Whether or not Scott Ellis wins a Tony Award on June 7, when Broadway’s trophies are handed out in a live CBS telecast, he has the honor of being among the busiest directors on Broadway. The one-time actor has been nominated for a Tony Award for his direction of the revival of “You Can’t Take It With You,” but might just have easily been nominated for two more revivals this season: “The Elephant Man,” starring Bradley Cooper, and “On the Twentieth Century,” with Kristin Chenoweth. All three productions are competing for the Best Revival Tony in their respective genre and there have been nods as well to several of its cast members: Chenoweth and Andy Karl (“On the Twentieth Century”), Cooper, Patricia Clarkson and Alessandro Nivola (“The Elephant Man”), and Annaleigh Ashford (“You Can’t Take It With You”). No wonder that a call from Ellis to an actor — star or journeyman — can elicit a quick yes.“There was a lot of trust between Scott Ellis and myself and that trust gave me freedom to explore,” said Cooper recently, who’d worked with Ellis before in a 2008 production of “The Understudy” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. “He was as committed as I was to doing justice to the play.”Audiences flocked to see Cooper in the revival of Bernard Pomerance’s 1980 Tony-winning production of “The Elephant Man,” about the legendary John Merrick, the severely misshapen young man discovered in a London freak show. And those who missed the limited run on Broadway will have another chance at it should they be in London this summer. The original cast will be in residence for twelve weeks at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from May 19 to August 8.Ellis’s revival of “On the Twentieth Century” is currently drawing full houses to the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre. The musical farce — about a battle royal between a failed director on the comeback trail and the woman he molded into a glamorous movie star — had a respectable run when it was originally produced in 1978. But the show, composed by Cy Coleman and written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lost the Best Musical Tony that year to “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and was never considered in the top tier — until now.While “You Can’t Take It With You” was a commercial failure, the revival of the 1930s comedy by George Kaufman and Moss Hart received some of the best reviews of this season. That was something of a surprise given that the show — about a young woman introducing her straight-laced fiancé to her goofy family — was considered an old warhorse. Few people anticipated Ellis could breathe new life into it, but he did so with a terrific ensemble led by James Earl Jones.Scott Ellis recently spoke with ARTINFO about the challenge of seeing anew such disparate shows, and why the chief job of a director is “casting, casting, casting.”What was the gist of the initial discussions that you had with Cooper about “The Elephant Man”? That this was a real human being. This was a real person, with real feelings, real challenges, and Bradley just wanted to be a truthful to that person and to that human being. From the beginning, he wanted to convey the truth of this man and not make it a “star turn.” For him, it was always about that truth.Is it too simplistic to say that fame on a level that a Bradley Cooper enjoys is freakish? Probably a little bit. The truth is, when this play was done, there were no stars doing it. I see that side [of fame], what happens to people when they become famous, and it must an odd world to live in. You’re treated differently. You can’t walk down the street with Bradley without someone stopping him. I guess, in a weird way, yes it must be a little freakish. And how does one keep their sanity and the truthfulness of whom they are? And certainly Bradley does it beautifully. I’ve known him for years before he was a big movie star and he has not changed. He’s still the same person. He’s always been a smart guy and really terrific actor and he constantly surprises people.“You Can’t Take It with You” is so well-worn, every community theater in the country has done it, that it must’ve been a challenge to bring something new to it?It was all about the cast. Cast. Cast. Cast. I must give a lot of credit to [casting director] Jim Carnahan. I freaked out several times and he calmed me down. “Let’s just do one piece of the puzzle at a time.” What else did you freak out about? Whether to have one intermission or two. We went back and forth until we finally embraced what was written, two intermissions.Even when our attention spans appear to be getting shorter? It’s a cliché but we had to make sure that the show was being told so that the audience had a reason to come back. There’s a beautiful build to the writing of the play. It’s just brilliant structure.When you cast someone like James Earl Jones, what is it that you start with? We had a lot of discussion about that. He’d never done a comedy before and it was interesting to explore that with a great actor. He doesn’t like sentimentality and that was great. He also sinks into a role; he didn’t rush it. Annaleigh Ashford gives a brilliant and anarchic comedic performance. How did you help her shape that? Her way of working is just to throw everything on stage. I love that but then let’s pull back and shape it. There’s nothing on that stage that isn’t carefully thought out. It looks free but it’s not at all free.Do you demand rigor? No, just the opposite. Go. Fail. Fall. At the beginning it’s important to give the actors that freedom. As a director, that can be scary. Because you think, that’s not the way it’s going to go. And yet you have to allow an actor to explore the part and then they trust you when you start shaping. “Let’s pull back.”Was that true of Kristin Chenoweth in “On the Twentieth Century” as well? Yes. Kristin’s a comic genius and she was born to play the part of Lily Garland — not only can she sing the hell out of that score, she’s funny and she understands that character. Again, there’s nothing on that stage that isn’t fully thought out and explored again and again. Who are your mentors?People whose work I’ve seen and loved. Hal Prince. [Elia] Zazan because of his history. And funny enough, [George] Kaufman and [Moss] Hart because of what they did on “You Can’t Take It With You. But for my time? Definitely Prince. The breadth of what he did is pretty remarkable.Has he seen “On the Twentieth Century” since he originally directed it? No. But then he never sees shows that he’s directed when someone else revives them. It’s just a thing with him. But he’s been incredibly supportive since I started out with “And the World Goes Round” [the 1991 off-Broadway musical].And now your next Broadway project is a revival of the 1963 musical “She Loves Me.”It was the first Broadway musical I ever did. Worked on it with Rob Marshall.And why do it again? Well I had no intention of doing it. Then I did a benefit reading with Josh Radnor and I fell in love with it all over again.Casting, casting, casting? Yes, Josh will be in it again, and Laura Benanti will play Amalia, Gavin Creel as Kodaly.Another show originally directed by Hal Prince. Yeah. Well, as I said, the breadth of his career.It’s widely considered by many critics as the greatest musical and yet it’s never caught on with audiences. I never think about that. But I do agree that it’s close to a perfect piece. It’s romantic and beautiful. There’s so much setting up in the first act and then whoosh! It just goes in the second act, great number after great number.What makes it less than perfect? The title. It’s so generic. “She Loves Me.” What does that mean?Well, what about “The Sound of Music”? You have a point.
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