Great article about the origins of Hedwig from the WSJ
Great article about the origins of Hedwig from the WSJ
#1Great article about the origins of Hedwig from the WSJ
Posted: 4/19/14 at 2:58pm
I always wondered where Mitchell and Trask came up with the character.
Link
....but the world goes 'round
#2Great article about the origins of Hedwig from the WSJ
Posted: 4/20/14 at 9:02am
Just realized the link doesn't work.
Here's the article in full:
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In the '90s, John Cameron Mitchell was acting on Broadway when he and his friend, musician Stephen Trask, began writing a performance piece about an army brat named Tommy who grew up to be a rock star.
When Mr. Mitchell told Mr. Trask about his former baby sitter, an East German divorcée named Helga who served him schnapps, loved listening to American radio and frequently had what she called "blind dates," they decided to make her a character in the piece.
At the time, Mr. Trask was the musical director for the house band at a downtown club that played backup to drag queens each week. He told Mr. Mitchell he could try out the Helga character there, for free. So instead of playing Tommy, Mr. Mitchell put on some makeup, pulled a wig down from the shelf and transformed himself into the divorcée.
Neil Patrick Harris plays a transgender rocker in the Broadway production 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch.' Joan Marcus
The crowd went wild. Hedwig Schmidt was born.
"After a while, it was like, 'Tommy who?' " Mr. Mitchell said.
They turned the performance into "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," the story of a transgender woman with a botched sex change who tours the U.S. in the wake of her ex-boyfriend (and more successful protégé) Tommy Gnosis. It developed a cult following as it moved from stage to screen—a 2001 movie also starring Mr. Mitchell—and it opens Tuesday on Broadway, starring Neil Patrick Harris.
"Hedwig's" off-Broadway run began at a makeshift theater at the Jane Hotel in 1998. Now the transgressive musical is opening April 22 at the esteemed Belasco Theatre, where Mark Rylance just wowed critics and audiences with his portrayal of Olivia in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night."
The conceit of the show is that Hedwig is playing low-rent theaters next door to Tommy, who has become a superstar by stealing Hedwig's material. She plots to confront him and make him acknowledge her. Mr. Mitchell has revised the script to accommodate the fancy digs.
"Look at me, on Broadway," Mr. Harris says in the show, sporting a Farrah Fawcett-style wig, gold lace-up boots and a German accent. "Well, not Broadway really—Broadway adjacent," an insider's nod to the Belasco's location, which is closer to Sixth Avenue.
In the new show, Hedwig has managed to book a single night at the theater after a fictitious "Hurt Locker: The Musical" closed during its first performance. The set is still intact: Hedwig and her band, the Angry Inch, dance around a decimated car and the rubble of a ruined Iraqi city.
Mr. Harris, who starred in "Doogie Howser, M.D." and just completed a nine-season run as the lecherous Barney Stinson on CBS's "How I Met Your Mother," seems an unlikely choice as a sardonic transgender rocker pouring her heart out on stage night after night. Messrs. Mitchell and Trask, along with "Hedwig" producer David Binder, who produced the first workshop of the show in 1997, have been talking to him about the role for the past seven years. He was always interested but didn't have time in his schedule, they said.
"He's been America's sweetheart for so long, but he has so many chops and can do so many other things," said Mr. Mitchell. "Child stars either do what they're told, overdose on drugs or want to be in 'Nymphomaniac,' " the Lars von Trier movie starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.
For Mr. Harris, Mr. Mitchell said, "his thing is, 'I gotta do something that scares me.' "
In addition, the TV star helps draw an audience that wouldn't otherwise come to Broadway. "We knew this beloved figure would allow those people who might be frightened of the show to say, 'Oh, I know this guy. If he wants to go there, I will go there with him,'" said Mr. Mitchell.
In the week ending Sunday, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" sold out, earning $884,092 for just seven preview performances, according to the Broadway League. Tickets sold for $125.44 on average, a price exceeded on Broadway only by "A Raisin in the Sun," another new production with a big star in Denzel Washington, and long-running shows such as "Kinky Boots," "The Book of Mormon," "The Lion King" and "Wicked."
"Hedwig" doesn't play the typical eight shows a week, mostly because the demands of the production, which requires Mr. Harris to be on stage the entire time, are so exhausting.
Over the last few weeks of preview performances, Messrs. Mitchell and Trask said they have watched Mr. Harris grow into the part, which calls for both vulnerability and Borscht-Belt sensibilities. On a recent night, a heavyset patron arrived late, and according to Mr. Trask, Mr. Harris didn't let it go unnoticed, quipping "You couldn't make it on time? You had to order dessert?"
"Yeah, he lost the audience for a minute," Mr. Mitchell said.
....but the world goes 'round
