The saying “Never judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes” is at the heart of the Alliance Theatre’s new production “Trading Places.” The 1980s film-turned-musical will have its world premiere on the Coca-Cola Stage at the Alliance on May 25. The cast and creative team include leading figures in Broadway theater, TV and film. Two of them joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom: Tony Award-winning director and hometown hero Kenny Leon, along with actor, television and film writer Thomas Lennon, who wrote the book for the musical “Trading Places.”
Interview highlights:
Jogging your memory of the 1983 hit comedy:
“The original film, which was really a mega-hit of that era, and … turned Eddie [Murphy] into a household name; really, the premise was sort of a ‘prince and the pauper.’ You know, if the prince were also a real sort of dimwitted mean-spirited character in the original film, the Dan Aykroyd character,” explained Lennon. “So it took a very clever guy who lives on the street, Eddie Murphy; the Duke brothers … make a bet to see if they could take two people and basically throw them into each other’s lives, and would they survive or thrive? What would happen to these two people?”
How Thomas Lennon knew it would work as a musical:
“Number one thing: Kenny Leon,” said Lennon. “To write a musical based on a film, you’re always going to stand in the long shadow of a popular film. And when Kenny came into the project and brought in a lot of new ideas … that’s when it started to seem like, ‘Oh, this is ‘Trading Places’ as a musical that does not need to stand in the shadow of the movie. If you saw the film, I think it will take nothing away from your enjoyment of this.”
Life lessons in the musical “Trading Places”:
“I always try to make the play or the film adaptation relate to audiences who are sitting in their seats or in their living rooms today,” said Leon. “We have a gay character; we have a Black character, we have white characters, we have Asian characters. We have a mix of people, and metaphorically they all represent all the people in the world. And it’s timely because that’s what we need to do today — just change places for five minutes with someone, learn five minutes of someone else’s life, and it should make our own lives better.”
How the film’s story has been reimagined for today’s audiences:
“We’ve changed Billy Ray; the character that was played by Eddie Murphy in the film is now played by Anissa Folds, who’s a brilliant actress and singer … so we have a woman who is trading places with the character of Louis, played by Bryce Pinkham, who’s a great Broadway star,” said Lennon. “So we’ve got issues of, ‘Do people not take Billy Ray seriously because of her gender, or?’ … We swam directly at many of the problematic things of the film, and instead of sweeping them under the rug or kind of working around them, we swam directly for them; ‘Let’s make this what it’s about.’”
“We took complicated things and we said, ‘Let’s make these opportunities to really talk about stuff.’ The character of Jamie Lee Curtis in the film has been completely re-imagined … That character is now a character called Phil, who sings at a piano bar … Not that I’m saying we were trying to necessarily make it a much more family show, but it is a show, for sure, that you could take your family to, and it’s a joyous, upbeat show.”
“Trading Places: the Musical” takes place at Alliance Theatre on the Coca-Cola Stage from May 25 to June 26. Tickets and more information are available at alliancetheatre.org/production/2021-22/trading-places.
