Pinkleton and Jenny Koons (the other half of the creative team) have put together a show that feels both of the moment and just what we need in this moment. Anyone who knows such songs as We Got the Beat, Vacation and Our Lips Are Sealed already knows how buoyant they are. To experience those hit songs as part of an audience given a chance to be on the stage with the cast is a gift after so much time during the pandemic wondering when the isolation might end.

Halfway through rehearsals I spoke with Koons and Pinkleton about taking on a significantly revised version of a musical that, frankly, failed on Broadway. Their journey began when they saw Head Over Heels in New York.

“We saw Head Over Heels together in New York on Broadway,” Koons says, “and had a great time and really fell in love with the joy of it and the way that the Go-Go’s music had been integrated.” It should be noted that the storyline is based on Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney which was published in the late 16th century.

As much as they both enjoyed the musical, it wasn’t the type of show they usually do. The two have collaborated on Burn All Night at American Repertory Theatre and a new production of the Elizabeth Swados musical Runaways in New York.

“The way that it was presented on Broadway, which was very much a proscenium musical with two acts, was not necessarily how either of us works,” Pinkleton revealed. That wasn’t the kind of show the Pasadena Playhouse had in mind either.

Koons says, “When the Playhouse approached us about imagining this in a different form as a party – people on the floor, everyone dancing to the beat – it felt like a question of can we take what we loved about the experience we had and make it amplified even more. So it was less about how do you reduce something and more about how we take what we love and make those things even louder in real life.”

As both Pinkleton and Koons began their exploration as to the best way to answer that question, it became apparent that they were doing more than just a production of a pre-existing show.

“It feels like a gift that we are coming at this with fresh eyes; making new musicals is really hard and really ugly,” said Pinkleton. “I feel like we’re having the process of making something new, even if the script in the show is kind of a given.”

Along with the team at the Pasadena Playhouse, there was a reason they wanted to do something different with Head Over Heels.

“In this moment of twenty twenty one,” Koons says of their thinking, “what is the story that we’re all telling as we come back together. I think how we’ve approached this, from looking at it with the Playhouse, was as an invitation back. Welcome home. Welcome back! What does it mean to be gathering again in person.”

It’s an invitation that for anyone and everyone – whether your knew The Go-Go’s music or the story in the show.

Pinkleton explains. “Welcome back to people who just happen to be walking down the street. Welcome back to people who would never expect to come into a theater. I don’t think that that’s something we’re imposing on this show. I actually think that’s the heartbeat of the show. I think there’s a queerness and an openness and a curiosity – the show is about that. It’s the story of people who go on a journey to discover that everything they needed, they had the whole time.”

What Koons and Pinkleton did so well with the show was to assemble a cast where anyone who sees the show will find themselves represented on stage. The cast includes Alaska 5000 (best known from RuPaul’s Drag Race season 5 and the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars season 2); Yurel Echazarreta (a member of the Broadway cast of Head Over Heels); recording and drag artist Freddie; Lea DeLaria (jazz singer and star of Orange Is the New Black); Tiffany Mann (Be More Chill and Waitress on Broadway); George Salazar (Pasadena Playhouse’s Little Shop of Horrors); Emily Skeggs (Fun Home on Broadway) and Shanice Williams (The Wiz on NBC).

That was precisely the point offers Koons.

“The goal has been to create something unique for the performers and artists that we gather. I feel like we’re constantly on our toes for how we really shape this to them. We made a joke in the first week that it’s like the Queer Avengers. How do we make sure that all eight and that the humans we have gathered feel able to be there for ourselves in a way that can invite audience members to do the same.”

They two directors also made sure that their vision was shared by the cast they hired Koons offered.

“With the performers that we have gathered this feels very much like a shared mission. Yes, we’re doing a show, we’re doing it in the midst of a crazy moment in time. And all of us are coming to this with the spirit of an open invitation that really is for everyone.”

As much as you might enjoy the show, Pinkleton believes it’s something more that will be part of the experience of seeing Head Over Heels.

“The thing we’ve been missing the most is bodies,” he says, “living, breathing humans. So nothing is going to be more spectacular than the humans. And that’s true for the performers, and that’s true for the audience.”

As someone who experienced the show on the stage with the show happening all around me, I can vouch that the greatest joy came from dancing, celebrating and enjoying this shared space with so many wonderful people.

To watch the complete interview with Jenny Koons and Sam Pinkleton, please go to our YouTube channel here.

Head Over Heels continues at the Pasadena Playhouse through December 12th. For tickets go here.

Main Photo: Lea DeLaria, Alaska 5000, Shanice Williams and George Salazar in Head Over Heels (Photo by Jeff Lorch/All photos courtesy Pasadena Playhouse)

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In a bold move destined to say that the past nearly two years of challenges need to make way for some fun, the Pasadena Playhouse is presenting a radically re-thought version of the Broadway musical Head Over Heels which uses The Go-Go’s music. Co-directors/co-choreographers Jenny Koons and Sam Pinkleton have created a production that’s meant to be a party celebrating each and every one of us.

That spirit of having fun was fully on display when I was invited to attend a preview of the work-in-progress. Three songs were performed out of costume and unamplified. Then it was time to talk to the cast: Alaska 5000 (best known from RuPaul’s Drag Race season 5 and the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars season 2); Yurel Echazarreta (a member of the Broadway cast of Head Over Heels); recording and drag artist Freddie; Lea DeLaria (jazz singer and star of Orange Is the New Black); Tiffany Mann (Be More Chill and Waitress on Broadway); George Salazar (Pasadena Playhouse’s Little Shop of Horrors); Emily Skeggs (Fun Home on Broadway) and Shanice Williams (The Wiz on NBC).

What follows are highlights from my conversations with the cast who made it clear that this show is going to be a party for everyone with dancing by the audience (many of whom have the ability to be on stage) strongly encouraged. As a company they all feel that the show’s themes of inclusivity will be more accepted than it was when Head Over Heels first opened.

George Salazar: I saw the original Broadway company of the original production of Head Over Heels, and I was head over heels in love with that show. 

Alaska 5000: I know Head Over Heels was on Broadway a really short time ago, and so much has changed in our conversation. Now everyone has pronouns after their names in their email. This show is like on the forefront of that. I’m glad we’re doing it right now. 

Yurel Echazarreta: There’s just so much more awareness and even language that we have created. [We’ve] become more aware of the inclusivity and the diversity within humans. I think if the show on Broadway would have happened now it would have been with more cultural awareness. The show helps us chart where we are today. Everything has a time and space and place, and that show helped to get us to where we are here. Now [we’re] able to celebrate an elevated movement even more now.

George Salazar: We as a society and as an industry, we’re really sitting in front of a mirror for a year and a half, questioning – myself included – questioning choices that we’ve made. So this show is a celebration of differences and the celebration of unity among this family, the royal family, they’re so broken and separated. Over the course of this play they see past differences and they work together. By the end there’s this beautiful, renewed love that permeates through this space and I think the audience is really going to feel that.

Tiffany Mann: I think that we have no choice but to sit and first examine ourselves without distraction and in examining ourselves, we realize there are other humans among us and they want to be accepted. And I think in 2021, we have a lower tolerance for people who don’t walk that walk and create lasting human hearts among each other.

Emily Skeggs: I think it’s an understatement to say the world has experienced a seismic shift in a lot of things. What was really exciting to me is there’s this recognition in the world for us to be happy, what kinds of stories where we’re showcasing in the theater and who comes to the theater to experience it and who gets to see themselves.

Freddie: So much has happened in the past year. I think the time is right. I think that people need a sense of community. People are needing a sense of belonging and a space to come together and really feel celebrated. And this is that space. So it’s more than just a show and it’s a celebration of life.

Lea DeLaria: think The Go-Go’s music can tell any kind of story. I knew them as a punk band. I think their contribution to culture is just big. They deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. They deserve to have a great big fun jukebox musical with their music. 

Tiffany Mann: It’s a part of the heartbeat of this culture of American music.You know the music. As soon as it comes on, you don’t even may not even know that you know the lyrics, but you may find yourself singing along the same such feel good music.

Shanice Williams: The music is timeless. I did not grow up listening to it, but when I hear it it makes me want to dance.

Emily Skeggs: [We’re] inviting the audience to join us in the celebration of who we are.

Freddie: I think queer liberation is about everyone feeling like they are worthy of being celebrated. No matter how you show up, you’re beautiful, you’re amazing, you’re perfect.

Tiffany Mann: Whether you agree with every part of the escape, we all agree that we need more than just a break from all the things that are going on outside of us. I just would invite whoever, regardless of your opinions and your beliefs, to just immerse yourself in the world and you will see a little bit of yourself and everybody else.

George Salazar: I want to welcome audience members who feel like they stick out like a sore thumb. Come here and stick out like a sore thumb with all of us. 

Lea DeLaria: We’ve provided [the audience] a dance floor. I want them to become crazy. I want them to jump up and down on that dance floor like we used to get to The Go-Go’s in the 80s. I just I want them to jump up and down and have a time of their life because this is a celebration for all of us. I think we’re all thrilled to be here. 

Check back later this week for our interview with Jenny Koons and Sam Pinkleton.

Head Over Heels is now playing at the Pasadena Playhouse through December 12th.

Main photo: Alaska 5000 and Lea DeLaria in Head Over Heels (All photos by Jeff Lorch/Courtesy Pasadena Playhouse)

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What do Diana Ross, The Go-Go’s, Jennifer Hudson, Seal, and Charlie Wilson all have in common? The easy answer is that they are all appearing at the Hollywood Bowl this summer. But you get bonus points for realizing that at each concert they will be accompanied by The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra or the Los Angeles Philharmonic lead by conductor Thomas Wilkins.

Wilkins has served as Principal Conductor of the Hollywood since 2014. Prior to that he had been Principal Guest Conductor since 2008. He also has conducting assignments and positions at multiple other orchestras around the country. But he told me there’s something different about playing at the Hollywood Bowl.

“When you are there you know you are part of a rich history first of all,” he says by phone before starting rehearsals for this week’s opening night concert with Diana Ross. “I’ve never seen a place that seats about 18,000 people, yet feels so close. When I look out at the audience it’s as if I’m talking to someone in the living room.”

I reminded him that the view from the stage is very different than the view from the audience. “I had never sat out in the audience until a couple years ago,” he revealed. “I’ve been in the house before but never experienced a concert there. Usually I walk in and out through the back door. I sat there with my wife and I was in awe. She was laughing because I actually work there.”

When asked about the artists that come to the Bowl to perform with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra he said it isn’t usually the artist’s idea. “We go after them – they don’t go after us. We talk them into doing the show and we create the charts. The B-52’s were hesitant. They said ‘let’s do three charts.’ Then we got to the gig and they wished they had done many more. As soon as we were done, they hired someone to do more charts. The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra is a little different because they understand what a groove is. That completely changes the perspective of the artist when they have a whole group of orchestra performers who get it.”

Having experienced multiple concerts, including the B-52’s, I wondered if there was any trade-off when a band decides to perform with an orchestra. “A lot of times bands can do stuff instinctively when they are on stage by themselves. They can exchange a look or a sign and they can do more choruses. The one trade-off is if there is going to be that looseness it has to be within the confines of finding the safety of the orchestral part so we know what’s going on. We can do a vamp, but we need a musical signal or visual signal.”

Part of the appeal is those charts Wilkins mentioned. He says they allow an artist like Diana Ross to perform hits from the disco era without it sounding like a bad pairing. “Every time we are on stage in rehearsals with a band who doesn’t perform with an orchestra, they are blown away by the power of the orchestra. That’s called making sure you have good arrangers for the charts. That’s one thing we’re really blessed with at the Bowl. I can think of three or four people I use on a regular basis who make it sound like the orchestra was there all along. That’s the secret: have someone who knows when to get the orchestra out of the way or make them sound like an enhanced version of what was there in the first place.”

His repertoire at the Bowl, at least this season, is almost exclusively pop/rock/r&b music. (He’s also conducting Henry Mancini’s score to The Pink Panther live while the movie is projected.) Elsewhere Wilkins performs more classical music-heavy programs. Does he wish he could be doing more of a mix here?  “Actually we try to slip it in from time to time. We are actually opening the [Diana Ross concert] with Leonard Bernstein. There are other times like with ELO we opened with British classical music. I’m so stinking busy that I love that no two weeks of mine are the same. No one calls me a pop guy. I’m just Tom Wilkins.”

What he can be called beyond his name is one of the few African-American conductors actively working today. He bemoaned that statistic in a 2009 interview with the Los Angeles Times. Has it gotten any better?

“I think the correct answer is little. I can still count on two hands the number of us who are working at the level I’m working. I don’t know what the answer to that is. Part of the answer is changing the pool so there’s a great number to choose from. Part of it is convincing young black people that Duke Ellington was right: there are only two kinds of music – good and bad. I don’t have any control over orchestras who didn’t hire me because I was black. I only had control over learning as much as I could and to do battle against my ignorance. Beyond that, I don’t know the answer.”

Before our conversation ended I asked Wilkins about a survey done several years ago where the performance of an orchestra was rated with and without a conductor to see if there was a difference. The result was the better performance came when there is a conductor.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “But I will say this that conducting is not about power. It’s about control. It’s about when to exercise it and when the relinquish it. Our job is to be a facilitator to make the men and women of the orchestra to be better humans and to raise their artistry. Part of the way you do that is you raise their trust in your sensibility. You can’t completely ignore their ability to bring something to the table.”

I repeated the Ellington quote but made it about there being two kinds of conductors. “What falls into the bad category are those who don’t think about the audience or the musicians and find something greater than all of us. I tell kids when I talk to them about communication. We think communication is all about talk talk talk. When we pay someone the compliment of listening, you declare someone else is in the room. It’s the same as remembering someone’s name. You are not just an entity, but a persona of value. I think that’s the great gift of listening. You can’t do that with power.”

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