Gilles Articles

Gilles Chiasson studied at the University of Michigan and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Theater Institute (“a groovy place”). He’s worked in non-profit theater, regional theater and national tours. The Scarlet Pimpernel is the second show he’s done on Broadway. Before that, he was in the original cast of Rent. Gilles graciously met with Wildhorn Side one Saturday afternoon in June between performances.

I imagine the audiences were very different between Rent and this show.

Oh completely different. Difference in intent in the writing, too.

What do you mean by that?

I mean Jonathan [Larson] had a lot of political aspirations and spiritual aspirations with regard to Rent. There were a lot of different disenfranchised groups that Jonathan was trying to portray, and sort of shed the light of day on, and let an audience see…homeless people, interracial couples, gay couples, people with HIV, all those different people who aren’t necessarily given a voice in society; whereas The Pimpernel is largely about having a lot of laughs, which is noble in its own way.

Do you think of Pimpernel as a more traditional-type musical or do you think that it’s trying to be different by integrating pop music?

It’s hard to say. In a lot of cases, it’s very much like an old-fashioned musical, in that there are a lot of songs that don’t necessarily further the plot; they’re very

reflective. You know, “Only Love” doesn’t get you anywhere. By the end of the song, you’re nowhere new. And the same with “Prayer” and “Believe.” They’re all basically states of being, which is sort of an older musical theater idea. The musical theater has come a long way in the sense that you expect a song to deliver you to a new place by the end, as opposed to just tell you how the character is feeling. So in that sense it’s kind of more old-fashioned. I think it’s great though. ‘Cause I think that what Frank is doing is what people want musicals to do, which is they want them to get back to the old days when My Fair Lady was on top of the Billboard charts.

Basically since the Beatles have come, musical theater has become its own genre, as opposed to being popular music on the stage. And so Frank is bringing the new sort of pop music form-you know: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus-and putting it in the theater, which I think is great. Quite frankly, I’m really excited about the day when Frank will write a musical set in 1983, ’cause that’s where his music, a lot of times, makes you feel like you are. And I would love him to find a story with characters that he loves that’s set in the ’80s. We’re far enough away from it that it’s a safe time period to write about.

I notice that you’re a songwriter too. What do you write?

I write like folk music. I’m writing a musical right now.

Can you tell us about that?

No. [Laughter.] Basically, it’s a story that’s personal to me that I’ve wanted to write for years and years. And the reason that I decided to finally write it is because when I was in Rent, we would do talk-backs all the time- and we would have 50 high school kids. From knowing Jonathan, I knew that one of the things that he really wanted to do was get popular music into the theater. You go to the theater, and you’re hearing base-lines inspired by Sting. And he was able to get very active theater lyrics and couple those with modern musical structure, which I loved. And I would say to kids, “Are any of you writers?” “Do you find this inspiring?”

“What stories do you want to tell?” “What music do you listen to?” “Do you feel like the music that you love is represented in the theater?” And so I would ask them these questions, and after doing that for a year, I finally realized I was talking to myself. So I decided that I had this story that I wanted to write. And the reason I don’t want to talk about it too much, in terms of what the story is, is ’cause I’m superstitious, and I feel like there’s a process that I have to go through-I have to finish writing the story, and then I have to write the music, and then I have to rewrite it, and then I have to show it to very close, very loving and supportive friends [laughs] . . .

Do you have a writing partner or do you do this all by yourself?

I’m doing it by myself. I have written with other people in the past. But I ultimately decided that since this was so specific to me, and I had such a personal reason for wanting to do it, because of Rent and Jonathan and this story that I want to tell, I decided I should do it myself. Sink or swim.

What interested you about doing Pimpernel?

Many things about it. First of all, I had felt it was time to leave Rent. I felt that I was ready, that my experience there was starting to evolve. We all felt, when we started, that we were on a mission, because Jonathan had died, and we felt that we had this responsibility to say the things that he wanted to say that he wasn’t around to say any more. And as people started to leave the show, it started to become a “show.” Which is what it was; it always was that. And it was just because of the experience that the original fifteen of us had that made it more than that, like a family and an obligation, in the best sense of the word. So, as new people started to come,

they were just doing a “show.” That’s not a judgment. It’s just that I reached the point where I thought I should leave before it made the transition into being a “show,” because that would allow me to keep my experience intact. And then once I made that decision, I had a couple of auditions and I got offered this. I was really grateful for the opportunity to do this, and to do a role-to play one person from beginning to

end. It’s like a dream come true, to play a role in a Broadway show. And the play is fun. It was funny-at first, I was all like, “It’s got to be about something.” It took me a month or so, to adjust to the fact that this was a show about people having a good time. And entertainment. And once I stopped wanting it to be something other than what it was, I was able to start enjoying it myself. And realize that it has its own

integrity. Like I said, it’s like this show and Rent are so different but it’s not that one is better than the other.

Had you heard the concept album before you went after it?

[Short pause]

Have you ever heard the concept album?

No.

So you weren’t influenced by the fact that the song you do in the show was previous a ‘Top 40’ hit by someone else?

I knew that. I had heard of it, but it didn’t really affect me in any way. I believe that ultimately if you’re successful singing a song, you’re allowing it to move through you, and the minute a song or a monologue or an acting moment moves through you, it takes on your colors. So I don’t care that Peabo Bryson sang it first. There’s no way I could be him. He’s a different human being with a different voice, and different issues.

And it becomes a different song?

Yeah. And with Christine too. Christine is different from Linda. So it has its own character when we do it.

Have you made up any ‘back story’ for the character, or do you pretty much take it as it’s written and play what’s there?

Pretty much take it as it’s written. And the back story, like I said, comes from me in a given moment. That’s my way of working. The last teacher I studied with was really a tv/film teacher. Her technique, which I really love, is less about making choices and plotting and planning before you get to a scene, and it’s more about

having yourself be open and allowing yourself to be surprised by what happens in the scene. Something that I pride myself on hopefully doing is I like to ‘bring myself to the theater with me every day.’ Which means that if I have a bad day, then that’s part of my instrument and I bring that to the theater that night, and then certain things that wouldn’t make me mad on another day will make me mad that night. And so instead of being freaked out that that’s not “the choice” or that’s not what it was, I try to treat that as a gift, and I have this anger in this moment that I’ve never had before, and that informs the scene. And to me, a lot of what the scene is about is what the other people are doing as opposed to me. I try to not think about myself at all.

Do they give you different things to react to?

Yeah. Acting with Doug is great, because whatever I bring to the play, he also does too. And we react. To me, acting that’s fun is like boxing-where you’re up there and you have to defend yourself, but you make punches and you never know what the other person is going to do. If they throw a right, you move this way. If they’ve never thrown a right before, if you’re so busy saying, “well, he’s never done that before,” you’ll just get smacked in the face. But if you are open, and if you’re allowing

your concentration to be on what this other person is doing, and just thinking in terms of what it is you’re trying to accomplish, it can always be exciting, and always be new, and always be fun. And if you do get hit in the face, then that changes everything, and that becomes a gift too.

It stays that way even though you’ve been running for a number of months?

Yeah. That’s why I like this technique. This is just the thing that works for me. Everyone has their own-everyone brings their own thing to the party, they bring their own version of, you know, dip. That’s what I bring to this, and hopefully-as far as I know, it works for the people who watch, and it works for the people that pay my salary.

You never read the book?

Oh, most definitely. It was the first thing I did when I got the job, I immediately read the book.

Did that give you anything to work with?

Yeah. Well, actually it didn’t, ’cause Armand is a completely different character in the novel than he is in the play. In the novel he’s eight years older than Marguerite, he raised her, he’s a lawyer, and he is actively involved in the whole Pimpernel thing; whereas in the musical, he’s very much a kid, he’s very naïve, he’s very sexless.

How much younger is he?

Than her? We never even defined it. That’s the kind of thing I’m supposed to know but I don’t really know. I know that I’m younger than her and that’s our relationship. Our relationship has evolved without me knowing our specific ages, and I don’t run around and think about that.

Do you think Broadway is evolving?

It’s interesting. One of the ways in which Broadway has been evolving or changing is that you have things like Ragtime which is-not a criticism-but it has a very sort of serious bent to it, a darkness to it. And I think that nothing in life is all black or all white. And I think that if there are a lot of dark things happening, that it’s nice to have some things that are light too, to provide a balance. And I think Pimpernel certainly brings a very light element to Broadway.

From The Wildhorn Side