This Side of Paradise

putting on the fitz: Lauren Kennedy and Jarrod Emick play Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald in Waiting for the Moon at Lenape Performing Arts Center.

Broadway's Frank Wildhorn brings his Jazz Age musical to Marlton.

by Steve Cohen

It's newsworthy if a big-name Broadway composer comes to Philadelphia to try out a show — something rarely done since the 1960s. Even bigger is the news that Frank Wildhorn has picked Marlton, N.J., for the world premiere of his newest musical, Waiting for the Moon.

Wildhorn is the composer of such blockbusters as Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Civil War. After he and his then-wife, singer Linda Eder, had a son in 1999, Wildhorn spent a lot of time on their horse farm in New York, where he developed a concept album to be called The Romantics. A group of lyricists wrote words to Wildhorn's music about famous couples. Writer/lyricist Jack Murphy and Wildhorn collaborated on three songs about F. Scott Fitzgerald and his flamboyant wife, Zelda. The album never was issued, but the pair expanded their songs into a musical about Scott and Zelda.

Wildhorn met Vincent Marini, head of Marlton's Lenape Performing Arts Center, when Marini hosted the first-ever production of Jekyll & Hyde in Concert in the summer of 2004. Wildhorn liked Marini and asked him to read the Fitzgerald script. Marini offered suggestions, which Wildhorn and Murphy embraced, and the book was rewritten. Before, it was like an A&E Biography; now it's a more universal love story set in the 1920s. Marini is credited as co-author, and he directs it.

The cast of 19 assembles in the 1,500-seat theater July 5 after two weeks of run-throughs in New York. As City Paper sits in, Philly favorite Scott Greer tears up the stage with an extroverted portrayal of a screen director who clashes with Fitzgerald (played by Tony Award-winner Jarrod Emick). And another local, Ben Dibble, as a reporter, rehearses a beautiful ballad, "With Just a Wave of My Hand."

Boyish, with wide cheekbones, Marini is 30 but appears younger, wearing a polo shirt and khakis. He strolls around the huge stage, giving personal direction with a calmly conversational voice.

Wildhorn is beaming, wearing a New York Mets baseball cap, gray T-shirt, jeans and white sneakers. "I'm relaxed," he says, "even though we have only three weeks' rehearsal instead of the normal eight or nine. But I like it here because Vince is fresh, not jaded. In New York there are too many people telling you what you can't do."

Murphy has curly gray hair and wears a striped shirt and shorts. "I love tryouts," he says. "The actors bring so much to the table. They reveal sensibilities I didn't know were there in my own script."

Since rehearsals began, 45 pages of the original 110-page script have been cut or revised. Wildhorn, Murphy and Marini stay up till 4 a.m. making changes. On Wednesday it looks like Dibble's song will be cut. Thursday, the cast learns an elaborate tango dance number, just written.

Wildhorn has a key to the theater and he comes in the wee hours to compose on a grand piano. Asked how he feels when his songs are ditched and he has to write new ones, he replies, "Fine. This is what I do. I'm a songwriter."

Music director Ron Melrose sits at a computer halfway back in the house. When the choreographer says he needs some drum strokes, Melrose scribbles in the new notes. If a singer is uncomfortable with a song's range, Melrose uses a software program to transpose the key. New sheet music, with all the changes, appears on the screen and Melrose prints copies of it for the singers and the orchestrator. The cast and orchestra work together for the first time Wednesday, July 13, and the show opens on Saturday. Murphy says that all these improvements in such a short time are like changing your car tires while you're traveling 65 miles an hour.

"It's impossible," says Melrose, "but we're doing it."

Waiting for the Moon: An American Love Story, July 16-31, $45-50, Lenape Regional Performing Arts Center, 130 Tomlinson Mill Road, Marlton, N.J., 856-983-3366 or www.sjtheater.com.