The Right Room | On Spontaneous Musical Numbers

 

While I was recuperating from eye surgery, a friend offered to bring dinner and suggested we watch a “comfort movie” which was a wild concept because while I understand that other people have their comfort movies (our eldest, for example, relies upon Moana) I usually spend movie time finding something new, something I have never seen before.

This is not to say I don’t watch movies more than once, of course I do. I think I saw Ghostbusters in the theater around ten times. I have a DVD collection, not a large one, but it includes many discs I buy just in case – just in case I have the opportunity to share them with someone else. Not to sit and watch them on my own.

So, what title? What movie? I chose Paul Thomas Anderson’s L.A. epic Magnolia. Hadn’t watched that in maybe fifteen, twenty years. I first saw this movie in early January 2000, when it was in general release. I saw it with both of my brothers, which was a rare treat. But we’re all movie guys with opinions, and at one point in the film, I had a startling moment of self-awareness.

"This is something that happens."

The film has great momentum, after an extended narrated introduction on the nature of coincidence and the importance of storytelling, the plot whipsaws from one storyline to another, which are at first seemingly unrelated but are soon found to intertwine.

About half way through I thought, “Oh, no. I’m loving this, but we’re having dinner after – what if my brothers hate it?” Long story short, we were all impressed.

Sharing it with my friend, someone much younger than I, in 2022, was another revelation. I know what it’s about, it’s about fathers, the sins of the fathers, about toxic masculinity in general. That is the central theme, and one which resonated more deeply with me now that I am a father myself. I’m not sure what my young colleague thought. I find that many young people prefer not to engage with such issues, not as entertainment. Horror films, sure, but not dramas which depict ordinary men doing everyday, terrible things.

Moving forward a few years, I have also now shared Magnolia with our son. We watch movies together, he knows it’s important to me. And while he did enjoy the film, he wasn’t so sure about the song.

Yes! The song. About two-thirds of the way through this three hour movie, when every major plot thread has risen to a point of no return, and every character is at their most isolated (two of them are actually on the verge of death) the song “Wise Up” by Aimee Mann begins, and every character sings along. There is no explanation for this moment, it simply happens. The entire song plays, and everyone takes a lyric.



This comes right after hospice nurse Phil Parma (Philip Seymour Hoffman) administers a coma-inducing level of pain reliever to his charge Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a moment which hits differently once you have also made a like decision for one of your parents.

The song was always controversial. Janet Maslin, for example, writing for the New York Times, found it to be a horrible mistake. “It's astonishing to see a film begin this brilliantly only to torpedo itself in its final hour.” This is a widely held opinion, though I naturally disagree. For me, it is space to breathe, to sit with the characters for a moment before we charge into the rest of the narrative, which is about to go absolutely batshit.

Melora Walters in "Magnolia"

Also, I like singing. I like songs in movies, I like songs in plays. I once directed Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, in which the discarded and despondent Queen Katherine says, “My soul grows sad with troubles,” and urges her bard to: “Sing, and disperse 'em, if thou canst.” In this modern dress production, her assistants perform a karaoke version of “Somebody That I Used to Know.” There were some giggles from the crowd at first, which were dispelled when they realized, “Oh, my God … are they going to sing the entire thing?”

Of course we were. Why wouldn’t we?

My new play, The Right Room, is about four couples, in four different Midwestern hotel rooms, in four different years during the 20th century. The action plays concurrently, in the same room, each couple unaware of the others. Except when they break into song two-thirds of the way through. Did I steal this idea from Magnolia? Of course I did. I also stole it from Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9. I steal from all sorts of places, because I am a genius.

What song, you might ask? The classic "If You Were a Train" by Buddy Langston. From Wikipedia:

Buddy Langston, a soulful saxophonist, rose to fame in 1930s Kansas City, blending blues and swing into electric late-night sets. A self-taught prodigy, his smoky solos enchanted crowds at the 12th Street Reno Club. Langston's bold improvisations influenced generations, securing his legacy as a cornerstone of early American jazz history.

Why a song, you might ask? From my stage directions:

The song is an opportunity for choreography through which characters who do not otherwise speak to each due to the limitations of time and space to engage.

Will it work, you might ask? Well. Maybe someday I will have the chance to find out.

UPDATE: Convergence-Continuum presents "The Right Room" as part of the Verum Project, a new play by David Hansen, October 29 - 31, 2026 

Source: "Entangled Lives on the Cusp of the Millennium" by Janet Maslin, The New York Times (12/17/1999)

"If You Were a Train" was written by the playwright in 2024.

Henderson's Relish (condiment)

Henderson’s Relish is a condiment produced in and largely consumed in that part of South Yorkshire they call Sheffield. Not trying to start a fight with any native Sheffielders but this Midwest American would absolutely, in an attempt to easily communicate its flavor, compare it to Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce.

However, unlike that unctuous seasoning, Henderson’s does not include anchovies, so not only is it gluten free, it is also a vegan condiment.

The musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge is set in Sheffield, and includes a scene in which several folks in one apartment in the Park Hill estate partake of and comment upon a bottle of Henderson’s. It’s a reference which amused the West End audience I was a part of, which suggested to me it was a local delicacy, but known enough to humor the rest of the country.

Thing is, though, the scene in which the same bottle is commented upon, it is in fact being passed around by three parties who are unaware the others are there. It is mocked at a party in the 2010s, received with minor disgust by recently arrived Liberian refugees in the 1980s, and liberally splashed onto dinner by a miner in the 1960s.

Last week, I was having coffee with someone I hadn’t seen in some time. They asked me what I was working on and when I told them it was about three generations of my family, all taking place at the same time in one hotel room, he asked me if I had seen the movie, Here.

I said I had not, but that was familiar with the graphic novel. And he’s not wrong, because I do believe McGuire’s original version for that was printed RAW (see Here: graphic novel) had a profound effect which stayed with me. But he also could have said it reminded him of Standing at the Sky’s Edge.

Here’s the thing, I am going to be transparent about this – which is odd, because I don’t generally like to talk about the writing while it’s happening, before it’s produced, and I'll tell you why. On more than one occasion I have had conversations with critics and found my words used against me in their write-ups, and that's irritating, you know?

So, what I am currently working on is actually a play my mom wanted me to write years ago. She found my grandparents’ love letters from the early 1930s, and thought they were lovely and that there might be a play there. And they are lovely, but I found no obvious plot.

They were source material, however, for a paper I wrote in pursuit of my MFA a few years back, after she passed, and I began investigating my ancestry in earnest. And that paper led to an actual play script, one which took place in four different hotel rooms in four different years.

It may have been the comic strip that inspired the scenes running concurrently, and maybe it was the musical I had recently seen. There’s a song in my new script, too, an idea which I may have intentionally or otherwise stolen from Cloud Nine or maybe the film Magnolia. All I know is that I needed a song there.

Anyway, I recently ordered a four pack of Henderson’s Relish. It was a lot cheaper to get the four pack, and I did wonder how long the other bottles would be sitting on the shelf, but we’re almost done with the first one. I put Hendo’s on everything.

Process LXV

and you and you and you ... and you were there! 

Monday was the second first reading (first second reading?) of my new script. This time the entire class read the piece via Zoom, and the response was again very positive. More significantly, through their feedback I am now able to articulate what the piece is really about.

It is a mystery, but it is not confusing. There are a couple fakes in there, and some chills. It’s all about the second act; the first is a deep dive into the subconscious, the second carries the weight of having actual significance in the real world.

There was again the comparison to Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, but I was again reminded of the influence of Cloud 9, in regards to the significance of double casting. The Wizard of Oz was also mentioned, and how the farmhands Hickory, Hunk and Zeke come to represent Dorothy’s friends.

The white, male protagonist has a secret, which is common to us, that we harbor fears of dominance and abuse and that we have the potential to become, or that we have already become, that thing we fear the most. How we deal with that struggle is the central conflict in the play.

The question is one of resolution, and there were many helpful suggestions as to how I might alter the action but there wasn’t one of them I hadn’t already considered and found wanting. Churchill includes callbacks in Cloud 9, where characters from the first act intrude late into the second, as if to remind us of things we haven’t actually forgotten yet.

The dream is the dream, and readers believe it is a realistic dream. Reality is reality, and must remain reality. I don’t want anyone to leave asking about the bunny.

Also this week, I have been editing the Falling monologue for the class on illness narratives, and recording myself reading them in various locations, to suggest the passage of time. I may need to revise the text further before submitting the written piece, but just reading them aloud has provided guidance to judicious cutting.

Cloud 9 (2000)

"(It'll Be Fine When You Reach) Cloud Nine"
From left: Diane Mull, Tracey Field, Nick Koesters, Alison Garrigan, self

“I hear you are considering Cloud 9.”

This was James Mango, Artistic Director of Charenton Theater Company. The other new theater start-up, creating professional work in funky urban spaces.

We were at an event at Fadó, an Irish-themed bistro in the Flats. It was late Spring, 2000. Standing out on the boardwalk, on the banks of the Cuyahoga. The weather was perfect, the city was on the rise. The Millennium had begun (don’t argue with me about numerology) and everything was possible.

James told me Charenton was also considering that title, and proposed a co-production. I was suspicious. Not skeptical, I was suspicious.

He told me that with their management and promotional skills, the show could be a blockbuster. I asked him, what does Bad Epitaph have to offer?

He said, “The best talent in Cleveland.”

Diane Mull as Edward
Photo by Anthony Gray

Well played. He flattered me, he came to me and made a generous suggestion. I told him I’d think about it, and immediately went into overdrive, figuring out how soon we could announce the Bad Epitaph 2000-01 Season, and to secure the rights to produce Cloud 9. On our own.

Why? Arrogance, I imagine. I was thirty-two. My company was a hot property. I didn’t want to dilute it. Co-productions were not yet a thing, but they would be and very soon. James was thinking outside the box. I was being territorial. That was my first mistake.

Most of our core company was involved in the production of Cloud 9, and I will say it was the best in Cleveland. Roger Truesdell was tapped to direct. He had helmed Sin the previous fall, presented at Inside Gallery (now the site of the Bourbon Street Barrel Room) a temporary forty-seat space which sold out every performance.

Most of the spaces we had already engaged were either unavailable or defunct for that fall. I can’t tell you how many interesting spaces we had considered for Lysistrata, including the Paris Art Theatre on West 25th Street, an abandoned pornographic film house.

We could have had the Studio Theatre at Cleveland Play House, an intimate thrust space. Just a few years later Dobama would often use the space before they found their present location in Cleveland Heights.

But I got it into my head we must have a proscenium, and we found one. A sweetheart deal with the folks at Tri-C East, in Highland Heights. They had a new, state of the art facility and wanted to draw attention to it. It was a six hundred seat auditorium.

"Come Gather Sons of England"
Company from "Cloud 9"
(Bad Epitaph Theater Company, 2000)

Well, that’s very big,isn't it. But I had high hopes for attendance. All of our productions caught fire and attracted large audiences -- Hamlet, Sin, Santaland, Lysistrata, they were all selling out shortly after opening.

Also, we were generating great press! Our new was nominated for a Northern Ohio Live “Award of Achievement” for Lysistrata, and in the awards issue was a feature written by Christopher Johnston, about the company, and me in particular. Surely, Bad Epitaph was ascendant. This production would attract even greater audiences.

From the beginning, however, my best instincts told me that all of our productions should be produced within the city of Cleveland. The original mission clearly stated we would be presenting classics and important contemporary drama in an urban setting. Now, we were moving into a cavernous space, way out at the intersection of Interstates 271 and 480. That was my second mistake.

The acting company included regulars Nick Koesters, Tom Cullinan, Alison Garrigan, Chris Bohan, myself, were joined by actors new to Bad Epitaph, Diane Mull and Tracey Field. A raked set was designed by Don McBride, spectacular light effects were created by Greg Owen-Houk, and our house composer, Dennis Yurich, created original music.

The production was set in both 1880 and 1980, nice round numbers. What had originally been a contemporary second act was now itself a period piece, which began with a news report on a London pop station (Sarah Morton as the DJ) and a brief snatch of the title song as though interpreted by XTC.

Our version of the complete song, sung by the company, was much more wistful. It begins with Gerry (Nick) singing the first verse solo, before being joined by Lin (Alison), then myself and Diane -- the Edwards -- and the song builds and builds until everyone is on stage, singing. During the climax we are all dancing, but we are each dancing by ourselves.


Roger created a beautiful picture postcard, exactly what I hoped the production would be. It closed with a signature Truesdell moment, with glitter and confetti showering onto Betty 1980 (Tracey) and Betty 1880 (Nick) as she has finally found herself.

And the reviews were positive, pointing up the strengths of our production, and also its failings. Tony Brown for the Plain Dealer commented that the “too-large theater ... dilutes the intimacy.” Imagine if we staged this at the Studio, or in another welcoming art gallery. Brown also called our production “a perverse sort of children’s theater for adults.” I’m not sure he meant that as a compliment, but I will take it as one.

The critics agreed that this script had come into focus into the intervening twenty years. Free Times critic James Damico claimed Churchill’s text, “never convincingly coheres or evolves dramatically … held together solely by the consistency of its anti-establishment criticisms." But he also said that time and our “resourceful and energetic production” had considerably “considerably depoliticize[d] and clarif[ied] the play’s properties.”

Which is another way of saying we took the rough edges off. The headline for the PD review was “Strong message is sugared in 'Cloud Nine'.” Indeed.

Now, and I can’t remember why I thought this was a good idea … we had a pre-opening night preview. That is not unique. However, there was no admission, In fact it was promoted as FREE. A free performance, the night before we opened!

Tracey Field, Nick Koesters

This is all well and good if you are only telling friends and family. But we promoted it. Because I felt we needed strong word-of-mouth, and what better way than to paper the preview? And people came! Our free preview was a big hit, all our friends and family came! It was the largest house we had for the entire run.

What the fuck? What was I thinking? Am I some kind of Communist? We had an entire weekend of previews for Lysistrata (I was terrified it would suck and I wanted time to make massive changes, which it turns out I did not have to do) but still we charged admission for them.

There were over fifty people there for the preview, their number dwarfed by a sea of seats. We didn’t even ask for a donation on the way out. This was my third and final mistake.

I loved this play, I wanted to return to a text that had so inspired me as I began my journey as a theater artist. And we did it just right. And audience size varied widely ... between ten and fifteen people.

One night, after another inspiring and poorly-attended performance, I drove to Cleveland Heights to catch the last half of Angst:84, a new play by my wife, Toni K. Thayer, at my old haunt, Dobama’s Night Kitchen.

I snuck into a seat in the back row on the far left side of the house, which was nearly sold out. An audience composed largely of teenagers and young adults, exactly the demographic for which I had created this project five years earlier. But I’d never produced such a popular show for the Night Kitchen.

I was happy for her. I was jealous. I was sad. I missed this. I was an adult, soon to be a father (or so I thought) and I had moved onto adult projects. But I still wanted to be back here, in the basement, in a great neighborhood, making exciting art for a young audience.

And yet, and you will have to take my word on this, over the years several have told me they did see our production of Cloud 9, and how much it meant to them. I get those comments about this show more than anything else Bad Epitaph produced.

See also: Cloud 9 (1986)

Sources:
Strong Message is sugared in 'Cloud Nine' by Tony Brown, The Plain Dealer, 10/23/2000
Clearing the Clouds; Bad Epitaph works wonders with 'Cloud 9' by James Damico, The Free Times, 11/1-7/2000

Cloud 9 (1986)

"Cloud 9" by Caryl Churchill
Directed by Deborah Nitzberg
Set Design by Fred Duer
(Ohio University School of Theater, 1986)

Recently, my wife noticed that I sometimes do not include my role as Artistic Director of Bad Epitaph Theater Company in my biography. Bad Epitaph operated (more or less) from 1999 until 2004. We had many great artistic triumphs, and a few failures. I feel my work as titular head of the company to be its Achilles' heel, and am therefore loathe to cite that responsibility as a credit.

Take for example our production of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9 in the year 2000. A fine production, from an artistic standpoint; the direction, performers, all elements of design including original music and sound. Exactly the attention to detail we had been striving for in the eighteen months we had been working together as a team.

And audiences stayed away and we lost all the profits we had raked in from our acclaimed production Lysistrata. What happened?

To answer that question, I need to go back to my first semester at college.

For every theater artist there’s that show you saw that changed everything, that made you realize the full potential of what theater could be, and why it is an art form unique from all others. For me, that was Cloud 9.

First produced at the Royal Court in 1979, with a Broadway run in 1981 at the Theatre de Lys, (now the Lucille Lortel) Churchill’s work was part of the 1986-87 Season at the Ohio University School of Theatre. It was produced in repertory with Cat On a Hot Tin Roof.

Now get this: I was a freshman. I had decided to pursue a degree in acting. As a child my parents had taken me to plays and to musicals, which each seemed very different to me. I liked musicals and found a lot of plays to be boring. Not necessarily unenjoyable, just not exiting. And yet I wanted to perform in them.

Today I love watching plays, and do not find performing in them to be enjoyable. We change.

Of course, my knowledge of what a play is was quite limited. So many of the works I had seen at local theaters or performed in at high school were not new. You Can’t Take It With You. Blithe Spirit. The Importance of Being Earnest. The works of Shakespeare. To my mind, that was the majority of work an actor would do, the canon.

From left: Matthew Glave, Kevin McCarty, Alana Beth Lipp
Costume Design by William Anderson

All incoming freshman were required to take Introduction to Theatre Criticism, led at that time by the legendary Al Kaufman. A very important course, especially for a callow youth like myself, we learned the language of artistic evaluation. You like it (or you don’t) but can you articulate why?

We were told to read Cat On a Hot Tin Roof before attending the performance, but not to read Cloud 9. How does reading a play beforehand color your reception of the work? How does coming to the work without expectations?

Like a lot of my classmates, we were disheartened by this production of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. It wasn’t very good. Some performances were downright awful. Was that all right? Could we say that? Al assured us that we could.

I became concerned about the next four years. Is that what this school has to offer?

Then I saw Cloud 9. And my head burst open.

In brief, this play is a satire on British colonialism and mores and how the past is never past. Churchill plays with form, setting the first act in 1880s in Africa, and the second act in 1979 in London … but to the characters, members of one British family and those in their community, it has only been twenty-five years.

This gap in time is not explained. It just is, and no one questions it.

It begins as some kind of British farce, the gender reversals (mother played by a man, the young son played by a woman) easily dismissed as a kind of funny panto. That is, until the highly-anticipated arrival of a famous explorer breaks the thin veneer of gentility. He attempts to seduce the mother, then the son, and finally gains his satisfaction with the African servant Joshua.

“Shall we go into the barn and fuck?” asks the explorer, and they bound off, hand-in-hand. It was hilarious, and shocking, and a release. And my idea of what theater could be changed forever.

I was stunned by the play’s frank use of language, and how it addresses issues of homosexuality, feminism, domestic abuse, drag, pedophilia, incest. But the play also created in me a deep sense of longing, desire, and disappointment. If the first act was arch comedy, the second act was more troubling, as the now-adult children, freed from Victorian restrictions, struggle to understand who they are.

What did it all mean? I did not have the words, the experience to express the feelings this production aroused in me. It was 1986. I was just eighteen years old.

From left: Kevin McCarty, Cynthia Collins
Alana Beth Lipp, Joseph Hulser

In the middle of the second act, the company breaks the fourth wall to sing to the audience, a song called "Cloud 9." In this production, the lyrics were in acapella harmony, like a street corner, doo-wop melody.

The wife lover’s children
And my lover’s wife
Cooking in my kitchen
Confusing my life
And it’s upside down when you reach Cloud Nine.

It was a sexy-sassy rendition, and I was jealous. I wanted to be them. The actors, I mean, I wanted to be performing in a show like that.

More troubling to me now are the many difficult turns my personal life was about to take and I wonder if I missed the lesson of the story, that liberation does not necessarily make us happy.

In the New York Times, Frank Rich called Cloud 9 “sentimental agitprop,” and while he didn’t mean that kindly, I wish I had had those words to include in my essay for Dr. Kaufman. As a playwright, I have become a champion of sentimental agitprop. It's what I do.

Moving ahead twelve years, I developed a desire to direct a production of Hamlet with all those artists I had met and grown close to during the previous several years. And maybe someday I will write about that production.

In brief, it was a success. We decided to produce a new play, Sin by Wendy MacLeod, and also the first Cleveland production of The Santaland Diaries, both successes. Finally, in spring 2000 we produced Lysistrata, which was a huge success.

I was happy to skip from production to production under the banner of Bad Epitaph, after Hamlet’s warning not to offend actors; “After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.” It was a moniker which invited abuse and I was all for it.

From left: Raeleen McMillion, Cynthia Collins
Kevin McCarty, Alana Beth Lipp

We were compelled to create a season. I say “we” because I am almost sure I would rather not have done so, better to just produce a play when there’s a play you want to produce. It had worked so far. But suddenly we were in competition — or perceived that we were — by another upstart company, Charenton Theater Company, a name even more pretentious than our own.

Charenton’s first few offerings were mid-to-mid-late twentieth century classics like Waiting for Godot and American Buffalo. Works that say, “I haven’t read a play since college.”

And what did I do? I chose to kick off Bad Epitaph’s first full season with the most memorable play I had seen in college, Cloud 9.

To be continued.

Photos courtesy of Alana Byington

Source: Sexual Confusion On ‘Cloud 9’ by Frank Rich, The New York Times, 5/20/1981

UPDATE: BorderLight Theater Festival presents The Right Room, a new play by David Hansen and directed by Jasmine Renee, July 16 - 19, 2025. Help support our production by dropping a donation on our GoFundMe campaign!