One-Note Actors Need Not Apply

In an era of specialization, theater remains a bastion of the accomplished generalist. The once-distinct line between drama and musicals has blurred, and “triple threat” performers--those who can sing and dance as well as act--segue smoothly between the two.

But there are times when even triple threats won’t suffice. Certain shows just might require quadruple threats and then some.

A case in point: “The People vs. Mona,” an original musical having its world premiere tonight at the Pasadena Playhouse. Aside from acting, singing and dancing, the cast of seven must also function as a Lyle Lovett-styled country-blues band, expertly accompanying themselves on various instruments, from keyboards to drums to acoustic guitar. It’s a daunting challenge, a balancing act that calls for a lot of versatility on the part of performer and creator alike.

“Musicians’ theater” is nothing new to Jim Wann, the composer and lyricist of “Mona.” In fact, he pioneered it. He was the chief writer of “Pump Boys and Dinettes,” a freewheeling romp that also calls upon its actors to pinch-hit as musicians. It ran on Broadway for almost two years in the early ‘80s and has been produced prolifically since.

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On a recent rainy Sunday at the Pasadena Playhouse, Wann pauses in his busy rehearsal schedule to discuss the evolution of musicians’ theater--or, as he alternately refers to it, guitar theater. A tall, courtly Southerner in an elegant suit, Wann looks more as if he’s hobnobbing at a country-club mixer than working the kinks out of a new musical. It’s hard to associate him with the bluesy riffs filtering through the closed stage doors into the dimly lit lobby. But don’t be fooled. Even though he’s not performing this time around, Wann is an accomplished musician-performer who has starred in many of his own shows.

“Pump Boys” and “Mona” may require their casts to multi-task, in the modern vernacular, but they are otherwise quite different. “ ‘Pump Boys’ had only a slender thread of a plot,” Wann says in a Southern drawl so smooth it’s spreadable. “It mostly concerned the fantasy lives of these gas station guys and waitresses, and how that figured into their ordinary work lives. By contrast, ‘Mona’ is a mystery story, a full-blown whodunit in the context of a trial. Is Mona the murderer, or did someone else do it? The setting is a kind of stylized Southern contemporary courtroom. As the parade of witnesses comes on, each has a specific scene and a musical number, and you wonder if any of them could have been involved in the crime. But centrally, it’s a love story and it all dovetails in the last scene.”

Joining Wann in the discussion is his wife and collaborator, Patricia Miller, who wrote the book for “Mona” with Wann and Ernest Chambers. Miller, who retains the mellifluous accent of her native Georgia, is an actress-turned-producer who met Wann when he wandered into her New York theater six years ago to book a concert.

“It’s so hard to find a venue in New York these days,” bemoans Miller. “With these long-running shows that find their niche and just run and run, there aren’t enough theaters. People have started creating these alternative spaces, but it’s just so much more expensive to produce off-Broadway now.”

Financial pressures weren’t as much a factor with Wann’s first show, “Diamond Studs: The Life of Jesse James,” an early musicians’ theater piece starring Wann in the title role. After developing the show in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tenn., Wann then trucked his relatively large cast of about 20 to New York. Hailed by critics, “Diamond Studs” became an off-Broadway hit in the mid-’70s.

“The economics of putting on a show 20-odd years ago were totally different,” Wann says. “Back then, people were getting paid about $75 or thereabouts. Now, it’s difficult to open a show with more than seven or eight people in the cast.”

That’s why prestigious regional entities like the Pasadena Playhouse are a boon to new productions. And that’s also why compactly packaged shows like “Mona,” with its all-inclusive cast of seven, are so attractive to budget-minded theaters, ever conscious of the tightening bottom line.

Co-librettist Chambers, a veteran producer who owns the commercial production rights to the show with his partner Lisa Patterson, hopes that Pasadena will be a springboard to an off-Broadway run--and beyond.

“There was a recent article in the New York Times about new forms of the musical,” Chambers says. “What’s unique about ‘Mona’ is its new form of storytelling. I think the problem with most musicals is that part of the time you feel you’re watching something real, and part of the time people sing. Jim’s a great songwriter and he has his own signature, a sophisticated blend of country and folk. Yet how do you get from song to song and keep the story going? That was the challenge Jim and Patricia and I talked about constantly.”

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Veteran television and theater director Paul Lazarus, who is helming the premiere of “Mona,” committed to the project after attending a reading in Stockbridge, Mass., then directed a workshop of the play at the Coronet Theatre in December. Lazarus has a special connection to the Pasadena Playhouse: He was its artistic director in the early ‘90s.

“What I love about Jim’s style,” Lazarus enthuses, “is that he’s developed this stylized medium where people tell stories with instruments in their hands, where the music is also part of the storytelling.

“Not to sound pretentious, but it’s my ambition with this show to define character with instruments. I don’t want to betray any surprises, but we’re doing some pretty bold things. People just don’t pick up their instruments to perform a song. Music is used in ways that I hope haven’t been seen before. I’ll leave it at that.”

Four members of the workshop cast carry over into the Pasadena production, but Lazarus had a tough job finding the right person to play the demanding role of the narrator-lead.

Lazarus ultimately cast Scott Waara, a friend he had worked with several times before. But chance played a large role in the process. “At first, I didn’t even know Scott played the guitar,” Lazarus recalls. “He wasn’t even on my list. Then I was interviewing for an assistant, who said, ‘What about Scott Waara?’ And I said, ‘What about him?’ And she said, ‘Didn’t you know he plays guitar brilliantly?’ That was the day before the final callback auditions. Serendipity like that just blows me away.”

Serendipity has been a hallmark of musicians’ theater from the outset. “It developed by accident, in a way,” Wann says. “I heard a sermon in church today about putting new wine in old wineskins, and how you have to have new wineskins for your new wine. That’s really how it got started. It was my effort to accommodate a new kind of sound in American theater, to accommodate the music of groups like the Band and the Beatles and Van Morrison.

“My other shows were really more a blend of bluegrass and folk rock. They didn’t have the same black Southern elements as ‘The People vs. Mona,’ which is several things all at the same time. Everyone in the cast plays, and plays well. And all seven are wonderful singers and actors, very funny. Our instrumental arranger Pete Snell, who has been Lyle Lovett’s lead guitarist for the past five years, really brings out the individual colors in each number. So I think audiences are in for a treat.”

Behind the footlights, it’s a lot of work. “In guitar theater, time is the enemy, because you have so much to do,” Lazarus says. “Poor Scott Waara has 20 songs to learn on five different guitars, on top of carrying the role as a lead actor, on top of singing almost every song, on top of being the narrator. Any one part would kill most people.”

Talking by phone from Malibu on a rare day off, Waara downplays his Herculean task. “ ‘Mona’ integrates some real passions of mine,” says Waara, who took up the guitar again about 10 years ago after a long hiatus. “It’s great for me, because I didn’t know why I’d been doing all this music for all these years, so I feel extraordinarily blessed to strap on a guitar and tell a story. I’m having a ball, even though it’s completely overwhelming.”

But do Waara and his fellow cast mates get paid as both union actors and musicians? “Oh, no,” Waara says with a laugh. “We’re just doing our regular Equity contract. I’m happy to do it, but they’re definitely getting their buck-fifty’s worth.”

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“THE PEOPLE VS. MONA,” Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. Dates: Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 9 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends April 16. Prices: $13.50-$42.50. Phone: (800) 233-3123.