Roger Bean: My Wonderettes World

About the author:
Roger Bean's career proves that there's theatrical life beyond New York City. In fact, this prolific writer/director has created 10 musicals at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, many of which have gone on to further productions across the country. Bean's specialty is using established hits from a particular period in American musical history and shaping an evening of theater around them, with titles such as Life Could Be a Dream, The Andrews Brothers, Route 66, Honky Tonk Laundry, Why Do Fools Fall in Love? and now The Marvelous Wonderettes. Featuring a crinoline-clad girl group, Bean's fizzy ode to the late 1950s became a long-running hit in L.A. and recently opened off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre. Broadway.com asked him to chart the progress of his latest crowd-pleasing show.

The Marvelous Wonderettes began life 10 years ago at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. I was working in public relations and marketing in New York City at the time at the dearly departed Circle Rep, among other places and directing at regional theaters. While working on My Fair Lady at the Skylight Opera in Milwaukee, I met with the artistic staff at Milwaukee Rep to discuss the possibility of creating something new for their intimate musical stage.

I came back to New York, wrote a three-page outline, and the Rep enthusiastically put it into their season. That first show Don't Touch That Dial was quite successful for them, and they asked me to create another musical for the following season. My second show was a one-act version of The Marvelous Wonderettes. I believe I called it The Fabulous Wonderettes in an early draft, but I've butched it up a bit since then…

But let's go back even further. When I was growing up, my mother was always singing around the house. Lots of 50s and 60s girl group stuff. So the popular music from these eras is deep in my consciousness. I also wrote plays and melodramas with my mother for our church. We would rewrite the lyrics to well-known songs and present them as our own completely new work in a highly-illegal-but-who-would-sue-a-young-teenager-and-his-mother-because-we-didn't-know-any-better-and-besides-it's-for-our-church kind of way. So I blame and give credit to my mother for everything.

Speaking of my mother, she told me years later that she had been a varsity song leader in high school. Huh? And not only that, she had been part of a singing trio. What?! This was all news to me. As I started thinking about the 50s and 60s, and my mother's particular circumstances of being "expected" to become a homemaker, I got a little angry. Angry that she hadn't gotten the chance to go on and do something she had clearly loved: singing. Then came curiosity. What would have happened if she had continued singing? Would she—could she—have become successful? And what about that whole song leader thing—what the hell was a song leader, and how was it different from a cheerleader? These were questions I needed to answer.

The place to answer them was, apparently, onstage. This was the perfect creative idea for my second show at Milwaukee Rep. High school song leaders, best friends, singing at the prom for their friends and boyfriends—what would happen to them? How would the songs they sing influence their lives? Could pop songs from the 50s and 60s actually become book songs just like in a real musical? All great things to explore, and this time I could do it without changing any of the lyrics.

That's how The Marvelous Wonderettes came into being. It has grown through the years from a much simpler one-act to its present fully realized two-act version. Many incredible people along the way lent advice and talent as it developed and gained strength. The show came back to Milwaukee Rep in 2001 for an extended run in one of their larger spaces and once again I was lucky enough to have Bets Malone play Suzy, a part I created for her. The show grew again with productions at Madison Rep and a few other spots around the country. We seemed to be striking a chord with audiences, especially as people were looking back and remembering seemingly simpler times in the aftermath of horrible tragedies.

After a few years in which the show sat in a drawer because of legal disputes with some amazingly inept producers, but that's another essay altogether; buy me a drink and I'll tell all…, I met the brilliant man who became my producing partner, David Elzer. He was the final piece of the puzzle we needed to create a terrific production in Los Angeles, and then launch us toward New York. I feel blessed to have my show in the beautiful Westside Theatre on 43rd Street. Perhaps it's all the good karma I send out on Facebook. Who knows? But we fit off-Broadway like a glove, and we couldn't be happier to be there.

My mother never did get to see The Marvelous Wonderettes before she passed away a few years ago. But you can find her song leader photo in the prom program you get at the theater. And I'm sure she couldn't be happier to be there as well.