At Work With a Devil and a Theater Deity

The Theatre Royal Drury Lane is the crown jewel of this city’s West End theater district, an impressively ornate auditorium that boasts a distinguished, centuries-old history. Original productions of many of the musical theater’s most beloved classics have played here: “Oklahoma!,” “The King and I,” “42nd Street,” “Sweeney Todd,” “A Chorus Line.”

Backstage in the empty theater on a Sunday morning, Eric Schaeffer is taken by a different kind of magnificence. He’s admiring a wall-high hunk of scenery on wheels, bright cherry red--red wallpaper, red velour plush and an infinite number of red sequins. It’s the home of Darryl Van Horne, the engaging devil who’s a lead character in the new musical “The Witches of Eastwick,” which Schaeffer is directing.

“Isn’t it amazing?” marvels Schaeffer. “It’s kind of a cross between Liberace and Hugh Hefner. I love it!”

Over the past decade, Schaeffer turned a tiny suburban company he co-founded with a friend and $500 into a nationally recognized showcase for the musicals of Stephen Sondheim--and an incubator for new works. He staged the Sondheim revue “Putting It Together,” starring Carol Burnett, for Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum and Broadway. Now, with “Witches,” he is cementing his relationship with the man who, next to God, is the most important figure in contemporary musicals: Cameron Mackintosh, the producer behind “Cats,” “Les Miserables,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Miss Saigon.”

“If [“Witches”] is a big success, people will realize on a large scale what some people have already realized,” Mackintosh says, “that Eric Schaeffer is one of the most original and talented directors working--not only in America, but anywhere.”

How Schaeffer, 37, progressed from a suburban Washington theater seating fewer than 150 people to the most expensive production of Mackintosh’s career (nearly $7 million) is the kind of success story Broadway tunesmiths used to write musicals about: A blond, boyish and charming young man from nowhere (Fleetwood, Pa., actually) works hard and wins friends in high places; one of those friends gives him a big break, and on opening night . . . well, we won’t know how this one will end until “Witches,” now in previews, opens July 18.

But we do know how it begins. Back in 1989, Schaeffer mounted a community-theater production of Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George.” Needing clarification on a few points, he wrote to Sondheim, who was impressed enough by Schaeffer’s ideas to write back. Since then, Schaeffer founded Signature Theatre in Arlington, Va., and directed inventive, well-received productions of Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd,” “Assassins” and “Into the Woods,” among others. Some critics declared Signature’s “Passion” superior to Broadway’s.

Nearly 10 years ago, Sondheim told Mackintosh about the brilliant young director. Soon afterward, Mackintosh received a letter from Schaeffer inviting him to serve as one of Signature’s honorary patrons. The producer agreed, then promptly forgot about Schaeffer.

In 1997, Mackintosh financed a London production of “The Fix,” a satiric political musical by two young Americans. It was a critical and commercial flop, but Mackintosh believed in its potential. Then he remembered Sondheim’s young friend.

“He called me and said, ‘I want you to come over here and look at this show,’ ” Schaeffer says. “So I came and I loved it! I could see what was there. . . . I said, ‘This is how I would have done it, da-da-da-da-da.’ ”

Signature’s radical reworking of “The Fix” opened in 1998, and Mackintosh was thrilled with Schaeffer’s version. They then collaborated on “Putting It Together.” While doing so, Mackintosh played five songs from “Witches” for Schaeffer.

“I loved them!” says Schaeffer. “Not only were the musical tunes great, but the lyrics were so smart and witty, and so intelligent.”

After much celebratory alcohol to celebrate “Putting It Together’s” successful opening, Mackintosh asked Schaeffer to direct the new musical. “I thought he was kidding,” Schaeffer says. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh God, we’re all drunk. No one’s gonna remember this moment.’ ”