Quick Q&A: Hunter Bell

Tony-nominated Hunter Bell talks [title of show] and beyond.

How did you find out about your Tony nomination?

I was in Los Angeles, I thought it would be very glamorous. No, Jeff and I were working on a little project out there so we were there for the announcement. Got up at the crack of ass, of course, because I totally wanted to know. I love when people ask if I woke up. Of course, did you see the show?! It was hard to get the news out there actually because we couldn’t get the live feed so we had the Internet going. We were totally ghetto-fabulous: Jeff called his mom and she was watching the live feed and holding up the phone. Comedy of errors, but that’s how we found out.

Was it bittersweet to get the news with Jeff?

Absolutely it was bittersweet. Like I said before I’m super proud and super happy but it’s hard to extract the book from the score in my mind. I totally believe in that score and always have and always will and I think Jeff totally deserves a nomination.

Did you go to the Tony nominees luncheon?

I did and it was super fun. I sat at a table with Angela Lansbury and Neil Patrick Harris. So I’m good, I’m finished, that bus can hit me now.

What first convinced you to write as well as perform?

I always wrote as a little kid and wrote in college but never formally put it together. Jeff and I loved collaborating, we kind of found each other in the city, and you can add Susan Blackwell into that mix, we made crazy stuff up downtown. I think what tipped it over was that I liked creating stuff from scratch and I liked the feeling of ownership that came over me as a performer when I performed stuff that I created. I couldn’t second-guess myself, that’s what was going on in my head. I liked the creative control and the creative input doing it from the start – being there at the inception, putting it on the page and bringing it to life. I liked all of that; it felt like I was operating on all pistons.

How was the act of writing [title of show] different than how it is depicted in the musical?

We never set out to do a documentary. We used that awesome Linda Barry word “autobiofictionography”. It’s heightened to a certain extent, it’s condensed, it’s fictionalized at times. I never felt like we were misrepresenting ourselves. What you do see on stage – the seeds of it are true and real and we inflated it. Also as it grew and grew and grew I began to write characters that had specific functions. The Hunter character was a motor, he drove it, Jeff’s was trying to ground it, Susan was awesome in Susan, and Heidi was the outside eye. It became much more of a play over the course of the four years.

Did you have to change the script at all for other actors in subsequent productions?

The first one we did was at Playhouse In The Square in Cleveland. We played with some of the voicemail messages with the actresses. But otherwise… they played Heidi, Hunter, Jeff, Susan and Larry and nobody balked. It’s only insidery if you’re on the inside. If you had no knowledge that on Broadway these people played themselves, you were just watching a play about two guys who were writing a play and their names were Hunter and Jeff.

photo: Carol Rosegg

You collaborate with Jeff on some projects and with Susan on others. How did they compare as writing partners?

Totally different in some ways but it’s sort of on a case by case basis. They have similar tastes but different palettes and ways of storytelling. We have different shorthands – the mechanics of it are very different in how it comes together. I like making stuff up with both of them. Susan and Larry Pressgrove and I did a piece called “My First Time” at a few different places – we did the full version at Gypsy Of The Year for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. I’m proud of that. That came about because someone asked us to write something for an evening and, just based on availability, Jeff was on vacation and Heidi was doing a show.

Is comedy writing serious or is it a party?

Some of it is superfun to write that but sometimes it’s tedious to construct something lean and mean. I don’t put on a comedy hat to write something funny or a serious hat to write something dramatic; it sounds kinda corny but honestly I just have the writer hat on and storytell. As I look in [title of show] there’s like 2 or 3 of what I consider jokes, old set up comedy jokes, and for the rest I just tried to represent how people talk and hope it’s either funny or weird or moving.

Was there anything cut from the show that you’re sorry didn’t make it to Broadway?

There was a lot that was cut. That’s always hard. We called it “killing babies” but you have to be willing to. We just did an evening at Feinstein’s, a benefit for the Actors Fund, of cut material. It was crazy to go through that – four incarnations of the show, four years of material. There was some story – it didn’t really happen, but it was constructed as a scene – where Susan called Jeff and put him on speakerphone and Jeff told some comedy joke about a dog licking its balls. It always made me laugh. I loved it. I think it made it through preview. Lots of little things like that. Musically, there was a quartet thing that Jeff wrote that we did at NYMF. I loved the musical sections of that. That was hard to lose. But you look back and you see this or that wasn’t necessary. There’s nothing that I’m dying about that didn’t make it through. That’s where Michael Berresse was invaluable as a director and dramaturg because while we were in it watching each other Michael was seeing the big picture. He didn’t let us kitchen sink it.

Is there something you wish you’d known about Broadway before you got there?

I feel sometimes it’s a little like Christmas, the anticicpation and the naivete that I had. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. It’s two fold: it was totally a dream come true and life changing and amazing but when you get to that level of commercial theatre it’s eye opening too. I think we all grew up a little bit. I still have that wide-eyed fantasy because I think it’s in my nature, but it’s incredibly difficult too. You learn things about finances, about theatre owners and landlords and the commercial game and the politics. The stuff you don’t know when you’re on the outside dreaming of being on Broadway. Would I do it again? Totally, in a heartbeat. But I have a different knowledge of the inner workings. It was still friggin’ awesome.

What are you working on now with Jeff?

Jeff and I can’t say due to contractual obligations but it’s something we’ve been working on for a couple of months that’s super fun. And then my [tos] gang and I are working on some new material for Rosie’s cruise in July, we’re gonna go do that on a boat with lesbians whale-watching.

What are you excited about this upcoming season?

We got Catch Me If You Can, Fela!…,Memphis I haven’t heard anything about but I’m from the South and that looks like it might be good. Addams Family: I like little Mister man Andrew Lippa a lot and I heard a couple of the songs, they’re really beautiful. And also it’s those guys from Improbable Theatre who did Shockheaded Peter so that might be a kick-ass combo. And somebody for God’s sake please hold the [title of show] torch and do something original and not based on anything! I guess Fela! holds that up. I want to be the poster child for original musicals. I get nervous sometimes about it becoming a cineplex. Not that those shows are bad, but I want there to be room for small and scrappy shows like [title of show] in the future.