Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Washington Blade - December 10, 2004
Patrick Folliard, Theater Critic
LIKE SO MANY Broadway success stories, "Thoroughly Modern Millie" was long in the making. Its journey from daydream to big box-office realization was arduous, and at times doubtful.
Luckily, there was an unrelenting force behind "Millie," and that force was its librettist and lyricist, Dick Scanlan. A gay man diagnosed with AIDS in 1994, Scanlan courageously forged ahead despite facing dire health issues at the most critical moments of the show's early development.
Adapted from the '60s campy movie starring Julie Andrews, the bouncy musical tells the story of a plucky small town Kansas girl who arrives in roaring '20s New York City intent on becoming "thoroughly modern." Being a regular flapper includes raising her skirts, bobbing her hair, and marrying money.
Unlike Broadway's edgy, more operatic musicals, "Millie" is a toe-tapping joy ride. According to 44-year-old Scanlan, "Millie" is a classic musical comedy with a contemporary sensibility. The show features a lot of singing, big tap dance production numbers, and flashy costumes. But because it was recently written, it's fresh. It's neither dark nor cynical, yet it's still political.
During the summer of 1988, Scanlan and his late partner, who was then dying from AIDS-related complications, took a share in a South Hampton beach house. The only two videos on hand those months were "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Caligula."
Scanlan, who grew up in Bethesda and Potomac, recalls that he and his friends watched the flapper flick repeatedly. And by season's end, he was convinced that the film contained grist for a terrific full-scale musical production.
SCANLAN FOREVER IDENTIFIES with Millie. Since he was a little boy in Maryland, he instinctively knew that he didn't belong there, and, like Millie, he also knew that there was a place called New York City where he was meant to live.
By 1991, Scanlan was a published writer and an actor in a hit show (he originated the role of Miss Great Plains in the off-Broadway hit "Pageant"). Feeling particularly confident, he spent the next two years convincing Richard Morris, who wrote the "Millie" original story and screenplay, to allow him to adapt his film.
Eventually, the terminally ill Morris relented, and spent the last few years of his life (he died in 1996) collaborating with Scanlan on the show's libretto. Scanlan made a deathbed promise to Morris to continue working on "Millie," even though the odds at succeeding were very slim at the time.
"I look back to that time and think how strange it was to be so sick, yet to be investing so much in my future: creativity, money, energy," Scanlan says. "Part of me was preparing to live, and things miraculously fell into place."
At one point, Scanlan didn't expect to live to see his musical adaptation of "Millie" make it to Broadway. When it did, and won the 2002 Tony Award for best musical, he says the triumph was bittersweet.
"Along the way I lost so many people. I think about this a lot this time of year," he says. "There are so many people who were huge parts of my life and part of the show who died too soon, while my health turned around. It's just something that I'll never understand. But still, the success has been wonderful and disorienting."
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