Douglas Beane brings his queer sense back to Texas. Say amen, ‘Sister’
Douglas Carter Beane ‘gayed up’ ‘Sister Act’ for Whoopi.
ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Life+Style Editor
To see a show on Broadway lately is to probably see something Douglas Carter Beane had a hand in. Since 2007 he’s received five Tony Award nominations (including his latest, for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella; he’ll find out if he’s won on Sunday) — four of them for shoehorning his distinctive voice into pre-existing materials of some sort. It’s almost as if he’s become the theater version of Hollywood’s script doctor.
“I just rack it up — I don’t create art anymore!” he laughs heartily about being so prolific. “I have two shows on Broadway right now, and between them 14 Tony nominations. I’m in a place now where I write things and they happen more often than they don’t. At least one-third of my output is [getting produced]. It’s a really remarkable time.”
Beane has been well-represented in North Texas during that time as well. His play Little Dog Laughed has been produced locally (as well as numerous productions of As Bees in Honey Drown); he launched his musical Lysistrata Jones (then called Give It Up!) at the Dallas Theater Center two years ago, taking local fave Liz Mikel with it to B’way; next month, WaterTower Theatre will mount another production of his camp hit Xanadu (which both Level Ground and Dallas Summer Musicals have already done).
But his real one-two punch is with Sister Act, which continues its run at Fair Park until June 16, only to open at Bass Hall in Fort Worth for a weeklong run starting June 18.
“I know baby — it’s huge!” he gasps about his success. “My sensibility clicks so well in Dallas. [My partner] Lewis [Flinn] and I spent a lovely time in Dallas doing Lysistrata Jones, and it got me a Tony nomination. And [DSM’s production of] Xanadu did so well financially and in terms of audience response. I’m sure [Sister Act] will do very well in both venues. It’s a feel-good, big-hearted show.”
A musical adaptation of the hit Whoopi Goldberg movie comedy, Beane was actually brought in to clean up the previous script before it opened on Broadway in 2011. And he didn’t even want to do it.
“I got roped into it,” he jokes, “because Whoopi Goldberg called me, and when Whoopi Goldberg calls, you do it. You never leave a room going, ‘I wonder what Whoopi meant?’ Even when she’s wrong, she’s firm about it. She had the initial notion of doing Sister Act as a Broadway musical and was instrumental in putting a love interest in it. She’s a truly great lady.”
Originally, Goldberg and the show’s director, Jerry Zaks, solicited Beane to “look at the movie and listen to the soundtrack — the original cast recording,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Can I read what was written before?’ and Jerry said, ‘No, cuz if you do, you’ll leave the show.’” Beane stayed on, scoring one of his Tony nods.
That puts Beane’s musical collaborations in a strange netherworld: From Rodgers & Hammerstein to his own partner, to Alan Menken and Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra.
“I’ve worked with the living, the dead and the disinterested,” Beane quips. “I have to tell you right now, Jeff Lynne and John Farrar couldn’t have cared less about an adaptation of Xanadu. I’m one of the most amiable dudes in the world, but I think I said ‘I’m sorry’ more time on Xanadu than any other show … and I don’t think I meant it once.”
As a rule, though, he insists that working in theater is entirely rewarding. “It’s not like Smash — it’s the real world. No one would dare be that rude to someone — they would be ostracized for life.”
And he’s sincere about his love for Sister Act. “Sister Act being on the road is a joyful thing for me. I got to see it in Paris, where they love it. And this is my third big show to hit Dallas. So we love you guys.”
The feeling is mutual.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 7, 2013.