“It’s kind of a crazy story.”
No, it’s actually very much like the story of the musical you’re starring in.
“Thoroughly Modern Millie,” which opens Goodspeed Musicals’ 2017 season, is the story of a woman from a small town who finds sudden success and grand adventure in the big city.
In a phone interview earlier this month, the young Arkansas native Taylor Quick explains how she went from being a self-described “little girl from Little Rock” (to quote a song from another ’20s-themed musical, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”) to starring in a season-opening spectacular in the musical-mad bucolic Connecticut hamlet of East Haddam.
“I went to a non-Equity dance call in New York, hoping to get in the ensemble. I had just moved to New York. Then they asked me back to read for other roles. Then they started having me read for Millie.”
Quick’s agent informed her that she got the role by playing a song from “Thoroughly Modern Millie” when she answered the phone. “I cried.
“I figured they would cast a Broadway veteran. I guess they saw a little bit of Millie in me.”
The show’s director/choreographer, Denis Jones, concurs. “She’s just Millie,” he says of Quick. “She’d just arrived in the big city. She’s fresh, bright, optimistic. We just found her interesting, and she just kept moving up in the ranks.”
Jones is returning to the double-threat director/choreographer position after serving as choreographer for “Holiday Inn” at Goodspeed in 2014 and on Broadway. “I enjoy doing both. I started out by doing both, separately. Four or five years ago, the MUNY” — the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre, which like the Goodspeed specializes in musical theater — “encouraged me. They thought I should tackle both.” Jones also has been an actor and dancer, and his performance experience informs his behind-the-scenes work.
“There’s so much music and dance in a show like this. It’s deeply musical. I want to make it a cohesive experience. It’s an all-new production, but I’m bringing in some dance ideas I’ve explored previously.”
According to Quick, “Denis has made this his own. His choreography is story-driven, character-driven. He approaches everything from an actor’s perspective.
“There are so many fun numbers,” Quick teases, “that it’s impossible to have a bad time watching this musical.” One of these “fun numbers” is a secretarial typing speed test that turns into a big office-wide tap dance. “There’s a lot of tap dancing,” Quick continues. “Millie’s very quick with her steps.”
“The ’20s is my favorite time period,” Quick says. “It’s that carefree age.”
“One of the things that is so strong about ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie,'” Jones says, “is that it works within a style.” The show is set in 1922, but wasn’t written then. It began as a stage musical called “Chrysanthemum” in 1956. “Chrysanthemum” was much changed for the 1967 movie, starring Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore, which gave the story its current title. The movie script was extensively reworked for Broadway in 2002, with a new multistyled score by Jeanine Tesori.
Tesori’s well-represented in Connecticut this spring: her musicalization of “Shrek” was just done at Connecticut Repertory Theatre, and the national tour of “Fun Home” is coming to The Bushnell in June.
Denis Jones calls Tesori “a genius. It’s amazing, the different types of shows she’s created.”
THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE — book by Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan, new music by Jeanine Tesori, new lyrics by Dick Scanlan, based on an original story and screenplay by Richard Morris, directed by Denis Jones — is at the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam through July 2. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at both 2 and 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $34 to $85. 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct Denis Jones’s job with Goodspeed’s production of “Holiday Inn” in 2014; and to correct the matinee time on Wednesday and Thursdays.
