HOW IT ALL INTERSECTS: An Interview with the Creative Team

Bhangin’ It’s writers (Mike Lew, Rehana Lew Mirza and Sam Willmott) and director (Stafford Arima) sit down for a conversation with Director of Artistic Development Gabriel Greene.

GG: Like any self-respecting superhero, musicals also have origin stories. What is it for Bhangin’ It?

RLM: In my youth, I got really obsessed with intercollegiate bhangra competitions: the team dynamics, what was on stage, what was going on behind the stage... 

GG: So this was when you were an undergraduate? 

RLM: No, it was shortly after I graduated. I used to trade students writing classes for admission to bhangra competitions, and sometimes housing. 

SW: Nothing weird about that! 

ML: “Hi, I didn’t go here, but who wants to learn how to write?” 

RLM: Hey! [laughter] So then I wrote a screenplay about it, which Mike read when we met at the Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab. Then we got married, and then we met Sam when we were randomly paired together with him as a writing team at a 24-Hour Musicals event. We were tasked with writing a 15-minute show between the hours of 11pm and 5am. We got along so well that we said we needed to work together on something for more than 24 hours. We threw around a lot of ideas but then we sent him the screenplay of Bhangin’ It. 

GG: What drew you to each other as collaborators?

SW: It’s a gift to be with people who have such joie de vivre and a sense of humor. I had such an urge to do a musical comedy, but in a way that felt like a real celebration of the art form and community. The way [Mike and Rehana] write, the way they communicate with each other, the way they make each other laugh – it’s the kind of place you want to be. You want to be able to make each other laugh.

ML: [to Sam] You also talked about how nowadays, choreography is often something that’s tacked on when the script of a musical is already done. And you love classic musicals because of how dance is really woven into their DNA. So marrying that idea to our existing love of bhangra was a big part of it. All three of us have very strong, character-driven storytelling impulses, but I also think there was a real cultural exchange going on: “you teach us about musical theater and we’ll teach you about insider Asian-American politics.” [laughter]

RLM: I think we really bonded over structure – that’s such a nerd thing to say – but I remember riding home at 6am [after the 24-Hour Musical project] and saying, “Sam really knows his structure.” [laughter] 

GG: What drew you to the character of Mary as the focus for this piece? Why is she the perfect protagonist for this story?

RLM: One of my missions as a writer is to depict the mixed-race experience more. For a field that’s very imaginative, theatre is very limited in its depiction of what a mixed-race character’s background or hybridity can be. How do we highlight one of the fastest-growing demographics in the United States? That was something that I think was really great about our collaboration. Because of our discussions, the character of Mary got expanded even further in terms of what hybridity really means. Like, how do these moments – of trying to interact with different facets of yourself, and choosing what you present and don’t present to the world, and choosing who you build a community with – how does that all intersect? And suddenly that became the story we built the show around.

SW: To add to that, I do think the significance of musicalizing this particular story caught up to me later in the process. I've always believed that every human being in the world has the capacity for musical theatre “big-ness” in them, but that can mean one thing on a page and very different, complex things in practice. It was truly during our earlier developmental readings, when we finally got to see this story elevated and joyously celebrated through music and dance by this company of actors, where it hit me in a different way – like, “oh, wait a second, making this story a musical is its own political act; this is a bigger deal than I knew about.” In light of that, it's been both the greatest challenge and the most rewarding facet of this journey to continually reconnect with my teammates and recalibrate the show to reflect our own evolving feelings of authorial obligation to our company and our audience.

GG: Coming into this show with a vast knowledge of “classic” musical theatre history and structure, what was your process of merging that dramaturgy with the highly-specific cultural styles that are reflected in the show?

SW: It always comes back to story and character and tone, and what we’re hoping to accomplish. If Mike, Rehana and I are really in sync about what those objectives are, then the dreaming can really start. After that I do a ton of listening – and not just to South Asian music, and certainly not just to musical theatre styles. I want to know what my characters need from the moment they're in, and also what they listen to and how music exists in their own worlds and informs and reflects who they are. I have a "Sonic Vision Board" – which is essentially a glorified spreadsheet – where I keep track of everything that's pinged me as remotely relevent to the world of Bhangin' It. After I do a draft (or ten) of a given song in concert with Rehana and Mike for story, character and structure, I'll mock up an arrangement of the tune and pass that along to the brilliant Deep Singh. Then, Deep and I engage in a second stage of musical collaboration where he infuses the tunes with his own vast knowledge base of culture and tradition and artistry and sense of humor.

RLM: We call Deep “the heartbeat of Bhangin’ It.” He’s known for his percussion work and his instrumental prowess.

Alka Nayyar (left) and Ari Afsar rehearsing Bhangin’ It: A Bangin’ New Musical; photo by Shoshana/bwaySHO.

GG: Stafford, what drew you to this project as a collaborator and a director?

SA: Theatre is a living language not frightened of its individual voice and its potential to make a difference in the lives of an audience. The capacity of a musical to enrich an audience’s spirit and transcend the ordinary theatre-going experience is quite alien to those who are content to see the musical merely as a form of entertainment. Bhangin’ It is one of those rare finds: a musical that scrumptiously entertains, with a story that enlightens and a huge heart that engages. The hybridity of the piece was like a tsunami wave that flew off the page and the demo tracks. Like my colleagues, I am deeply fascinated by the multi-disciplined worlds that come together in musical theatre. Musicals, in general, are a tough art form to crack open in their simplest form, but Bhangin’ It adds to the challenge in other ways: you have the cultural elements, the political elements, the musical elements that range from musical theatre to classical Indian, and you also have an array of dance styles. 

When you think of all of those ingredients, the challenge is how to make a seven-layered cake that is perfectly balanced. And that is what excited me about this material. The challenge to collaborate and find the perfect bite. What I love most about this show is it’s truly a love letter to an “old-fashioned musical-comedy.” However, it’s also a contemporary, relevant, thought-provoking piece; it holds a magnifying glass up to the world and asks important questions – without forcing an answer – about culture, appropriation, tradition and belonging.

GG: This show was originally programmed in the 20/21 Season That Wasn’t – 

RLM: [sad trombone noise]

GG: – but you’ve mentioned this show has been coalescing over many years. In light of everything this world has gone through, both epidemiologically and racially, how did that additional time help shape this musical?

ML: The thesis of the show continues to be refined, and so we’ve been really fortunate to keep chipping away at the script so that it says exactly what we want it to say. And I think that the pause has allowed us to think through a process that feels inclusive and equitable to the artists, and to bring on collaborators that will augment the vision. It’s actually been a real blessing to have forced time away to think through what this piece is trying to say, and who are the best people to have in the room to say it?

SW: Our initial impulse – to make this big musical comedy – was sometimes out of sync with the reality of what this particular piece is. For us, the previous presidency changed a lot of the significance of doing this show in the first place. But we also swung the show pretty hard in that direction – what was serious about this show. 

RLM: I think we swung to the serious partly because it was hard to get people to listen to the nuanced argument, so we felt like we had to stress that a little more. Then, during the pause, it felt like the conversations that the world was having were catching up to the conversations that the three of us were having. And those were necessary and hard conversations to have, but in order to move forward on this project from a place of trust and joy, we needed to acknowledge that we are different in our points of view and life experiences. None of us is exactly right or wrong, it’s just a matter of what we have to work through to tell the story we want to tell.

SW: In many ways, the last two years have brought us back to the miracle of doing a show that celebrates joy, too. I’m really glad we got serious because it helped us mine what we think the show is about, but it’s also celebratory and hopeful and all about community and building something together. In some ways, the grief and trauma of the last two years in particular have only elevated our joint desire to make this a show where people can come together and feel buoyant and walk out feeling a new enthusiasm for the world we’re lucky to have. 

Behind the scenes with the production department as they prepare for Bhangin’ It: A Bangin’ New Musical.