Japanese movie (1990) and a Korean film (2005).

 

The story endures perhaps in part because of its sunny, G-rated view of the human condition. The heroine is a plucky orphan, the hero a handsome young gent whose seemingly limitless material riches is matched by a heart of gold. The play's primary problem is a total lack of dramatic tension -- there's never any question but that orphan and rich man will wind up together (lest there be any doubt the publicity photos include an image of the two in starry-eyed embrace). Making that slim story fill two hours traffic on stage is a stretch.

 

With music and lyrics by Paul Gordon (a Tony nominee for "Jane Eyre") and a book by director John Caird (Tony winner for "Les Miserables"), "Daddy Long Legs" lacks the dramatic heft of the former and the epic, intricate melodies of the latter. What gives the production its charm are the performances of the adorable Megan McGinnis as the "foundling" Jerusha Abbott and the tall-dark-stranger-charisma of Robert Adelman Hancock as Jerusha's mysterious benefactor, "Mr. Smith."

 

At curtain up, we learn that Jerusha is the eldest of 97 orphans in the John Grier Home, where she is treated like an indentured servant. But Jerusha's luck abruptly changes one Monday after she glimpses the tall, spindly-legged shadow of a trustee departing. It seems this mystery man -- who Jerusha likens to the titular arachnid -- has been reading her homework. Her singularly expressive essays have prompted the benevolent stranger to pay for her college education. The conditions are that she is to write to "Mr. Smith" monthly, keeping him apprised of her progress but never expecting a response of any sort. But of course spunky Jerusha and her "ludicrously expressive letters" quickly melt the heart of the buttoned-up Mr. Smith, who becomes more involved with Jerusha than he intended.

 

The audience learns Smith's real identity less than half way through the piece -- at which point, the only remaining question is when Jerusha will find out and how the verbiage of the proposal will play out. Along the way there are some momentary diversions -- Jerusha has trouble fitting in, dabbles in college politics, makes spunky proto-feminist comments about women's rights, learns to canoe and struggles with her dreams of being a novelist/social worker/Fabian/suffragette.

 

There are other difficulties besides the lack of tension: As Mr. Smith, Hancock is saddled with delivering a significant portion of the first act without revealing his face -- thus putting the audience in the position of mustering interest in a silhouette. As for Jerusha, by having her sing much of her opening number in the third person (as in "Jerusha is the eldest orphan in the John Grier Home"), lyricist Gordon creates unnecessary distance right from the start. Finally, the entire story plays out as correspondence, with most of the action limited to writing and reminiscing while writing. That gives the whole thing a sedentary feel.

 

What works about Northlight's production are McGinnis and Hancock. They both have gorgeous voices. Their harmonies on the romantic "All This Time" and the melancholic "Graduation Day" are simply sublime. Moreover, they both have that undeniable, indefinable star quality that illuminates the stage, even in a trifle of a musical.

 

Read the Review on PioneerLocal.com>

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Charming new Northlight musical has 'Legs'

DAILY HERALD
September 29, 2010
By Barbara Vitello

 

The first thing one notices about David Farley's canny "Daddy Long Legs" set are the books filling the floor-to-ceiling shelves. The steamer trunks are the second.

 

The books represent knowledge. The trunks represent travel. Together they illustrate the power of an education to transform an individual: to set her on a course to a new life.

 

That message underscores the disarming new chamber musical by writer-director John Caird (the Tony Award winning director of "Les Miserables") and composer-lyricist Paul Gordon ("Jane Eyre"), which opened recently at Skokie's Northlight Theatre.

 

"Daddy Long Legs" combines a coming-of-age tale with a romance between a pair of unlikely soul mates. But at its core, this show is an homage to erudition.

 

"Daddy Long Legs" is inspired by Jean Webster's oft-adapted 1912 novel about a young woman plucked from an orphanage and given a college education by an anonymous benefactor. The play chronicles in epistolary fashion the evolution of Jerusha Abbott, a teenage orphan with a quick and eager mind, enchantingly played by Megan McGinnis, a superb singer/actress on whose slender but very able shoulders much of the show's success rests.

 

Her patron whom she imagines as an elderly man she dubs Daddy Long Legs asks for nothing in exchange except regular letters about her progress. The letters intrigue "Daddy," who is actually a privileged, social awkward, thirtysomething bachelor named Jervis Pendleton. Jervis (played with restless charm by Robert Adelman Hancock) finds himself falling in love with the spirited, intellectually curious and increasingly independent young woman. He arranges to meet her and they become friends without Jervis ever revealing that he pays her tuition. Meanwhile, Jerusha writes "Daddy" about the man she has met which (to his credit) prompts Jervis to ponder whether he's "fostering her education or reading someone else's mail."

 

The musical never really addresses Jervis' betrayal or the inequality and sense of obligation that underpins their relationship. And I don't suppose the show would benefit from an analysis of the Freudian implications of Jerusha unwittingly falling for the man she calls "Daddy." The first act could use some paring down, and a couple of second act numbers stray into "show tune" territory that doesn't suit the refined, understated score.

 

But those are minor points. "Daddy Long Legs" is a moving show with exquisite arrangements by Gordon and Brad Haak who make dissonance delightful.

 

Northlight's beautifully sung production marks yet another stop on this show's inaugural tour. It premiered last fall at the Rubicon Theatre Company in California and was subsequently remounted at California's TheatreWorks and at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park before coming to Skokie.

 

"Daddy Long Legs" richly deserves its growing exposure. Like its heroine, it is most assuredly on course.

 

Read the Review on DailyHerald.com>

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'Daddy Long Legs' at Northlight: Charming 'Long Legs' could stride more boldly into love

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
September 26, 2010
BY CHRIS JONES

 

★★★½

With the twitterati busy dissecting "The Social Network" and communication devolving into digitized, evermore abbreviated keystrokes, a two-person musical centered on the fine art of letter-writing to a mysterious recipient comes with a certain piquant quaintness these days.

 

Nobody writes letters anymore (don't write in with outrage). And thanks to Google and its ilk, prolonged personal anonymity is toast.

 

This new tuner is still in the toaster. Through long-distance correspondence, "Daddy Long Legs," which features a resonant and accessible score by Paul Gordon, is trying to build some fan mail. The production that opened this weekend at Northlight Theatre in Skokie has already been seen at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, Calif., and the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, Calif., where the piece was first developed. It comes with a high-profile adaptor-director in John Caird (who co-created "Les Miserables"), a rich design from David Farley and a bona fide Broadway star in Megan McGinnis. Assuming it gets the work it needs, it deserves its shot in New York and a place in the repertory of intimate musicals, where it will be welcomed by impecunious theaters everywhere. And their audiences.

 

"Daddy Long Legs" is charming throughout, and quite moving in places. Better yet, it has the rare potential not just to tell an old story but to put you in mind of what the modern world has lost.

 

Based on the 1912 young person's novel - the epistolary novel, if we want to get fancy - by Jean Webster, "Daddy Long Legs" is the story of a foundling named Jerusha Abbott (McGinnis), whose name was concocted at the orphanage from phone book and tombstone. It's an oft-adapted book - both Mary Pickford and Leslie Caron played Jerusha in Hollywood.

 

A rich, mysterious and anonymous benefactor sends Jerusha a letter saying he intends to pay for her university education, requiring only monthly updates from her on her progress. She is not, the letter of instruction says, ever to expect anything back from him.

 

Jerusha's singing of those letters - which progressively chronicle the young woman's flowering into an independent, confident and progressive woman in a young century - make up the show. Well, part of the show. There's another angle. Who is this "Mr. Smith," who Jerusha playfully calls "Daddy Long Legs"? And what does he want from her?

 

In the show, we don't just hear Jerusha sing what she writes of cotillions and math. We also hear the recipient, whose name is Jervis Pendleton, played by Robert Adelman Hancock, react to the journey and the young woman with whom he is falling in love.

 

In some ways, the show falls between the world of the young-adult novel, with its simple love story and self-empowerment narrative, and the more complex demands of a full-on adult musical. I think it needs to make a step toward the latter - teenagers have become more complex, anyway - and that means probing more deeply into the complications of the paternalistic relationship at its core.

 

"Daddy Long Legs" needs a richer sense of the issues raised when a patron finds his power compromised by his own longing, and a fuller awareness that having a rich male patron help you on your way to feminist independence means you must understand that life involves muddle and compromise. In other words, book and lyrics need to take more risks and more fully explore love, patronage and confusion. Too often, when you start to think of contemporary echoes, the show seems to run away.

 

It toddles along very nicely, except in the early part of the second act, when the storytelling seems to temporarily lose its way and we lose sight of the central quest.

 

In this production, Pendleton's parallel journey stays too much in the shadows at the rear of the stage - we need to invest more in him, lest we fear that Jerusha, whom the honest and charming McGinnis quickly makes you adore, is not being well served. Hancock has a fine voice indeed, but his performance is overly involved in why he can't love McGinnis at the expense of suggesting that he might, and that he might be good for her too.

 

That could be fixed. At the performance I saw Saturday, the Northlight audience was clearly enthralled by the direct charm of the piece, McGinnis's enveloping personality and Gordon's sweet and honest music, which avoids the excess of "Jane Eyre" in favor of a musical vocabulary that seems to fit a lively, hopeful young woman who just needs a bit of help with her dreams.

 

Read the review on ChicagoTribune.com>