playbill vip

Notes from the Director

I seem to wake around 2 o’clock every morning with either a song from Thoroughly Modern Millie or a note that I need to give someone. To tell you that this show has been a labor of love is a minor understatement. I have been in love with the movie for years and was lucky enough to have seen Sutton Foster in the title role on Broadway before I moved back to the south. I was moving away from theatre at the time and drifting more toward television work, which seemed more lucrative. I still remember how I felt after the Act Two number, “I Turned a Corner.” I was completely hooked on musical theatre all over again. Through many twists and turns of fate, and a story I won’t bore you with, I turned a corner and have found myself in the ideal job! Other than my son and daughter, I love Grady High School, AP U.S. History and the idea that I get to create the theatre that I love with amazingly talented students and faculty. The undying support of Jake Dreiling, John Brandhorst, Kevin Hill, and Lisa Willoughby are like nothing I have ever had! It’s like flying WITH a net. 

The director and history teacher in me feels the need to make sure that I speak not only about my vision for this piece, but also its historical significance. First, my vision was one of simplicity. Since this was to be one of two musicals produced for the year, it was decided early on that a show of this scope wouldbe better served as if it were a traveling piece. Therefore, you see that there are minimal sets. I also wanted New York City to be ever present throughout (you will see what I mean when the curtain opens). As a small town Alabama boy that moved to the big city to achieve his dreams, I can relate to Millie. You enter Manhattan with a youthful arrogance and a belief that New Yorkers behave a certain way, but in the end you come to realize that the only difference in New York is that people are people no matter where you travel. So the city either swallows you whole or you join it and become part of that amazing fabric of cultures. I love to see the transformation Millie makes through this script. Wide-eyed and full of dreams, she quickly comes to realize that we don’t get to decide all of our fate, we are simply along for the ride and hopefully it will take us where we want to go. 

Historically, I am in love with the period 1900 to 1950. It is a coming of age for a nation. We go from wide eyed innocence (and sometimes arrogance) to a truly modern age. I am constantly drawn back to a piece of art that I use in my AP U.S. History class by Joseph Stella, entitled “The Bridge.” I love for people to see how he used the Brooklyn Bridge and the city of Manhattan as a giant metaphor. It presents the image of a stained glass church window, but rather than a Christian image, one sees the lure of the city and how the people of the 1920s felt the pull across the major arteries that were springing up across the intersecting rivers. I imagine Millie Dillmount seeing this piece of art after leaving a movie starring “The Vamp” Theda Bara, with a copy of Vogue under her arm. With a determination to leave the flat plains of Kansas for an alluring city, she is about to find our dreams aren’t where we always wind up, but rather reality will place us where we need to be. And much like a little boy in Alabama, dreaming of a life on the stage, sometimes real life dreams are right in front of us, all we have to do is open our eyes and recognize the green glass love that stands before us. For me it is Grady and all that it represents. Talented students, supportive administration and faculty, and everyone’s ability to create art! 

I hope you enjoy the show!

Lee Pope