Playwright Henry David Hwang at BroadwayCon (Photo: Cameron Wilke Flowers)

BroadwayCon

By Deirdre Donovan

Theatre lovers beat the mid-winter blues at the 10^th Annual Broadway Convention (BroadwayCon) at the New York Marriott Marquis, joining the theater community in celebration of live stage performance. The three-day event was packed with performances, in-depth panel discussions, workshops, and cast reunions. Here's a recap of just two of the many events.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: Creatively All In

Hosted by entertainment journalist Frank DiLella, this event spotlighted Lin-Manuel Miranda, accompanied by a trio of Broadway performers: actors Joshua Henry and Aneesa Folds, and musician Kurt Crowley.

DiLella kicked off the event by asking the 45 year-old Miranda when he first fell in love with theater.  Miranda promptly retorted, "It began with cast albums!"  He remembers listening to Camelot, Man of La Mancha, and just about every other musical theater album in his parents' collection from a young age. But what hooked him was his first visit to a Broadway show, Les Misérables, at age 7. He was amazed to see kids in the show-and immediately wondered: "Why am I not up there?"

Lin-Manuel Miranda (Photo: Katie Mollison)

Miranda spoke enthusiastically about his early acting experiences at school, in classics like Fiddler on the Roof, Pirates of Penzance, and Bye Bye Birdie. But he said that Rent allowed him to see new possibilities in the musical theater form.

A natural storyteller, Miranda easily spun yarns about all aspects of his career. But he took an extra deep breath when DiLella asked him to trace his journey with his Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights. Miranda shared that the project emerged and took shape while he was an undergraduate at Wesleyan College. During his sophomore year there, he was living in a house shared with fellow Latino students, and his sense of Latino pride deepened. He began to see the Latino community as a character, and by expanding upon this idea, he wrote an early draft of In the Heights, which was performed by Wesleyan's student theater company in 1999.

DiLella then prompted Miranda to speak about his mega-hit Hamilton. Miranda responded with disarming modesty; he had bought Ron Chernow's biography, Alexander Hamilton, and read it during a vacation in 2008. Enthralled with the book, he went online to see if anybody had ever done a musical about this immigrant turned founding father. Discovering nobody had, he set out to create his own musical on this complex man-and the rest, as they say, is history.

The conversation shifted to Miranda's collaborations with Disney, including his work on Moana in 2016 and re-working songs from the original 1989 animated The Little Mermaid and helping to write new songs for the live action remake of that film. On that project, Miranda was thrilled to work with the legendary Alan Menken.

Miranda balanced his storytelling with seven songs culled from his various projects. Performed by Joshua Henry and Aneesa Folds and backed by Kurt Crowley on the keyboard, the songs delighted the audience and provided a trajectory of Miranda's career. Songs included the sweet duet "When The Sun Goes Down" from In the Heights, the sassy "Cross The Line" from Bring It On, and the lilting pop ballad "Wait For It" from Hamilton, and songs from his films, including the contemplative "How Far I'll Go" from Moana and the Cuban-inspired "My Own Drum" from Vivo. Not one to rest on his laurels, Miranda also presented his rap-centric "Still Breathing" from his new concept album Warriors.

"Creatively All In" offered a bird's eye view of Miranda's career to date. The best part, of course: Miranda himself recounted it in a live performance.

Kurt Crowley, Aneesa Folds, Frank DiLella, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Joshua Henry (Photo: Katie Mollison)

Writing Wicked: Gregory Maguire and Winnie Holzman Tell All

Sunday afternoon, BroadwayCon presented the panel discussion, Writing Wicked: Gregory Maguire and Winnie Holzman Tell All. With the recent release globally of the 2024 Wicked film, novelist Gregory Maguire and stage and screen writer Winnie Holzman clearly had much to talk about as writers of Wicked. Moderated by a trio of experts in theatre and culture - David Benkof of The Broadway Maven; critic Salamishah Tillet; and Princeton professor Stacy Wolf - the conversation ranged from the origins of the novel, to its enduring cultural impact, and the challenges of transforming it from the page, to the stage, to the big screen.

Maguire started the discussion by sharing the origin story of his 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," on which the stage musical and movie are based. Rather than pinpointing a specific calendar date when he first put ink to paper, Maguire explained that the real germ for his novel came from watching the 1939 classic film, The Wizard of Oz, with his family. He explained that as he grew up, the annual viewing of this film was part of the family's "liturgical year." He also remembers playacting The Wizard of Oz the next day in his backyard, with whoever would join in.

Of course, he admits that, as a boy, he also read widely and deeply, which fueled his imagination and revealed to him the magic of language. In fact, he noted that he was truly raised not only by his parents but by his hometown librarians. Of all the authors he read, however, he believes it is T. H. White, who wrote the Arthurian novels, to whom he owes the greatest debt as he was crafting Wicked.

At this point, Holzman chimed in, admitting that she too was a book lover. She shared that she read Charlottte's Web as a girl, and that when the protagonist Charlotte died, she cried. Until that moment, she had never realized that a book could bring you to tears.

Shifting topic from her reading books in her childhood to writing books as an adult, she asked her fellow writer Maguire to talk about his language in Wicked. She shared that she found his writing delightfully inventive, with his coined words adding wonderful texture to the story. Without missing a beat, Maguire summoned up a word from his book that he felt illustrated its rough magic: "Elphaba's last name, Throp," he explained, "is the sound of a house falling on your sister." This got a big laugh from the panelists and audience alike.

As the laughter subsided, Holzman revealed that she doesn't see herself as a fantasy writer. In fact, she came on board both Wicked projects because each gave her the opportunity to work with Stephen Schwartz. Her high regard for him and his work persuaded her that the Wicked projects were something special.

The discussion then veered into a vigorous debate on how the new film Wicked can be viewed through a political lens. Tillet, who wrote an article for the New York Times titled "What 'Wicked' Has to Say About Our Current Political Moment" believes that the film holds a mirror up to our current political world, and that Elphaba is treated as the perennial "other" in an authoritarian Oz.

Although there wasn't enough time to explore at any length, the panelists did agree on one point: Wicked is one of the most progressive works of our 21^st century.

The event wrapped up with Maguire signing copies of his book that some audience members had toted along with them. It was a fitting end to a bewitching hour with Wicked's writers and distinguished panelists.

BroadwayCon 10

February 9 -12, 2025

At the New York Marriott Marquis

For more information, visit www.broadwaycon.com.