BACKSTAGE : Grandson’s Musical Play Inspire by Newsletters : Jonathan Gillard Daly’s work reflects on relationships and wartime fears.

When Martin Daly began publishing his makeshift family newsletter in 1943, he never dreamed The Daly News would one day inspire his grandson to write the stage musical that made its world premiere last week at Santa Maria’s PCPA Theaterfest.

The elder Daly’s goals were far more modest. The proud patriarch of a close-knit Milwaukee family torn apart by World War II, he hit on the idea of a newsletter to keep his children in touch with one another as their various military postings scattered them throughout the globe.

Each week, Daly would collect the letters he had received from his five children and publish them in a limited edition assembled on a typewriter in his basement (desktop computers and copy machines were two generations away).

The Daly News remained in circulation for 4 1/2 years, until the family reunited at the close of the war. Miraculously, all the sons survived, but the newsletters chronicle the family’s growing fear and uncertainty as the fighting dragged on.

“They start off on such a positive note because that’s what you were supposed to do--put a brave face on things,” observed Daly’s grandson, actor Jonathan Gillard Daly, a PCPA artist-in-residence who wrote the musical and stars as his grandfather.

“But as the months go by and familiar names start showing up in the mounting casualties, it gets harder and harder to keep their spirits up.”

When his mother first showed him the collected newsletters--more than 3,000 pages worth--Jonathan Daly was struck by the possibilities for a dramatic treatment.

He also had doubts about the project. After all, what was there in one family’s wartime correspondence that was worth turning into a play, much less a musical?

“For a long time,” he admitted, “I’d think, ‘Gee, this is my family and it’s interesting to me, but will it be interesting to other people?’ ”

But some of Daly’s initial sketches received enthusiastic encouragement from PCPA Conservatory Director Paul Barnes, who directed the current production. Barnes said he felt the letters had a universal appeal in that they reflect the story of a whole country.

Daly continued to rework The Daly News through PCPA’s Terra Incognita program for the development of original theatrical works. He added songs in collaboration with composers Gregg Coffin and Larry Delinger that span a wide range of the era’s musical styles--from the early Nat King Cole Trio to big band numbers to the Andrews Sisters.

The musical accompaniment involves all the actors in the show doubling as something like a ‘40s combo, with Martin the grandfather conducting.

Yet in shaping the material into a two-hour musical, Daly came to recognize that the journals were more than just a scrapbook about the war years and how everybody pulled together in a spirit of shared sacrifice.

Reading through the correspondence, he kept searching for a crack in the facade. “It seemed too good to be true--all the bonhomie and the jokes. There was something eating away at it somewhere, something that wasn’t being said.”

Daly also appears in the play as his present-day self, reflecting on the chain of distance between fathers and sons across generations. “I hope people will see this and be inspired to connect with their families in a way that they haven’t been able to,” he said, “or at least think about it.”

Details

* WHAT: “The Daly News”

* WHEN: Tonight through Dec. 19, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m., matinees at 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

* WHERE: Allan Hancock College Severson Theatre, 800 S. College Drive, Santa Maria.

* COST: $11-$17.

* FYI: For reservations or further information, call (800) 549-PCPA