INTERVIEW: Dorothy Parker’s witticisms on full display in Douglas Carter Beane’s new show
Tony Award nominee Douglas Carter Beane has been telling funny stories his entire life, and some of his own wittiness comes from the influence of the great Dorothy Parker. She wrote poetry and criticism in the first half of the 20th century, and those words still live on today, impacting audiences and writers alike.
Beane has compiled her words into a new show called Finding Dorothy Parker, which will have its world premiere, Sept. 2-4, at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in New York City. Helping bring his vision to life are four actors of great renown: Julie Halston, Ann Harada, Jackie Hoffman and Anika Larsen.
“I found her, and I went, ‘What the heck, who is this broad?'” Beane said in a recent phone interview. “I’m in love, so I’ve been collecting and buying and finding every book I can find.”
Collecting Parker’s many writings has been a hobby and life’s journey for Beane, who is known for Lysistrata Jones, Sister Act, Xanadu, The Little Dog Laughed and Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, among other shows.
“And then during COVID, I started getting it out and reading through it and saying, ‘Hey, this lady is fascinating,'” he said. “She really was politically interesting as well as being astute and funny, so I went to get the rights to put together an evening. I didn’t know what the show was going to be yet and found out that she had left her estate to Martin Luther King, and upon his death, it would go to the NAACP. So suddenly I’m finding myself with the NAACP to create this gorgeous show.”
Beane described Finding Dorothy Parker as very theatrical, but also like a concert experience. The show is essentially a collection of her greatest hits, including theater reviews, literary reviews, hysterically funny poems, and soliloquies for “society women, struggling women and women that are stuck at dances with bad partners.” The writer said there’s a definite Lily Tomlin vibe to her writing.
“They’re brilliant, and then I have devised a way of guiding through her life and work,” Beane said. “And it’s a very exciting show. I’ve always wanted to put her material in the mouths of the funniest ladies on Broadway, and I’ve got four of them. So I’m good to go. I’m very excited.”
Beane sees this tragically short run at the Beechman as a trial to gauge interest. In the crowd will be some industry professionals who can help the show jump to the next step. For his part, Beane sees this becoming an economic show with a rotating cast, similar to The Vagina Monologues or Love, Loss and What I Wore.
“They will be on script, but we’ve been rehearsing this and developing it for a couple years now,” he said. “So they’re really well-directed and well-versed in it. It has all the good vibes of a fun poetry reading but with some songs in it that she wrote and some fun staging, and the score is by a guy named Alistair Wroe, who is a London rave composer. He does lots of dance stuff.”
Beane gave Wroe a bunch of ’20s music, and it has been reconfigured and mashed up for Finding Dorothy Parker.
“I think I called it Finding Dorothy Parker because for every two people who love Dorothy Parker and are enamored of her, there’s one person who is like, ‘I have no idea who that is,'” he said. “She was funny and anti-fascist, and we could use a funny anti-fascist person these days, anyway in my opinion. This work of Dorothy has influenced me so much that I’m directing my first movie next summer, and one of the characters is very much based on the ghost of Dorothy Parker haunting this community theater and trying to put on one of her old plays.
Beane added: “You bring her up and think, what would she say now. I’m not alone in this world of praising Dorothy Parker. Everyone from Fran Lebowitz to Frank Rich, they all sing her praises to the high heavens.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Finding Dorothy Parker by Douglas Carter Beane will play Sept. 2-4 at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
