Maury Yeston: “DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY is an evening devoted to an examination of all the different kinds of love”

The world premiere of  Maury Yeston´s new musical took place on the 14th July 2011 at Off-Broadway’s Laura Pels Theatre. Based on the Italian play ‘La Morte in Vacanze’ by Alberto Casella, DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY features an enchanting story adapted by Tony Award-winning bookwriters Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan and lush, romantic songs by the Tony Award-winning composer-lyricist Maury Yeston. This new production is directed by Tony Award winner Doug Hughes.

Maury Yeston is the writer of the music and lyrics of shows such as NINE (1982), and TITANIC (1997), both of which won Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Score. Yeston also wrote a significant amount of the music and most of the lyrics to the Tony-nominated musical GRAND HOTEL in 1989, which won the Olivier Award for the Outstanding Musical in its West End production (2005).

We talked with Maury Yeston about his brand new musical DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY, about his acclaimed career in musical theatre and about his upcoming projects.

HOW WOULD YOU INTRODUCE ‘DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY’?
This is a musical comedy, there’s no question about it. It is extremely funny and even though it has the word “death” in it. The subject matter is that Death is so exhausted from all the calamities of the world and he decides that he really needs to take a vacation, and because of that, he’s not working, so nobody dies during the weekend, and over the whole world there’s no death at all. As a vacation, he visits a family in a beautiful villa in Northern Italy, and he falls in love with a beautiful young girl and she falls in love with him. So it’s a magnificent love story, very very funny… Instead of being about death, the truth is that it is a celebration of life. He just wants to know “why are people so afraid of me?” “Why am I so terrifying?” and he finds out because on Sunday night he has to leave, and he doesn’t want to leave cause he’s in love with that girl, and then he understand why life is so precious. The thing that makes life precious is love.

AND HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE SCORE YOU´VE WRITTEN FOR THIS SHOW?
Because it’s a love story, because it’s about grand emotions… This is really in the great tradition of the American musical: soaring, powerful love songs, enormous choruses, beautiful soaring romantic music... And there are some funny songs too.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE PRODUCTION THAT OPENED RECENTLY OFF-BROADWAY?
I love it. After I wrote TITANIC, which was a gigantic show –there were 36 people on the stage, 26 people in the orchestra- I wanted to write a smaller piece, an ensemble piece. And so this is only 14 actors and 10 musicians, but the musicians sound like an orchestra of 30 and it’s like great chamber music. Every single actor has wonderful things to do… Every actor is quite extraordinary so I would describe it as a wonderful evening in the theatre, about a subject matter that absolutely everybody can relate to which is why we love life so much. And there are so many different love stories: there’s an elderly couple, a young girl who loves a boy who doesn’t love her back. This is an evening devoted to an examination of all the different kinds of love we have in the world that makes life so wonderful.

AS A COMPOSER OF ‘DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY’, HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED IN THE REHEARSAL PROCESS OF THIS OFF-BROADWAY PRODUCTION?
All the time. Everybody does in a musical. From the very beginning when I came up with the idea of the show, and started working with the librettist, and then of course in the auditions to create the show, and we are in rehearsals every single day and in every single performance while we are in previews, so that we can listen to the audience and we can keep re-working. To listen to the audience´s reaction, so you have to make it funnier, to make it better, to get a greater applause… In other words to make sure we are communicating with the audience and making it the best possible show.

AND HAVE YOU ENJOYED THIS PROCESS IN THIS SHOW?
I have loved it. I feel I’m not working. A director once told me “you can’t retire because you never worked”. Because this for me is the greatest joy in the world: to make music and to celebrate life and to make people happy. There’s a song in the show called “Life is a Joy” and it’s so wonderful because you have a wonderful Maurice Chevalier-like character singing to death, and he doesn’t look like death, he borrows the body of a very handsome young man and he’s singing “Life is a Joy, my friend, you should live!” And he dances, he sings, he explores the world, he literally lives the life of a human being in two days from being very young to being mature and wise. In the end, he discovers the true meaning of the value of life, which is that we have to make everyday count.

DO YOU THINK THAT, AFTER WATCHING THE SHOW, THE AUDIENCES LOSE THEIR FEAR TO DEATH?
Very much! Because the truth is that even though death is a little scary, when we talk about it, when we think about it, we realize it’s not really scary at all, it’s part of life. It’s going to happen to all of us. The show is based on a play written by an Italian playwright in 1928, Alberto Casella, ‘La Morte in Vacanze’. I think that for Spanish speaking audience this is something they can relate to, because this is really a thing that is very much in the history of Spanish literature and Spanish art. When we think about Goya, we think about the bullfights, we think about this extraordinary culture fascination with death not only as a terrible power but as an interesting character, and almost as a seductive character as well.

HOW DID IT COME UP THE IDEA OF CREATING THIS MUSICAL FROM THIS PLAY WRITTEN BY ALBERTO CASELLA?
I fell in love with the play. When you write a musical you realize it’s going to take you four, five, six or seven years. So you can’t just pick something that is very popular this week, you have to find something that you know it’s going to be very interesting years from now. So when I picked the play that was written in 1928 and was very successful, then it was done on Broadway in 1929, then it became a movie with Fredric March in 1934… And I realized that its subject matter has been fascinating audiences for 85 years so I know it is going to be something that will interest to any audience today or ten years from now.

HOW WAS THE PROCESS OF WRITING THE SHOW?
I began to write it with my dear friend Peter Stone. Peter and I wrote GRAND HOTEL and TITANIC together. But in 2003 unfortunately he passed away. So I spent some time trying to find another wonderful playwright who could help me finish it and I found the other great genius, Thomas Meehan. I mean, Peter had written WOMEN OF THE YEAR in 1976, and now here is my friend Thomas Meehan, and he wrote ANNIE and HAIRSPRAY and THE PRODUCERS… So for me, to have the benefit of both of these great writers it was like driving a Rolls Royce. I think I’m the luckiest composer in the world.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH ‘DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY’ AFTER ITS OFF-BROADWAY ENGAGEMENT?
We are receiving requests from all over the world. We are so excited. The audience seems to love it, we are sold out. We got many wonderful notices and reviews… And now I think that the practicality of our plan is demonstrating that we had the right idea because in order to do this show you don’t need 25 people, you don’t need a big orchestra. You need simply 14 actors, 10 musicians and almost a bare stage. And all happens inside the imagination of the music and the lyrics and the actors. So I think that this can be done by summer camps, by high schools, by community theaters… We are already receiving requests from Germany, from Japan, and from all over America.

TALKING ABOUT YOUR EXTENSIVE CARREER IN MUSICAL THEATRE… NO DOUBT NINE IS YOUR MOST POPULAR SHOW. WHAT DOES ITS SUCCESS MEAN TO YOU?
It means so much to me because it was really my first piece and I was so devoted to it. It was because I was so in love with Fellini’s masterpiece. When it became a success, Fellini invited me to come to spend a week with him in Rome, and I played him the music on the piano of Nino Rota and it was just a dream come true for me. When I see that so many years afterwards it is still being performed all over the world it gives me such great joy… I’ve seen it almost in every language. I’ve seen it in Japanese, in Corean, Swedish, German. In fact when we did NINE in Buenos Aires –NUEVE- we won the ACE Award for Best Musical in Argentina. Of course my wife and I went to see the show, we never wanted to leave Argentina because the food was so fantastic, and also the people, and the actors… So NINE has a special meaning for me.

YOU WORKED WITH ANTONIO BANDERAS IN THE BROADWAY REVIVAL OF NINE…
You know something? My first Guido was Raul Julia, who was simply great… He is the Jackie Robinson of Musical Theatre, he was one of the first early superstars. And then, to have Antonio doing it again… Oh my God! What a joy! Antonio Banderas and Chita Rivera in the revival of NINE… I knew I could not just let them do the show, I knew I had to write something special for them. And because I remembered visiting our production in Argentina I thought, “oh, I have to write them a Tango!” So I studied Astor Piazzola and I wrote a special tango for Antonio and for Chita to do and they stopped the show every night with this tango and I became very close friends with them both. And then we did the film and then got to work with Penelope Cruz! Sometimes I pinched myself because I really can’t believe I’m living the life I’m living.

YOU HAVE WON TWO TONY AWARDS: ONE FOR YOUR WORK IN ‘NINE’ AND THE OTHER FOR ‘TITANIC’; AND ONE OLIVIER FOR ‘GRAND HOTEL’. WHAT DO THESE AWARDS MEAN TO YOU?
This is a very simple answer. An award is a gift. That’s all. You don’t try to gain an award, you don’t feel sad if you don’t get an award… An award is just that one day for some reason, somebody knocks on your door and says: “here’s a gift”. And you are just very lucky to receive it, and the best thing you can do is be grateful for it and say thank you.

DO YOU THINK TITANIC SHOULD HAVE HAD A LONGER LIFE IN BROADWAY?
It’s very interesting. One of the things that Broadway audiences do not understand is that we think here in New York that Broadway is the biggest event in the world, but the truth is that there is a very big world out there. TITANIC has had the most extraordinary life after its Broadway run. It toured America for 100 weeks, after there was a new tour of America of 52 weeks. And then it was produced in Hamburg, where a special theatre was built for it and it ran for two years, and in Amsterdam. And then it’s been produced several times in Japan and we are now in discussions for a TITANIC production in China and it has been produced in all the British isles. Specially in Belfast… They built the Titanic!… And I remember that in the opening night I was sitting next to the Lord Mayor of Belfast and there were six people in the cast whose grandfathers build the ship. And next year is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and it looks to me that there’s about 50 or 60 productions of the show all over the world this year alone. So the truth is that every show will close at a certain point, no show runs forever. But the great test of a show is having people doing it 20 or 30 years later, and this is happening with TITANIC so this is giving me great joy.

YOU ALSO WROTE ‘GOYA: A LIFE IN SONG’, A SHOW IN WHICH YOU WORKED WITH PLÁCIDO DOMINGO…
I loved doing it because Goya was a great genius. Unfortunately because of Plácido upper-schedule it is really impossible for him to devote one year to Broadway. Because of that what we did was a recording album and it was so successful that Plácido Jr, his son, translated it into Spanish and Sony Music has the same album in Spanish. And Gloria Estefan is on it and some extraordinary Mexican recording artists are on it. We have absolute plans to bring GOYA on stage. One of the things we need to do is to make sure we have the right libretto. I think you don’t put something on the stage until you really know it’s ready to go. But there was already a very big hit song from GOYA, “Till I Loved You”, performed not only by Plácido but also by Barbra Streisand so we’re very excited about that. The Spanish title of that song is “Hasta Amarte” and it was sung by Gloria Estefan and Plácido Domingo. It was even a big hit in Brazil! Simone recorded it with Plácido in Portuguese. So it’s really a wonderful project. I think that even now the figure of Goya and his view of the world, and of course his criticism of war… It has more relevance today than ever before and I’m completely devoted to make it sure that I put GOYA on a stage.

SOME OF YOUR SONGS, AS “UNUSUAL WAY” OR “TILL I LOVED YOU” HAVE HAD A  LIFE BEYOND THE SHOWS THEY WERE CREATED FOR. HOW DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL AS A WRITER?
There are no ways to describe the experience. The best I can describe this is when Barbra Streisand recorded “Unusual Way” and then she did her tour, where it became a very important song. I received a phone call from her manager who said “Barbra is going to sing “Unusual Way” at Madison Square Garden and she has left two tickets for you and your wife, and please come”. So, we came to Madison Square Garden and there were 20.000 people in there. And Barbra was there and she said “some songs really touch me very much and this is a very beautiful and important song to me” and she began to sing my song. As she sang my song I looked around and I realize there were 20.000 people in this room hearing this song and in my mind I remembered sitting alone in my little room with my little piano writing this song... When that song was nothing but me, a little room, and I was the only one who knew about it. And to go from that moment sitting at the piano to watching 20.000 people listening to Barbra Streisand sing it was for me a miracle.

DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOU ARE WRITING SOMETHING AS SPECIAL AND POWERFUL?
You always hope, but you never know. I do not believe you can write a popular song. You just have to write the best song you can write and if you are lucky it will become popular. For me, because I write theatre music, the most important thing is that the song on stage does the job it’s supposed to do: push the story forward, reveal the character, engage the audience, entertain, make you feel an emotion… If I have done that, then for me the song is successful. And if it has a life beyond that, it’s just the icing on the cake.

WE SUPPOSE THAT ALL YOUR SONGS AND YOUR SHOWS ARE LIKE SONS FOR YOU… BUT IS THERE ANY OF THEM YOU FEEL SPECIALLY PROUD OF?
One of the songs I feel specially proud of is a song called “New Words”. It’s a simple song sung by a parent to a little baby. The parent is teaching the little baby his first words. And when Stephen Sondheim was 70 years old, when he celebrated his 70th Birthday, the Library of Congress asked him to give them a list of the 50 songs by other people that he wished he wrote and one of the first songs on this list was my song “New Words”. This was a great honor to me, and it’s a special song for me too.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE ACTUAL SITUATION OF BROADWAY MUSICALS? AND ABOUT YOUNG COMPOSERS?
I think it’s a new Golden Age. In addition to writing musicals I also teach at BMI Music Theatre Workshop. I was honored to have so many great students in that class, as Ahrens and Flaherty who wrote RAGTIME on that class. I watched AVENUE Q written in that class, I watched NEXT TO NORMAL get written in that class. So for me, the part of me that is a teacher takes as much joy watching other people succeed as I may have joy in my own success. Because that is what a teacher is. A teacher becomes overjoyed by the success of others and I think that musical theatre is healthier than it has ever been. Every single time somebody declares the death of Broadway I guarantee within six months it’s going to come back to life.

WE’VE READ THAT YOU FELL IN LOVE WITH MUSICAL THEATRE WATCHING ‘MY FAIR LADY’ …
Yes! I think I was maybe 11 years old… I never saw anything like it… I started writing music when I was 6 years old but when I saw MY FAIR LADY I knew I wanted to devoted myself to theatre. I write words, I write the lyrics, as well as the music and one of the great moments of my life was when I met Alan Jay Lerner. He heard some of my music and he told me that when he was young Oscar Hammerstein used to invite him to his house and give him advice; and Alan Jay Lerner said, “Come to my office from time to time and I want to give you advice”, and he did, he trained me. This was not only a terrific honor, but I’ve come to understand that writers of musical theatre instruct to the next generation and give them the best advice they can.

COULD YOU COMMENT ON YOUR FUTURE PROJECTS?
There are two things now that I’m completing and I’m very excited for both of them. The first is that I discovered that when we think about the world of ballet, we always think about a ballet that is a full-length ballet all night long. For example ‘Swan Lake’, ‘Giselle’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ or the famous ‘The Nutcracker’. All of these ballets are the whole evening. Many years ago I was trying to find the American ballet, that is three acts long, and I couldn’t find one. I realize we don’t have one. So I thought “I am an American composer, and I love American literature” so I decided I would write a full-length American Ballet and I wrote TOM SAWYER. And it’s now going to be produced in a new Opera House in Kansas City. So I’m completing this ballet, which is very exciting, and I am also completing a commission. I was commissioned by the people’s Republic of China, Beijing. They want to have a musical based on a very great national literary treasure. They have a Chinese opera that was written in 1598. You can describe it as their ‘Romeo and Juliet’. And of course I accepted the commission because I think that the best way to improve international relationships is to have cultural relationships. So I’ve written this show, and I’m going to Beijing and we will open this new musical in Beijing and they intend to bring it to the rest of the world. We plan to do it in English and on Broadway, and in the West End, and all over the world.

Mara Davi, Rebecca Luker, Jay Jaski, Jill Paice, Max von Essen,
Michael Siberry and Alexandra Socha in DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY