Taylor Mac is a playwright, actor, singer-songwriter, cabaret performer, performance artist, director, and producer. He has performed at A.R.T., Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, Sydney Opera House, and hundreds of other performance spaces across the world. The author of seventeen full-length plays and performance pieces, Mac is the winner of numerous accolades including the Obie Award for The Lily’s Revenge, which was performed at A.R.T. in the 2012/13 Season. He was named Best Theater Actor in New York by Village Voice in 2013.
TESSA NELSON: You’ve written that you like collaborating with hard workers. Is that how you would describe your co-star Mandy Patinkin and director/choreographer Susan Stroman?
TAYLOR MAC: Yes, I would. It’s a total joy to work with them. People of that caliber of craft are the kind of people I’ve wanted to work with my whole life. Mandy and I knew early on we wanted our piece to be a vaudeville, and we had this idea that there wouldn’t be any language. Susan Stroman was the perfect person for that because she has a history of telling stories without words. Paul Ford, our music director, is an encyclopedia of the vaudeville style of song. He’s a huge part of what we are doing.
TN: Why did you choose the vaudeville style for this piece?
TM: Everyone loves vaudeville. Most Americans have a nostalgic tinge in their hearts for it. It’s funny and wonderful and it’s where so much of the American performance craft lives. Also, I like to work in different genres. Every act of my play, The Lily’s Revenge, was written and performed in a different genre. I’m always trying to ask, “What part of theater have I not worked in yet?”
TN: The music in the show is very diverse. It ranges from “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” to musical theater to your own compositions. How did you choose these songs?
TM: We chose songs that, even if they were in their own style, could be framed by vaudeville. Folk songs, like Patty Griffin’s “Making Pies,” Sondheim, the modern day songs, all feel like they could come from that vaudeville tradition.
TN: What makes those songs feel grounded in the vaudeville tradition?
TM: Usually, they’re songs written for the middle and lowermiddle class. Sometimes it’s their eclecticism, or a chord structure, a lyric structure, or the content. Also, Mandy and I both like telling stories, so we both picked songs like “Making Pies,” which to some degree tell stories.
TN: You’ve talked about the vaudeville part, how about the apocalyptic part?
TM: One thing you do when you create a story is try to come up with some conflict. I think the apocalypse was Mandy’s idea. I just loved it because what do two people who like to sing songs do if they’re the last two people on earth? They sing songs. For me it’s such a lovely metaphor for the dichotomy of the world. What do you do when things are horrible? You sing songs.
TN: People familiar with your work might be expecting a political piece. Is this a political vaudeville?
TM: If it’s the end of the world somebody’s to blame. We don’t point a finger at any particular person or institution or government. We’re not finger-wagging. There’s definitely some political stuff, but it’s more about ending polarization than creating more of it.
TN: You’re from the downtown New York theater scene and Mandy Patinkin and Susan Stroman have worked on big-budget musicals. Do you often find yourselves in different mindsets?
TM: When Mandy and I were trying to think of what to do together I said, “Let’s do a production of Genet’s The Maids.” I was sure Mandy would think it’s too downtown for him, but what he actually said was, “I already did a production of The Maids with John Hurt.” So Mandy is downtown as well as uptown, and I started off learning in the musical theater style and later went to the downtown avant-garde.
TN: How do your voice and Mandy’s sound together? Was there instant vocal chemistry?
TM: It was instant and I’ll tell you why. When I was a teenager I had Mandy’s first album and I listened to it nonstop. I think I unconsciously trained my voice by listening to Mandy. He gave me this gift that he didn’t even know he had given. So, I love him for that. It’s an odd thing when you hear us sing together. It doesn’t feel normal. It feels like we are people meant to sing together.
Tessa Nelson is a first-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
