Kerry Ellis, Tom Kitt, Adam Blanshay and Jordan Langford share their experience of bringing ‘If/Then’ to the Savoy Theatre as a staged concert.
In February, we offered Spotlight members the chance to book special discounted tickets to Broadway sensation If/Then in concert during its limited run at the Savoy Theatre.
Members who joined us at the event were invited to a panel session where the show’s star, Kerry Ellis, took questions from the audience. The event culminated in the chance to watch Kerry Ellis and the rest of the cast warming up for the night’s performance.
If/Then is a musical that tells the story of a 38-year-old woman named ‘Elizabeth’ (played in the concert version by Kerry Ellis) who moves back to New York City for a fresh start. One decision leads her life down two separate paths and we follow her through the resulting love, success, friendship and loss that awaits her in each.
The show was adapted to be a staged concert by Tom Kitt, a Pulitzer Prize, Grammy, Tony and Emmy award-winning composer, arranger, orchestrator and producer. Tom kindly joined us alongside Kerry, agent Daniel Hinchliffe, producer Adam Blanshay and director and choreographer Jordan Langford to talk about their involvement in If/Then, their inspiration for bringing it to the West End and the challenges this came with.
Q&A Transcript
Edited for clarity.
How did you first become involved in ‘If/Then’?
Adam Blanshay – I’m the number one fan of the show. I’ve even got my OG merch on from when I saw the show on Broadway. I saw the fifth preview and Michael Greif, the original director, came out with an iPad, saying, “This is a new show.” And this was the first night that the song ‘What If?’ was going into the show, which has now become the opening number. So from that moment, we were very excited. We were seeing something organic and fresh and changing.
As a then 30 and now 40-something [year old], a story about a professional and everyday person that is so relatable, who questions their fate and their choices, just spoke to me so profoundly. And here we are.
Jordan Langford – I think I’m the second biggest fan of the show. I also saw it in New York and fell in love with it. And Daniel’s my agent. I begged Daniel, “Please get me on the show because I love it.” And it’s been a privilege, a fantastic team and everybody’s been amazing.
Kerry, what first drew you to the role of ‘Elizabeth’ and made you feel it was right for you?
Kerry Ellis – Finding roles that are right for you at [the right] time are always interesting. Something so specific that I could play now was a gift, really. We started workshopping it a couple of years ago. We had a couple of days to just feel it out in a room and that was really exciting.
To get to play someone real has been something different to what I’ve done before. I’ve usually played these big iconic characters that are larger than life or have a historic story that we all know and love. So, to play something real, that is perhaps new to people, has been really exciting.
It’s a brilliant piece and it’s a wonderful cast, a wonderful company. Just to listen to the audience react to a new show like this – the music, the score, the script, people laughing and crying and being moved – it’s just a gift.
How did the creation of ‘If/Then’ come about?
Adam Blanshay – I thought, during the pandemic, we could either fill in forms and complain or innovate. We couldn’t do live theatre, but we could film, so I created a musical theatre web series that was curated and had different themes – like an MTV musical theatre.
One specific episode called ‘Showstoppers’ was a selection of songs that stopped the show. Opening numbers, closing numbers… Being such a fan of [If/Then], I actually created the ‘Showstopper’ episode so we could create a video of ‘Always Starting Over’, [which] as you’ll hopefully see, does stop the show. I had this vision of Kerry [Ellis] singing the song because she just has that quality. So, we shot this beautiful music video and, at that point, the rights for If/Then were not available.
Organically, the music video ended up getting seen by Brian [Yorkey] and Tom [Kitt] and, I think, got them excited about us and the way we were thinking about the piece and carrying the role of Elizabeth. From that, it grew organically to the next step of exploration, just to see how we can bring this beautiful title to the UK.
As you’ve seen with Bonnie and Clyde and Your Lie in April, stage concerts are wonderful ways of introducing the British public to new work and getting people excited. Also, it’s a brilliant way to workshop because we get to be in a room for a week or two to really try to flesh things out. At the end of what would be a normal workshop, you’d do a presentation. But, in this case, our presentation is with a full orchestra and lights and sound and paying public, which is great because that funds the development of the show.
There’s no better litmus [test] than putting it out there and seeing how the audience reacts. This was a way to test the material, but also to do the concert, to do an extraordinary piece. It’s a piece that requires you to sit forward and pay attention and engage. It’s not a passive piece. You have to connect with it because it’s a story that is intricate and evolves.
In a full production with big sets, magic and illusion would really play into the landscape of this piece. But ultimately, our task has been to take a relatively complex story and strip it back to essentially six crates and brilliant musical staging. And to use Brian’s brilliant writing and the narrative to be able to bring a story that involves active participation to life, without the help of big sets, costumes and illusion.
Should this have the privilege of a future life, we’ve done an unbelievable exercise to be able to go to the root of the storytelling to be able to tell the story.
As a director, Jordan, was it quite exciting to turn a show into a concert version and are there any pitfalls?
Jordan Langford – There’s two parallel stories, and really pinpointing what makes each part of Elizabeth stick in each story was really integral to what Bill [Buckhurst] did, and Alastair [David], with all the staging, trying to move the story along.
Magic really came into it in a lot of ways. We’re trying to make these transitions so we know as an audience what journey we’re going on and who we’re following, really clearly. For this format, you see it and can be an active participant in the story, which was really important for Bill and Alastair. Supporting that was quite magical – seeing that journey and how it all came together. It’s just beautiful.
Has the reception to the show differed in the West End compared to on Broadway?
Jordan Langford – They loved it there. I was in the audience [on Broadway] and they went crazy for it. I went with a few friends and we just bought into the story. I thought it was one of the most beautiful pieces of work I’ve ever seen in my life. I think here we had an amazing reaction.
Adam Blanshay – The really interesting thing is that Kerry has sung ‘Always Starting Over’. She sang it with Tom at Crazy Coqs, which is amazing. And she sang it for the music video. This was the first time she sang it in front of an audience, having done the two hours of work building up to that song. It was the first time we saw it properly with an audience. To see the moment of pathos and payoff. I think we were all shocked. Kerry had no concept that this song, having done that work leading up to the moment, would elicit this organic reaction in the audience. She stood there and I think at a certain point after 45 seconds of it, she kind of broke for a moment because it was so emotional for her. That was really special to us.
What was your inspiration for the strong female role?
Tom Kitt – For Brian and I, we’ve had very strong women in our life. Brian’s mother, my mum, my wife. I now have a daughter who’s turning 16 and both with Next to Normal and If/Then, I yearn to tell those stories. The specificity of If/Then is the fundamental question. I’ve seen my wife being a mum and having a career, and there’s been this age-old question of having it all. Brian and I read many articles that investigated that question and we felt like we wanted to write a musical that speaks to that and honours that question and that journey.
To go even further than that specific question, I think we all, in this room, can point to a moment in our life looking back, that at the time you didn’t realise the significance, and we can all map our lives out. And you think, “What would’ve happened if this little thing was different?” It’s not just, “I went to that meeting and met the person who hired me.” It’s, “I decided to go to that concert. I showed up at the party and met my spouse.” For me, it was going to Columbia, which is where I met my wife and Brian. I wasn’t aspiring to write for the theatre. If I hadn’t been there, I don’t know if I’d be writing for musical theatre.
So, that’s where If/Then was born for me – the investigation of the choices we make and to really ask ourselves: would we have wound up in the same place? Especially if that place is somewhere where we feel like a dream might have come true at that moment.
I feel like I’ve seen that story told in film and I’ve read books, but I haven’t seen it in theatre – the attempt to tell parallel lives at once. These great artists have been talking about what that demands in terms of stage magic. This is just a taste of it tonight. But I can already tell in the clips I’ve seen; they’ve been so inventive and creative, and I can’t wait to experience it.
Thanks to Kerry Ellis, Adam Blanshay, Tom Kitt, Jordan Langford and Daniel Hinchliffe for sharing their experience!
About the Panellists
Commercial theatre producer Adam Blanshay is the founder and CEO of Adam Blanshay Productions. He has been involved in over 60 productions to date, including Sunset Boulevard, Cabaret, Moulin Rouge and Fiddler on the Roof.
Tom Kitt is a Pulitzer Prize, Grammy, Tony and Emmy award-winning composer, arranger, orchestrator and producer whose work includes Superhero, Next to Normal, Jagged Little Pill the Musical and Flying Over Sunset.
Kerry Ellis is one of the most iconic performers on the West End. She was the first British ‘Elphaba’ in the West End’s Wicked, originated the role of ‘Meat’ in We Will Rock You and has also had leading roles in Oliver!, My Fair Lady, Miss Saigon, Les Misérables and many more. She stars as ‘Elizabeth’ in If/Then at the Savoy Theatre.
Director and choreographer Jordan Langford is a member of Stage Directors UK, the Movement Directors Association and the Young Vic Creators Program. He was the Associate Director of If/Then to Bill Buckhurst and associate choreographer to Alistair David. He has also worked on At Last, It’s Summer, The Tempest, Kerry Ellis Does Christmas and Build a Rocket.
Agent Daniel Hinchliffe launched the Soundcheck Agency in 2013, which is now known as Leodis Talent. He represents Kerry Ellis and a variety of other talented performers and was one of the producers of If/Then at the Savoy Theatre.
