New musical by 'Urinetown' composer bleats at Steel Beam

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but how about a goat?

That's a question concerning "Wild Goat," a new musical comedy by Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist Mark Hollmann ("Urinetown-The Musical") and critic/playwright Jack Helbig (also a freelance arts contributor to the Daily Herald).

Ever since St. Charles-based Steel Beam Theatre announced "Wild Goat" as part of its 2008-09 season, it was marketing the musical as a world premiere. But now there's some question about that billing.

It turns out that the Chance Theater in Anaheim, Calif., opened its production of the same show on April 17 (it runs through May 24). The only difference is the title: "The Girl, The Grouch and the Goat."

"We were offered by Jack to do the professional world premiere," said Steel Beam artistic director and founder Donna Steele concerning "Wild Goat." "Apparently (the Chance production was) supposed to open after ours, but they had a scheduling conflict and moved it ahead."

According to Helbig, Steel Beam deserves the "professional world premiere" billing since it planned "Wild Goat" long before the Chance Theatre opted to stage its production.

"It's sort of a tempest in a teapot," said Helbig. "We were clear (that the Chance Theater) would have been the West Coast premiere."

But aside from the "who's on first" debate and title semantics, "Wild Goat" has already started to emerge as a family-friendly musical comedy.

"Wild Goat" takes its inspiration from "Dyskolos" ("Grouch") by ancient comic Greek playwright Menander. It concerns the beautiful daughter of a grouchy well owner, and her forbidden romance with the handsome son of a wealthy widow (who happens to despise the girl's father). Complications ensue since there's a horrible drought, a goat must be sacrificed and most of the cast ends up falling down the well.

"Wild Goat's" musical comedy gestation has been a long one - lasting more than 20 years. Hollmann and Helbig originally met in the mid 1980s as actors in Chicago's improv theater scene. It was through their work as part of the Theatre Building Chicago's New Tuners music theater workshops (now known as STAGES) that the show (then known as "Complaining Well") started to take shape.

"Jack thought of 'Dyskolos' as a thing to adapt, so I liked that idea and the simple love story," Hollmann said. "And staging people falling down a well could be fun."

A series of Chicago readings in the late 1980s led to a reading of "Complaining Well" for a 1991 festival of new musicals in New York City. Both Hollmann and Helbig hoped that some producer might be interested in picking up the show, but no one bit.

"Having no production as a result of this New York City reading led us to shelve it in favor of other things that we were working on individually," Hollmann said.

By 1993, Hollmann had moved to New York, while Helbig stayed in Chicago.

Although the two kept in touch, they didn't discuss resuscitating the show until the summer of 2001. By then, Hollmann (along with playwright Greg Kotis) was about to ride a wave of success with "Urinetown," which was headed to Broadway.

Helbig got permission to totally reconceive "Complaining Well," while Hollmann offered to write a new score for the show if he liked the new treatment.

"It was delightful to go through the script and put big Xs through the scenes that were awful," Helbig said. "There was a real sense of liberation to cutting away anything that I did not like."

Hollmann, too, found the process of starting anew on the show to be insightful.

"When I was writing the show in the late 1980s, I think I was really trying to ape (composer/lyricist) Stephen Sondheim - and not very well at all," said Hollmann. "The score now feels more like myself than it did back then when I was trying to learn by imitation."

Only one song was retained from the old version ("Drip, Drip"), while Helbig reconceived the show with a Paul Sills' "Story Theater" approach involving two narrators who argue about what transpired.

Thanks to e-mail, Helbig and Hollmann were able to work on the show in separate cities before a number of workshops that helped hone the material. Both are happy that the show has been brought back to life.

"The fact that it's just getting actual production now is great progress to me," Hollmann said.

So what about the name of the show? Apparently Hollmann is leaning toward "The Girl, The Grouch, and the Goat," but that doesn't mean Steel Beam will be changing its "Wild Goat" premiere moniker.

"Professional world premiere is what I've been told by Jack to bill it as and that is what we are going with - and also by Mark Hollmann's agent," Steele said. "But it really doesn't make that much of a difference."

<p class="factboxheadblack">'Wild Goat'</p> <p class="News"><b>Where:</b> Steel Beam Theatre, 111 W. Main St., St. Charles</p> <p class="News"><b>Times:</b> 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays; through June 28</p> <p class="News"><b>Tickets:</b> $25; $23 seniors/students</p> <p class="News"><b>Info:</b> (630) 587-8521 or <a href="http://www.SteelBeamTheatre.com" target="new">SteelBeamTheatre.com</a></p>