A good Christian student with teeth in her vagina. If that premise doesn’t cry out to be adapted into a musical, I don’t know what does. That’s the story of Teeth, a Coming of Rage Musical Comedy, the wild musical playing off-Broadway at New World through January 5. We caught up with the composers of the show, Michael R. Jackson (best known for the brilliant Tony Award-winning A Strange Loop) and Anna K. Jacobs, to talk about the show, Tori Amos and the demise of soap operas.
How did you two first meet?
Michael R. Jackson: We met as grad students at the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU. Anna was a couple of cycles behind me, but I was often just around because the program welcomes alums in the building, or it did at that time, and I was a great admirer of her work and–
Anna K. Jacobs: And vice versa.
Michael: Yeah. And so that was sort of how we knew each other.
You both seem to have a — not irreverent necessarily — but a different approach to musicals. I mean, A Strange Loop is really about rimming and Liz Phair, and then here we have Teeth’s vagina teeth. How did you realize you had similar taste in musicals?
Anna: Well, my background originally was as a classical composer, and that's how I came to theater. So I always had a slightly avant-garde sensibility, because that's the sort of music that I was writing before I pivoted into theater. I always enjoyed downtown theater and I always approach musical theater from the purview that it's a form and not an aesthetic. And any sort of story can be told through that form as long as there's a reason for why music should be the main modality of storytelling. And I think Michael thinks about musicals in that way too. I don't know whether there was ever a conversation about, "Let's do something outrageous." That's not really how we thought about the movie, actually. We just thought it was a really exciting story to tell through a musical form.
Michael: And yeah, I'm very much story first, story and character. And I found the character of Dawn O'Keefe to be a really fascinating character. And he was dealing with a lot of issues and themes that I already write quite a lot about in my work and always have. And so, like Anna said, I was interested in what the form of a musical could do to amplify and deepen that story and character.
Anna: And I would also add that something that is a commonality in my work is centering these women characters who you haven't seen in a musical before. And this obviously did that. And I think Michael recognized that in my writing, too. It's one of the reasons why I think he thought I'd be a good partner on this one.
Michael: That's right.
What about the movie made you guys think that a musical would be the right avenue for its story?
Michael: For me, it was the collusion of sexuality and religion and a character dealing literally with the consequences of that in their own body. I just had a hunch there was a song in it.
Anna: And for me, I would say it was when [director Michael Lichtenstein] talks about the film, he talks about how intentionally he plotted it out as a hero's journey. But I loved the fact that there was this young teen woman going on this hero's journey and what a sort of unusual type of hero's journey it was.
And it made me think a little bit deeper about things that I hadn't even unpacked for myself. They were deep, deep, deep down in the sort of spot where you put uncomfortable things. And that was really interesting for me. And it actually took me watching other people watching our show to be able to go to that place and understand it.
Were you both big musical fans as kids? What were your favorite musicals growing up?
Anna: My first musical that I ever saw, my dad took me and my brother, it was Starlight Express, and it was in the peak of summer under a big tarp, and I thought it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. I got the cassette tape and I just played it to death.
I do remember also it was the peak of summer and my dad bought me a Coca-Cola, and I figured at intermission if I tipped it down my shirt, that would cool me off. And I didn't realize it would get really sticky. So that's also very much melded into my memory of my first show.
Michael: One of the first big musicals that really knocked me out was a tour of Showboat and also Phantom of the Opera, which were both playing in Toronto. And I was just blown away by Showboat. I made my mom buy me the cast album. I know the songs backwards and forwards. It's one of my favorites. I was big on musicals, though at the time I wasn't thinking I'd ever write them.
Michael, I know you went to Cass Tech High School. Tell me a little bit about that. I mean, that's such a mythic place to me.
Michael: Yeah, so I went to Cass, which is one of the three big magnet high schools in the Detroit area. A lot of famous alumni went there, Lily Tomlin, Ellen Burstyn, David Alan Grier, Kenya Moore, Jack White. I had a lot of formative experiences there. At the time that I was a student, I did not appreciate it as much as I do now, being many years past it. I couldn't wait to get out when I was in high school. But there's so many things about it.
I wouldn't have a writing career without Cass. My creative writing teacher, Ms. Thompson, who was also the head of the English department. I took creative writing as my elective all four years of high school. By the time I was a senior, I very much had it in my mind that I was going to pursue writing as a profession, and I couldn't have had that without the influence of Cass Tech. So it was a great school for me.
I know there were changes from the movie Teeth to the original production at Playwrights. Besides the combining of the pastor character, were there other major changes?
Anna: Definitely Brad. There are so many changes. Maybe we need to preface by saying that Michael and I really went in feeling like that source material was something we could just pull from for inspiration, and that we didn't need to religiously adapt it. And Mitchell Lichtenstein, who is the writer and director of the film, was incredibly supportive of that, which looking back now, I'm amazed that he was like, "You guys just figure this out and find your way in." But that was really how we approached it. And so there are many, many plot and character elements that are different than the film. But I would say that the characterization of the stepbrother, Brad, and his whole backstory involving this online Truthseeker community is all Michael's invention.
Michael: And the Promise Keeper Girls was something that Anna came up with as a chorus of young women that was different. That's not really in the movie.
Anna, I can't remember if you said it or someone said it about you — that your score ranges from Christian rock to an ancient feminine Tori Amos meets Stravinsky pagan ritual music. Was that you who said that about your music?
Anna: I did, not realizing that it was going to get written down, but yeah.
I always think back to A Strange Loop about Liz Phair being such a strong part of it. So I just thought Tori Amos and Liz Phair, there are people out there sort of championing these legends of music in a way.
Anna: Mutual adoration of Tori’s work and the possibility of being able to explore that musical language in our own show got us both really excited. Because I will say, Michael, as you know, is the most tremendous composer. So when he's writing lyrics, he's still making a lot of choices that are lyrically driving the music. He does it through structure and lyrical hooks and repetition. When Michael writes lyrics, he knows exactly what type of music they're going to yield. Before we write a song, we discuss exactly what we want the song to be and how we want it to function.
Would you ever be interested in doing a Tori or Liz jukebox musical?
Michael: Oh gosh. Well, Liz, I'm friendly with Liz now. I believe she is actually working on her own thing, which I am excited to see what she comes up with. And Tori, I think it's too close. It's too close for me. I mean, she's very much like a divine spirit to me, so I don't know that I could do it, but I would love to see it.
Anna, what about you?
Michael: If somebody could do it, she could do it right.
Anna: I feel like those are two artists who would be like, "I'll write my jukebox musical myself thank you very much."
Pretty much.
Anna: But if I was asked, I would say, "Yes."
Michael: I would happily consult, but I don't know if I could collaborate.
I call myself a huge soap opera person and you call yourself a huge soap person. Michael, you were an intern on All My Children.
Michael: I interned on All My Children in 2002. That was right around the time that Josh Duhamel was leaving the show. I was there on his last day. I was there on Kelly Ripa's last day when she was going to Regis. I was watching before that, but Bianca had come out as gay. Michael B. Jordan was on the show. Amanda Seyfried was on the show during the period I was interning there. It was like an interesting moment.
A golden age.
Michael: I'm not a big soap person today. The genre has really changed in a lot of ways.
I've been still watching. When I was a child, my mother watched The Doctors and Days of Our Lives. So I've sort of known of Days of Our Lives my whole life. And then I watched All My Children before you were born, when Jenny Gardner ran away to New York City with Jesse.
Michael: And now that new show The Gates is coming.
Beyond the Gates. Yes. Are you working on anything new together or separately, or are you focused fully on Teeth right now?
Michael: Nothing on the horizon for us. I'm taking a little break from musical theater. I mean, I have stuff that's in the primordial soup stage, and I haven't been in that phase for such a long time that I’m liking just being at the drawing board and not having to worry about a workshop or developmental step or a production.
Anna: I'm not taking a break from musicals right now. I have three in development currently.
But I love working with Michael so much, and it's been such a shaping experience for me. Really, collaborators don't get any better than him. So, one day, hopefully we'll come together and make another baby. But yeah, we're both got things right now that are on the front burner that aren't new musicals that we're writing together.
Congratulations to you both!
Photography: Valerie Terranova
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