The jury is now in session

SORCHA AUGUSTINE / COURTESY PHOTOO

Transforming the drama “Twelve Angry Men” into a musical is an audacious idea.

The classic play is grim and intense; how could it become a musical?

“Back in 2012, I was approached by a producer who liked another project of mine,” says lyricist/composer Michael Holland. “He had the rights to ‘Twelve Angry Men.’ He asked if I’d be interested in writing the music and lyrics for it.

“It was such a strange idea; I couldn’t turn it down. I’m always drawn to counter intuitive projects and the challenge of making it work. I signed on right away. I thought: I know I can hear music in this. I don’t who else would write this.”

They then had to find a writer to adapt the original Reginald Rose play.

They found David Simpatico.

“They couldn’t find anyone else, so they got me,” Simpatico jokes.

“When I got the call for this, I said yeah. Why is no one taking this, it’s a no-brainer. As a dramatist, that’s what you want, a life-and-death situation. It was a great honor and a great opportunity to work with material I love so much.”

Simpatico recalls watching the movie every year when it came on TV.

“Twelve Angry Men” started as a seminal drama by Reginald Rose — a contemporary of Rod Serling and eventual Oscar winner Paddy Chayefsky — in 1954, during what is termed the Golden Age of Television. A year later, it was adapted into a stage play, which led to a theatrical film version led by Henry

Fonda and Lee J. Cobb in 1957. Another remake followed — this one returning to the medium that spawned the original. That 1997 television version starred Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott.

In the play, the jurors — the 12 angry men of the title — have to determine the fate of a teen (whose ethnicity is only implied) accused of killing his abusive father. Initially, they all vote to convict, except for one lone juror.

Simpatico and Holland clicked right away.

“David and I were finishing each other’s sentences and had similar ideas in how to approach it,” is how Holland puts it.

They created a draft together, but the project stalled out. The draft sat in a drawer for seven years until Peter Rothstein, founding artistic director at The Theater Latté Da in Minneapolis, took an interest.

“We were always convinced it was going to have a life,” Holland says. “It’s too good of a project, one of those things that just feels right when you’re working on it.”

They secured the rights, but the estate  of Reg Reginald Rose had doubts. The estate proposed a compromise: They allowed Latté Da to have a world premiere, with the proviso that they’d come on opening night to see the show; if they didn’t like what they saw, they could shut it down.

But they liked it. And so did the critics. (The Star Tribune called it a “must-see musical” and Talkin’ Broadway said it is “a serious story given more depth and made more compelling with the infusion of song.”)

David and Michael at Asolo COURTESY PHOTO

The show was so popular, the run sold out and had to be extended.

And now “Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical” is opening at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, where Rothstein is now producing artistic director. It runs through June 9.

Jazzing up the score

“People were curious: how are you going to put music to this classic?” Holland says. “But then word got out: It’s a different night out at the theater. The idea we started talking about was this: What is the music going to be? Every juror can’t stand up and do ‘What I Did for Love,’ a big ballad. And it’s a not a show-tune kind of thing.”

The music that would best capture the period (the late 1950s) and the tone of the story, he decided, would be “a swaggering, jagged kind of jazz.”

“It feels of its time, it feels of the city,” he says, referring to its New York setting. “A late night in a smokey jazz club — it’s got that kind of feeling to it. But the music still has to tell the story.”

SORCHA AUGUSTINE / COURTESY PHOTO

“It has a very masculine aggressive thrust to it,” adds Simpatico. “It’s a different emotional arc that the music gives, depending on what part of the story you’re in. It’s a jazz feeling, a flavor, as opposed to strict jazz, but it definitely has that kind of combative, in-your-face aggressive and beautiful thrust to it. There are songs in it that explode with hope. There are also other songs in it that are aggressive to the point of in-your-face confrontation. It really hits the whole of emotional needs.”

Simpatico remembers referencing the 1959 TV crime drama “Johnny Staccato,” which starred John Cassavetes as a jazz pianist/private eye. Many scenes took place in a jazz club and featured various jazz musicians performing.

“Because we’re dealing with vocals, not just a jazz band,” says Holland, “I looked at groups like the Hi-Lo’s and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. They were doing interesting things with turning the vocal group into an instrumental group, taking a jazz solo and … putting words to it.”

“Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical” has solos, duets, trios and songs where the entire cast sings.

“When someone comes up with a new idea, it sounds like an improvised idea on top of the music,” Holland explains. “We learned this early on, the old idea that songs exist in musicals because the emotion reaches such a high point that the character has no choice but to sing. So, the songs go in and out of dialogue, they’re a hybrid piece in that way. One can’t exist without the other. There’s a solo moment: a person who may have a personal connection to the case. Sometimes you might have an argument between two people, in and out of music, like an actual conversation.”

Their original adaptation was a more conventional format, with indications of where they thought the songs should go.

“It was very much 20 songs in a script,” Holland says. “When Peter Rothstein got a hold of it, and others as well, the cast, we came upon this idea that it needed to be a different animal. It had to be like a runaway train: when you get on it, there’s no stopping it. It makes the stakes higher. You can’t pause for a song; it slows the machine down.”

“We had to figure out how the music bubbled out of the dialogue and the dialogue bubbled out of the music and then back again,” says Simpatico. “It was a combined process of all of us working together: This song can be better told in two lines. Where does it combine, where do the two meet? It was a real process. We took the first draft and it evolved constantly.”

When Holland began working on the musical, he deliberately chose not to watch the film.

“I don’t want to be influenced by the rhythm of the dialogue,” he explains. “I had to keep my ears open to what the project wanted to be. When you’re working on a piece it will tell you where it wants to go. You can’t try to force something. It will always call you out.

“You have to serve the material. It’s different for everybody, but it helps me stay clear to what the music wanted to be.”

Though the project began 12 years ago, the piece has evolved.

“A lot of the musical themes are still there,” Holland says. “The songs changed; they grew up. The baby version of the show is not what we ended up with. It’s a lot sleeker and more efficient and faster.”

“It’s organic,” Simpatico adds. “It really bubbles up. The score opens up, it’s so integrated into the drama of the piece now. That’s the wonderful things about his lyrics and music: it opens up new windows into this classic bit of drama that allow us to connect to life that we’re living in 2024. It reinvigorated the material in ways we don’t expect, so it gives new life to this older work.”

Men will be men

Though the work has been updated and there are now people of color on the jury, they’re still all men.

“We’ve been asked since day one, why there no women in this,” says Holland. “Reginald Rose himself talked about this, in a biography of him we all read. This was in the ’50s and he was addressing toxic masculinity before it was a term thrown around. And the idea of women stuck in a room threatening to belt each other (didn’t appeal).”

Keeping the jurors all male allowed the creative team to explore issues of race and economic status.

“We had many long discussions with the current cast and previous cast about their personal experiences and wove it into the narrative and into the music as well,” Holland says. “We put it into the song. There are lots of ways of keeping this classic piece current without reinventing the wheel or being disrespectful to the source material.

“We see younger generations that say they don’t want to watch something black-and-white or something so old, but if you put something in it, bring something new to it that speaks to them that they can relate to, the message in the material can reach new audiences. The idea is to bring something new to it.”

“What it does, it imbues its relevance to contemporary culture, to the world we live in now,” Simpatico says. “Rethinking half the cast as non-white characters was something we wanted to do from the beginning.”

They also talked with the cast about the issue of fathers and sons.

“It was something all of the men in the room, no matter what race, shared. They’re all sons and some were fathers,” says Holland. “So, we were focusing not only on toxic masculinity but (the issues of fathers and sons) filters all through the story. It’s a way in, with the music, to telling the story that is from the ’50s.”

The storyline highlights the necessity of discussion, despite differing opinions and backgrounds.

“That’s one of the points we try to make,” Simpatico says, “and Michael makes so beautifully: hopefully it’s not too late, that we can work together to effect change. Twelve disparate people talk through their opinions, to come to the workable future. It’s relevant to what we’re living in and going through right now. There’s a lot of fighting, a lot of arguing, passion, misinformation.”

“But there’s also commonality,” Holland says. “Music helps us establish that, and it also allows us, I think, a new way to end on a hopeful note, the idea you can bring hope.

“It sounds bleak on the surface, but the ultimate message is, we can get there.”

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