Richard Winkler will gladly tell you: He saw the light in a darkened barn of a theatre out-of-town, world-premiering a musical based on an iconic film. Actually, he didn鈥檛 see it as much as he heard it鈥攐verheard it: a conversation where, in ten minutes flat, the director talked the producer out of a massive amount of money for a piece of scenery that 鈥渨ould fix the whole thing and save the show.鈥� Of course, it didn鈥檛.
"I remember sitting there, thinking, 'If these guys think they know what they鈥檙e doing, then I could be a producer,'" Winkler beamed, rather gleefully replaying his epiphany. "'I have better sense, better taste, better economic reasoning than either of them. I think I鈥檒l see if I can become a producer.' That鈥檚 exactly how it happened."
The show was a disaster and folded fast. The director returned to the U.K., and the producer no longer produces at that theatre. But Winkler rose from those ashes and now has four Tony Awards dotting his mantelpiece for co-producing , , and .
Finding I & You
Currently, he has three Main Stem shows going (, and ), and on Jan. 27 he hits a new milestone, bowing鈥攚ithout a net or partners鈥攁s solo producer of Lauren Gunderson鈥檚 I & You at 59 East 59 Theatres.
In a way, this is a reasonably safe bet. The play, which won the 2014 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, has had an extensive (at least 20 productions) regional workout. The version Winkler is presenting here is a transfer, replete with director (Sean Daniels) and stars (Kayla Ferguson and Reggie D. White) of the Merrimack Repertory Theatre production done last fall in Boston. Even more important commercially, it is the first play to dip into that wellspring of sensitively crafted teen tearjerkers, which have populated the screen of late ("The Fault in Our Stars," "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," "If I Stay," "Paper Towns").
By any other name, I & You could get by as "Me and Walt and the Dying Girl." It鈥檚 a seemingly straightforward two-hander about a couple of 17-year-olds bonding over Walt Whitman鈥檚 "Leaves of Grass" as they prepare an American Lit paper, posthaste, on the use of pronouns in his poem, 鈥淪ong of Myself鈥� (hence the title of the play).
The pair is poles apart. Caroline is homebound by a faulty liver and surrounded by a thick shield of sarcasm, which Anthony spends most of the play wearing down. Once that is accomplished and a connection is established, Gunderson lowers the boom and goes for a plot twist that is the theatrical equivalent of a triple somersault. It draws gasps from the audience, and grown men leave the play dabbing their eyes.
Winkler takes pride in such effects and credits his early training. "I was raised in Detroit by a mother who loved theatre. She took me to a lot. Her favorite was Shakespeare. She could recite all the sonnets. She took me to and . That鈥檚 why I produced 鈥�Raisin then is Disgraced today."
I & You was written by a relative of Winkler鈥檚, somewhat鈥攊.e., the wife of his stepmother's grandson. "I met Lauren at my father鈥檚 funeral. She told me she was going to have a play of hers produced at 59 East 59th Street called Bauer. I went to see it and thought it was nice. Eight months later, I woke up with the idea that 59 East 59th should really do another play of hers I had subsequently seen, I & You. I really liked it but thought it needed more fleshing out, which we did.
"Lauren just won the Award for Young Playwrights, which The Dramatist Guild gives. I think she鈥檚 poised to become one of our next major voices."
The Lure of the Spotlight
Winkler has something of a razzle-dazzle sheen himself. The dapper mustache and commanding silver mane give off a fleeting facsimile of movie star Sam Elliott. He has been known to lapse back into lighting design but never while he鈥檚 wearing his producer fedora. "Being a lighting designer is all about cues and counts and miniscule details, and, if I were to pay attention to the miniscule details, I couldn鈥檛 see the big picture in my head. I鈥檇 get lost in the minutiae. I don鈥檛 want to do that."
Mostly, his lighting work is reserved for Houston鈥檚 , where he just designed a production of A Christmas Story and where he's returning next month to do . "It鈥檚 a big, gorgeous 2,600-seat roadhouse. I have 99 line sets. I have 850 dimmers. I get to be an artist there, and that鈥檚 what I really enjoy."
He doesn鈥檛 lament his sharp right turn in mid-career. "I was being fulfilled as a lighting designer. I loved being a lighting designer, but more than that, I loved being an artist. Being an artist is who I am in my soul. I鈥檓 100 percent theatre to the core. I don鈥檛 care if it鈥檚 musical or comedy or drama. If it's good theatre, I want to be part of it."
