Styx's Dennis DeYoung brings musical 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' to Skylight Music Theatre
The story of how Skylight Music Theatre came to perform a musical by the former lead singer of Styx began on a Chicago street in 1994.
"Fate had a lot to do with me connecting with Dennis," Skylight artistic director Michael Unger said.
Back then, Unger was assistant-directing a production of "A Clockwork Orange." Riding his bicycle to work, he saw a man standing in front of Steppenwolf Theatre who was "unmistakably Dennis DeYoung" of Styx. Unger introduced himself as a fan. During their conversation, the gregarious DeYoung told Unger he was writing a musical based on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
It was a friendly chat that might have led nowhere. But months later, the Steppenwolf office called Unger. A guy named Dennis DeYoung wants your phone number. Is it OK to give it to him?
DeYoung invited Unger to his home, where "he single-handedly sang the entire score for me. And I just fell in love with it," Unger said.
If you're one of Milwaukee's umpteen thousands of Styx fans, you may feel the same way as Unger after hearing the heart-on-sleeve songs DeYoung wrote for the musical.
Skylight has assembled a cast of 21 to stage this show, including Broadway veterans Ben Gulley and Kevin Anderson. Performances begin May 20.
Composing a big and Romantic musical
After departing Styx, DeYoung toured in the 1993 revival of "Jesus Christ Superstar," performing 268 times as Pontius Pilate. During that period, the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables" was in the middle of its spectacularly successful run on Broadway.
Writing a musical for other people seemed easier than performing eight times a week, DeYoung joked. More seriously, he said, "I thought my music would be best adapted to something big and literary and Romantic" – trenchant self-analysis from the songwriter of the Styx hits "Come Sail Away," "Babe" and "Mr. Roboto."
DeYoung picked up another Hugo novel, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," because he had fond memories of the 1939 movie version starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara. While he didn't love the novel per se (too much architecture and printing press for him), DeYoung was deeply moved by the scene where Frollo, the cathedral's archdeacon, rescues the abandoned hunchback child. That led him to write what would be the musical's opening song, "Who Will Love This Child."
What unlocked the musical for DeYoung was conceiving of Frollo not as a one-dimensional villain but as a more complex, tragic figure, who became a priest more out of obligation than a calling, and who loved Quasimodo like a son. When this emotionally constrained man sees the beautiful Esmeralda on the street dancing, he understood immediately that his life as he had known it up to then was over, DeYoung said, paraphrasing the novel.
From Newton to Milwaukee
Back in 1994, as a young assistant director, Unger didn't have the clout to make a production happen. He did bring Steppenwolf co-founder Gary Sinise over to DeYoung's home to hear the songs, but Sinise became busy with other work after receiving an Oscar nomination for his role in "Forrest Gump."
DeYoung kept "Hunchback" alive by recording an album version in 1996, singing the male roles himself with his sister-in-law Dawn Marie singing the female ones. (You can listen to it on streaming services.) His "Hunchback" received barebones stage productions in Nashville in 1996 and at Chicago's Bailiwick Theater in 2007.
Unger kept in touch with DeYoung over the years. They worked together on a musical adaptation of "101 Dalmatians" in 2014 in Newton, Massachusetts, where Unger is producing artistic director of the NewArts theater program for children. When Unger came to the Skylight as artistic director, he put "Hunchback" on the schedule for September 2020, only to be tripped up by the long pandemic delay.
Portraying Esmeralda's Roma identity
Staging "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" in 2022 requires that a director face the question of Esmeralda's ethnic identity and the words spoken about her.
Many Roma people believe that novelist Hugo contributed to negative perceptions of their community by his misinformed stereotyping of Esmeralda as a Gypsy — a word that comes from mistaken old beliefs that her people originated in Egypt. While many Roma people reject the G-word completely, some others accept it now, Unger said.
Unger and DeYoung decided to change positive and in-group references to Esmeralda's people in "Hunchback" to Romani, while leaving "gypsy" in the mouths of the show's villains as a pejorative they would have used.
"Hunchback" ensemble member Jackey Boelkow, who has Romani heritage, is also serving as the production's Romani consultant, helping Unger navigate these questions.
Give DeYoung the last word about this show, and he'll tell you that words are not the most important thing.
"It's music, my friend," he said. "Music is sound waves. It connects us magically, somehow, with every fiber of the universe. … How can listening to a human voice give you goosebumps or raise the hair on your arms? … The melody … will stick into human experience long after what was being said."
Contact Jim Higgins at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @jhiggy.
If you go
Skylight Music Theatre performs "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" May 20 through June 12 at the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway. For tickets, visit skylightmusictheatre.org or call (414) 291-7800. Skylight recommends this production for people 12 and older.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Styx's Dennis DeYoung brings 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' to Skylight
