Getting from the ‘wrong stuff’ to the ‘right stuff’

What’s it like to try to write a musical for Northern Sky Theater? I sat down recently with the creators of this year’s world premiere “Oklahoma in Wisconsin” to pursue this.

Richard Castle (book and lyrics) and Matthew Levine (score) came from Hollywood to Door County last summer to participate in a workshop for the show. During that weeklong event, our actors and creative staff gave them daily feedback to improve the piece.

According to Matthew, “All this input has made it better than what we could have done on our own. The opening alone — we never had an opening that felt right because we were trying to do too much or moving things around.”

Writing is rewriting

The show now starts with an entertaining homage to the classic Broadway musical “Oklahoma.” But Richard said that this didn’t happen until two drafts ago.

“We would never have gotten to this third step if we hadn’t written the first one that didn’t work, the second one that was kind of in the ballpark but didn’t work either, the third one which worked but there was something not quite right,” he said. “So it’s amazing how you have to write through the wrong stuff to get to the right stuff.”

Richard complimented all those at Northern Sky who were “hard on (the show) for the right reasons.” Artistic director Jeff Herbst and associate director Molly Rhode were “laser-focused on the characters,” and the actors deepened the piece. “You think you’ve written this character and then you’ve got Rhonda Rae Busch and Bill Theisen to embody them, and you go, ‘Oh, my God, they’re so much more,’” he said.

Richard continued, “I’ll never forget the first day of the workshop, and Neen Rock (our longtime stage manager) came up to me and said, ‘I’m here to help support your creativity. Whatever you need.’ And I looked at her as if she were an angel.

“We have a part where there’s a telegram delivered in the show,” he went on. “And Neen came up to me (at the workshop) and she had a Western Union template she’d printed out with the actual words of the telegram that the character was going to read printed on there, as a prop. I just thought, ‘Wow. Every other reading it had just been a piece of paper!’ That level of detail, and the fact that someone thought about that. It’s an amazingly creative and stimulating place to work. And it doesn’t feel like work.”

Local color

Although much of the show takes place in a fictional inn, Richard has tried to incorporate little touches from Door County into the piece, including our famous fish boil.

“When we were here three years ago, I wanted to find an inn that I could use in my head to picture where everything is,” he said. “So we went to the White Gull, which is beautiful, and just tried to picture it a little more dilapidated, in the ’50s, and I took a lot of pictures. And they had a fish boil in the backyard, and that is what gave me the idea to write the fish boil song. And I found out it had originally been founded by someone named Welcker in the turn of the century, and that’s in my script as well.”

Finally, Richard and Matthew knew that our audience spans the complete range of ages, and tried to write a show that would work for everyone.

“For my 10th birthday,” Richard remarked, “my Mom took me to Boston to see ‘On the Twentieth Century.’ Bells went off. And it’s stayed with me to this day. And so to think some kid will be watching our show and it will be their first show — that was a responsibility. I wanted to write something that was really going to knock their socks off, and try to give that love that I feel is so nourishing to my soul to them.”

See you under the stars.

Doc Heide is a co-founder, playwright and performer with Northern Sky Theater.

At Northern Sky Theater

“Oklahoma in Wisconsin” is onstage at 6 p.m. Mondays and 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays. “Doctor, Doctor” plays at 8:30 p.m. Mondays and 6 p.m. Thursdays. At 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays, we present “Victory Farm,” and “Lumberjacks in Love” is 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays. All shows are at the Peninsula State Park Theater. Patrons do not need a park sticker. For information, call (920) 854-6117 or go to northernskytheater.com.