Broadway writers Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor are bringing their new musical “BRUCE” to Northern Kentucky University, workshopping the show with students and faculty as part of its first steps toward a potential Broadway production.
“It’s really exciting, because this kind of thing is normally done in New York City,” Oberacker said. “In some ways, over these two weeks, we’re giving [students] a major education in voice…they’re hearing things and ways of understanding things that they probably wouldn’t hear until their senior year.”
Oberacker and Taylor wrote a Broadway musical, “Bandstand,” released in 2017, which went on to win a Tony Award for Best Choreography. Together, the two also wrote the book and lyrics for “BRUCE,” originally releasing the musical in 2022. However, due to multiple production issues, they decided to take a few years to rewrite the play.
Oberacker, having taught masterclasses at NKU in the past, worked with faculty in bringing the newly revised “BRUCE” to NKU’s stage for its first workshop with a cast. During the workshop stage of a play, the creators watch how the production moves without building a full-fledged set.
It’s the bare bones of production, to see what works and what doesn’t work in terms of script and score. Since the play is a work in progress, it changes in real time, where dialogue and moves can be altered. The students are working with the Producing Artistic Director from The REV Theatre Company in New York, Brett Smock.
“One of the wonderful things about the way Brett is working with the students, and that we’ve also been working with the students, is we told them right from the outset, we’re going to relate to you as if you were all professionals in the industry in New York,” Taylor said.
Musical Theatre student Mabrey Rice is one of two assistant directors. She helps the director with tracking props and the movements of the actors.
“The students can kind of feel like they have a piece of themselves within the work,” Rice said. “Because maybe they said this line, or they interpreted it a different way than the writers had ever seen before, but because of their work and their choices and their commitment, they were also able to impact the writers back.”
“BRUCE” follows the story of a young Steven Spielberg making the movie “Jaws.” Released in 1975, the film is based on the New York Times best-selling novel of the same name by Peter Benchley. “BRUCE” is the passionate journey of how Spielberg, without much film experience, makes a movie about a great white shark, with no real shark.
“This show is really about how a 26-year-old kid was entrusted with this mammoth project and how he nearly failed because everything went wrong,” Oberacker said. “The movie ended up being a masterpiece because Steven and his team figured out how to make art out of nothing.”
Bruce, the name of the mechanical shark used on set, becomes a villain to the director, as the production meets issue after issue. Surrounded by tripods and cameras, equipped with a megaphone, BFA Musical Theatre student Samuel Feola plays Spielberg in the workshop.
“It’s been a lot of work,” Feola said. “There’s nothing that I like more than this: working…It’s been incredible to just to really dive deep into the material of the workshop with the people that made it. It’s not like any musical I’ve ever done.”
On Thursday, Feb. 5, NKU faculty and cast are opening the doors to Corbett Theatre at 7 p.m. Anyone from the NKU student body is welcome to get a first look at the making of “BRUCE.”