Years ago, rumblings of a Broadway musical adaptation of Natalie Babbitt鈥檚 beloved children鈥檚 book, Tuck Everlasting, hit the theatre airwaves. There was almost a spotting in 2013, when the musical was set to premiere at Boston鈥檚 Colonial Theatre. But, that production was canceled, and audiences waited two more years until the show鈥檚 world premiere at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in January 2015. Over one year later, Tuck Everlasting finally lives on Broadway.
It鈥檚 common practice for musicals, nowadays, to take five or even ten years to transition from page to stage鈥攖hough less common to wait one year between an out-of-town tryout and the Rialto. When director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw, who now has four shows on the Main Stem, first read the book, 鈥淚 looked at it and thought, 鈥楾here鈥檚 a lot of changing we need to do to make it a musical,鈥� but you know we want to keep the spirit of it,鈥� he says.
鈥淚t鈥檚 visceral. It鈥檚 a largeness of emotion,鈥� says book writer Claudia Shear of what makes Tuck right as a musical. 鈥淧eople who know the book might think of it as a small story, but it鈥檚 such a huge [piece] because it asks such big questions about living forever,鈥� says book writer Tim Federle. 鈥淭hat begs to be sung.鈥�
Federle and Shear are both first-time librettists, paired with Broadway newcomers composer Chris Miller and lyricist Nathan Tysen. The freshness of the team combined with the approach to the show explains why Nicholaw was the right fit to shepherd the project. Known for big productions numbers and elaborate design in shows like Something Rotten! and The Book of Mormon (also by Broadway newbies), this is clearly Nicholaw鈥檚 take on Tuck. 鈥淭he intimacy is definitely there in the set, in the tone of the story,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut we have expanded it in that way because the story is sweet and minimalist, but the theme is sweeping. The theme of life and death, it calls for a little bit bigger when you鈥檙e singing about it.鈥�
The piece aims to capture the essence of the novel, but Babbitt gave Shear a 鈥渇ree hand鈥� when adapting it for the stage. 鈥淢y respect and love for the book and for Natalie Babbitt is huge,鈥� says Shear, but she wasn鈥檛 afraid to make the musical a new piece. 鈥淚 made up characters that didn鈥檛 exist. I killed off people that were in the book. I changed the ending.鈥�
Fear not, book-lovers. Tuck is a passion project for Miller and Tysen, who both fell in love with the story in the fourth grade and fought for the chance to be the team to musicalize this tale. They鈥檝e juggled expanding the narrative and deepening the characters for Broadway without compromise to their artistic beliefs. 鈥淭hat was always the challenge,鈥� says Tysen. 鈥淚s there a world where we can turn this into a big Broadway musical where we can have 20 people in the show even though the story itself has eight? How do you make that feel earned and honest鈥�?鈥�
Tysen and Miller discovered that honesty through lessons learned in the Atlanta try-out.
The opening sequence has been entirely re-worked. 鈥淥ur biggest takeaway from Atlanta was that it took about 40 minutes for the audience to really latch into the piece and really start to connect the dots,鈥� says Tysen. 鈥淲e [went] back to the source material, read that first chapter and we鈥檙e like, 鈥極h, we just need to start everybody off on the same journey at the same day, meet all the characters and then go.鈥� It sets up the story, and it propels us in a way that we could never do before.鈥�
鈥淲e had a lot of flashbacks when we were first writing it that it just didn鈥檛 work,鈥� adds Nicholaw. 鈥淪o we started telling it a little more linearly.鈥� Plus, the show has organically added more dance.
Tysen and Miller have also written four new songs, and the team brought in Federle to assist with the book post-Atlanta. As a former Broadway performer turned children鈥檚 book author (Better Nate Than Never), Federle lent his eye to usher Tuck to Broadway this season. 鈥淚n a way, it鈥檚 just bringing in a fresh perspective that your friends always bring to previews,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a puzzle. It鈥檚 about saying what would happen if you took this ballad and put it in Act Two? And, hopefully, those things lift the musical to a new level.鈥�
Federle鈥檚 inner performer helped him create the pace (鈥淚f the audience is going to be checking their 半岛体育鈥攏o offense鈥擺during scenes] then we oughta just get to the next number.鈥�) and his inner children鈥檚 author helped make 鈥渢he adults feel a sense of deeply being touched, but also make the kids laugh.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 transformed so much,鈥� says Michael Park, who plays Pa (Angus) Tuck. 鈥淚t does feel like we鈥檙e doing a new show now.鈥�
It鈥檚 been hard work for these actors as the characters has evolved with every iteration of the story鈥攑ar for the course on an original musical. 鈥淚 think the father role鈥擶innie being in mourning of her father and [me] becoming that kind of father figure to her, that changed a lot,鈥� says Park. 鈥淚t鈥檚 got a little beefier and we see Pa wake up more because of Winnie.鈥�
Carolee Carmello was drawn to the project from the start. 鈥淚 fell in love with the soul of the piece because it鈥檚 just a beautiful, life-affirming tale,鈥� she says. As a mom herself, there is an essence of her in Ma (Mae) Tuck鈥攚hether it be the Atlanta version or today鈥檚 final product. 鈥淭here were a couple of versions along the way where Mae kind of had this nervous breakdown,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t was really fun to play because there was something sort of desperate about it. It was a color of her that you didn鈥檛 see in the rest of the show, but I think [the team] felt, and probably rightly so, that it鈥檚 too much of a departure.鈥� Still, she confesses, 鈥淭here鈥檚 a song that I had that I really miss from that version.鈥� (Bonus track?)
Though it鈥檚 been six years since the early readings, it seems Tuck arrives at the perfect time for Broadway and its actors. 鈥淲hen I first started this project, I was close to the age of Jesse, and I think things that came really easy to me were the sense of wide-eyed wonderment and feeling innocent and na茂ve to this world,鈥� says Andrew Keenan-Bolger, a Broadway favorite who graduates to a major leading role with this show. 鈥淎s I鈥檝e gotten to age with [the role], there鈥檚 a whole other level鈥�. I don鈥檛 think I would have been able to play this part six years ago when I started, certainly not to the level that I鈥檓 able to tap into this character now.鈥�
鈥淲ith every step and every speed bump the show only got better,鈥� says Tysen. 鈥淎t the end of the day we needed the time. We needed to figure this piece out.鈥� When the show opens on April 25, the team will find out if they鈥檝e done enough to make this show Everlasting.
