CENTER STAGE
JJ ABRAMS TRIES HIS LUCK ON BROADWAY
Seeking a break from green screens and lightsabers while shooting The Force Awakens outside London, J. J. Abrams decided to catch a play.
“I had a free night and looked to see what was playing,” Abrams recalled in a recent interview over a plate of pasta in Manhattan. “I saw something that was called The Play That Goes Wrong that sounded amusing. I bought a ticket and went knowing nothing. I’d never laughed that hard. I’d never seen an audience laugh that hard.”
That Abrams accidentally stumbled upon The Play That Goes Wrong is fitting. It’s a work stuffed with stumbling and a 100car pile-up’s worth of accidents.
And now, with Abrams as a producer, The Play That Goes Wrong has careened all the way to Broadway.
It marks the Broadway debut of an unusual pair. It’s the first professional step into theater for Abrams, the pre-eminent crafter of blockbuster science fiction and small-screen puzzles. And it’s also the Broadway entree for London’s Mischief Theatre. Kevin McCollum, the play’s other producer, calls the troupe—including artistic director Henry Lewis and company director Jonathan Sayer—“the comic Steppenwolf.”
Though the play ran for two years in the West End and won an Olivier Award, it comes from humble beginnings. It was first put on (with less spectacular disasters) above a pub in North London. The irony that a little British comedy without big names has attracted a benefactor in Abrams, maker of globe-spanning billion-dollar movies, is not lost on the group. The play disbelievingly advertises Abrams as “who we can only assume lost a bet.”
But Abrams’ involvement is genuine. Said McCollum, the veteran producer of Avenue Q and In the Heights: “He came to this without a cynical ounce. He didn’t do it because we needed him to sell tickets or anything. It was like: ‘I love this show. You love this show. I love theater. I’d love to work in theater a little bit more.’ I’m like, ‘Great, come. Let’s do this.’”
And though Abrams has long seemed a natural-born movie director, he directed and acted in plays in high school and college. He’s a lifelong collector of Playbills. His love of Hamilton led to Lin-Manuel Miranda composing the Cantina Band music in The Force Awakens.
Abrams may have also been looking for an antidote to largescale movie production.
“I so love the community of putting on a show, not relying on editors, not relying on special effects or spectacle,” said Abrams. “There’s something so pure about it. It is a remarkable thing, being so accustomed to all the crutches that film allows, to see how an audience can be so moved by a handful of people on the stage with make-up and cos- tumes and lighting. It’s always a wonder to me.”
Abrams, though, has enjoyed taking a step back. He hasn’t directed since The Force Awakens, and still looks happily unburdened of no longer having the weight of remaking a beloved franchise on his shoulders. He said he’s writing something “that I’m playing with” but he’s largely been producing: HBO’s West
world, the next Star Wars movie, another planned sci-fi series called Glare.
“But I’m very much enjoying taking a moment. Since I’ve done the show Felicity, I’ve gone from project to project. So it’s been 20 years since I haven’t been prepping, casting, shooting, editing something,” said Abrams. He paused to appreciate his surroundings—a restaurant a few steps away from the Lyceum. “I’m enjoying it more than I ever thought I would.”