Still swinging: Director revives his hit 'Hot Mikado' at Drury Lane

Director and choreographer David Bell first got the idea for a swing music version of "Hot Mikado" - currently in previews at Drury Lane Oakbrook - back in the mid-1980s.

At the time, he was the newly installed artistic director at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., looking around for something interesting to produce at his theater.

As a music theater historian, Bell was fascinated by the fact that at one time there were two swing versions of "The Mikado," Gilbert and Sullivan's famous comic operetta about a young musician named Nanki-Poo, in love with the comely Yum-Yum, who is unhappily betrothed to a former tailor recently appointed Lord High Executioner.

One version, "Swing Mikado," started in Chicago in 1938 before wending its way to Broadway. The other, "The Hot Mikado," created by producer Michael Todd, opened on Broadway across the street from "Swing Mikado."

"I was fascinated by the idea of 'Hot Mikado' and announced it as part of the season at Ford's Theatre," Bell says. "And then I found out there is no documentation of the material."

No script. Virtually no score. "We had the arrangements of two songs," he says, "but not enough to do a whole show."

Faced with a hole in the season, Bell did what any self-respecting theater person would do: He scrambled. Working with composer Rob Bowman, he quickly cobbled together his own swing version of "The Mikado," using jazz, blues and gospel songs from the era. Bell wrote the book and new lyrics; Bowman handled the orchestrations and arrangements.

The out-of-left-field show hit big. "Hot Mikado" was, in Bell's words, "a giant hit" for Ford's Theatre.

As it also happened, Kary M. Walker, executive producer at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, caught the show at Ford's and decided he wanted to do it at Marriott.

Bell credits that 1993 production with opening his eyes to the possibilities of the material. In the years since that production, "Hot Mikado" has been done around the world - including in London and Prague - and returned to Marriott in 2003.

Now, the show is being revived at Drury Lane Oakbrook and Bell is directing and choreographing.

What is it like to direct a show he created almost 25 years ago? "It has been wonderful," Bell says. "It has rejuvenated me; it allows me to feel younger and also much older. It is a wonderful time machine. It is a show I couldn't write now. I was a lot more energetic 25 years ago."

• "Hot Mikado" runs through Oct. 3 at Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace. For reservations, call the Drury Lane Theatre box office at (630) 530-0111, call Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000 or visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com.