Scissorhandz - Interview

Southwark Playhouse Elephant • 23 Jan - 29 Mar

Simon J. Webb, This production of Scissorhandz is coming to London after quite a long journey in America, it first being performed there back in 2018. Can you give me a flavour of what that journey has been like?

Bradley Bredeweg, Yes. Theatre is where my heart is but I found myself working in TV for years and years, and after many years spent on a soundstage I found this small little club in Los Angeles called The Rockwell in which they would put on small parody musicals, and a lot of the Broadway kids would come to L.A. for pilot season... back when we had pilot season, and they would perform at Rockwell, so it was this very legit space. One night I went up to the owner, after I had seen a show there, and I said, “I’ve got this crazy idea to take a movie that I love and make it queer as fuck!”. So, I pitched this joyful, campy but heartfelt love letter to Edward Scissorhands, and they were like, “Well, listen, we need a holiday show so we'll give you three weeks”, and so I put the show on, but that three weeks turned into four months because the audience’s just kept coming, and we soon realised we had something very special, and so for many years it would keep coming back, and suddenly there was a group in Los Angeles that were calling themselves ‘Scissor-Fans’ and every holiday season the show would just come back. Then Lance Bass, (formerly singer with NSYNC), came to us and said, “You know... there's something really special here! Let me help you grow it”, and I said, “Let's do it!”. So, long story short, the little show that was only supposed to run for three weeks now finds itself in one of the greatest cities in the world, doing what feels like a world premiere, because this show was always performed in clubs, and now we're in a very legit, beautiful theatrical space at the Southwark Playhouse Elephant.

SJW, So is this its first proper ‘theatrical’ presentation?

BB, Technically, ‘no’... but ‘yes’... and what I mean by that is that it's a fully-fledged production now. L.A. is not a theatre town. You sort of have to trick people into coming to theatre there. You have to give them a full ‘experience’... drinks, food… you know, a VIP Club vibe, so that's what that show really was. Now, we're a full theatrical production.

SJW, In terms of the piece ‘growing’ over time, what else has changed since it was first performed, other than the theatrical staging?

BB, So the very first production was about 2.5 hours long. Nobody wants to sit through a 2.5 hour production with a very long intermission these days, and as I was developing the show and really working it with our cast and Gregory Nabours, my musical director and orchestrator, we were sort of bringing in more ‘camp’ as we were growing the show, and as a result I realised that the pacing of the show had started to pick-up as well, and so I found myself saying, “There’s actually a lot of fat that we could trim from the show. Let me look at a 90-minute, runaway-train, thrill-ride of a version where we can do it all the way through with no intermission”... and we did a concert performance of that version four years into the development process, and that concert really changed the whole vibe of the show. It became more rock-n-roll. It became more campy… more queer in a way, and suddenly we realized that was the best version of the show. So we did one more production of it in L.A., but now, in London, we really get to put it on its feet as a 90-minute, camp thrill-ride.

SJW, I heard your lead actor, Jordan Kai Burnett, was your first choice for the role of Scissorhandz.

BB, Oh, yes!

SJW, So what was it that they brought to the role that you specifically liked?

BB, Jordan and I have been friends for many years. We had done another show together a couple years before this, and when I was writing Scissorhandz there was just something about them that I just couldn't get out of my head. When you meet them you’ll see that they've just got this non-binary Johnny Depp vibe to them. So, I really sort of took the inspiration from Jordan as a person and inserted that into the musical... and a big part of our version of the story is that the actor playing Scissorhandz is non-binary, and it's a part of our story... and that happened in true partnership with Jordan Kai Burnett as an actor.

SJW, How many of the original cast have you brought over to the UK for this production?

BB, There are three actors that are coming from Los Angeles to the UK, Dionne Gipson, Ryan O’Connor and Jordan Kai Burnett... but when we first came to London I auditioned for every role, and I wasn't sure what I was going to find. It was my first time producing and directing a show here, and I really wanted to be open to anything and everything. I obviously knew I was bringing Jordan, and I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted so many of my Los Angeles actors to come, but suddenly I found myself in a room of some of the most talented people on the planet, and everyone here just kept blowing me away, so when we looked at our budget and we looked at the visa situation, and all of those sort of things... I suddenly found myself in front of this giant puzzle, still lucky enough to be able to bring three actors from Los Angeles, but even luckier to find some of the greatest talent in London who really filled out our cast in such beautiful ways.

SJW, Had it always been your intention to try and bring this musical to London?

BB, A couple of years in, when I realised we had something that audiences were really gravitating towards, and it felt like it was taking on a life of its own, I just kind of had this feeling that the show would move to another city at some point, and everyone kept saying, “Well, you’ve got to go to New York!”, and I just kept saying, “No. I want to go to London!”. Hey, it just feels like you all understand that balance between heart, camp and musical theatre. It's sort of one of the things that you guys do best, and so I thought, “Listen, if this show can stand up alongside what British Musical Theatre does best, then I know we have something really special”. So, no pressure on our part... but I really think the British audience is going to take to our show. Hopefully New York can get it another day… but it really belongs here. Plus, the Brits in particular really seem to love Tim Burton. I don’t know what it is but y’all just love him here.

SJW, You use a collection of highly recognisable music tracks from a number of famous pop icons in order to populate your musical. Are we in fact getting treated to Bradley Bredeweg’s Party Playlist of all-time favourite bangers?

BB, Yes. Duh! (laughs)

SJW, So is this what it’s really all about?

BB, Are you kidding me? This Is like my childhood dream come true! (laughs) But also, you know, there's a lot of musicals that use popular music these days, and some are more effective than others, but first and foremost for me was making sure the lyrics and story of every song I used fit perfectly within our show. That was the most important thing to me. If the song doesn't tell the story, then I didn't want it in the show... and then I get to use some of my favourite music because so many of those songs that actually work for our story are also my favourite songs.

SJW, Were there more songs than there was room in the show, or was it actually more of a struggle to find the exact track that would say whatever you were trying to convey in any particular moment.

BB, A little bit of both. When we first put the show on in Los Angeles we were doing it under a license that allowed us to use all of this music without having to pay the royalties for each individual song. Now that were fully legit and doing a massive production... and possibly looking to take the show to other cities after this, we had to be legit in terms of obtaining the rights to use each song. What comes with that territory however is that sometimes you get denied, and so some of the songs that we had in Los Angeles aren't in this production and we had to look for other songs. That turned out to be a happy accident though, because I think some of the new replacement songs actually tell the story better.

SJW, I’m a big fan of the happy accident!

BB, Right!... and you don't think that's going to happen. You're like, “Damn it! I didn't get five of the songs that I think really have to be in the show”.

SJW, So, was it hard for you to let go of those songs?

BB, It was... and I still wasn’t sure even when I put them in the script for this new production, but when we started to get the show up on its feet with that new music, Gregory Nabors and I were like, “Oh my God! These songs work even better”, and so sometimes you just have to go through the development process to really understand that happy accidents really can grow the show.

SJW, Absolutely. I was wondering if you have reached out to Tim Burton, or anyone from the original movie to see your show?

BB, Because we were originally running in Los Angeles, which as you know is ‘Hollywood’, and the centre of that whole industry, we had many people from the film come to see the show. Ve Neill, who created the creature for Tim Burton, is now a consultant for our show and came to every production... she's obsessed. Anthony Michael Hall and many of the actors from the original movie also came, and they all came up to us afterwards and said, “This is a true love letter to the movie”, so we have a lot of fans from the Edward Scissorhands family that have seen the show, and they love it as much as we do.

SJW, It’s clear from what you have told me that everyone who comes to see your production of Scissorhandz is going to have a damn good toe-tapping time, but is there any other message that you are hoping a queer, or even a straight audience are going to be taking away from the show?

BB, Yes. The community in which this musical takes place is a very traditional community, and they obviously don't accept Scissorhandz for who they are... except for a few of them. The characters of Peg and Kim end up embracing Scissorhandz for exactly who they are, and I hope the audience will also walk away from this musical feeling and understanding that we all belong. We all deserve to be our one true self but we're at a moment in time in which it doesn't always feel possible. I'm hopeful that the day is coming when we can all stand in our own true light, and so let's just celebrate everyone in the theatre who comes to see this show for exactly who they are, whether they be gay, straight, bi, trans or non-binary. We all deserve to both feel and live in love.

 “ Step into the world of SCISSORHANDZ – a radical, raucous, joyful yet touching musical parody tribute to the ultimate outsider – produced by the iconic Michelle Visage and *NSYNC’s Lance Bass!

Leave your inhibitions at the door and get ready to find your new obsession as we celebrate Tim Burton’s beloved hero/weirdo with a phenomenal selection of your favourite 90s and 00s hits.

Scissorfans unite, because all weirdos* are welcome here!
*For the gals, guys, gays and theys (and everyone in between).

Let’s have a kiki!

Direct from a wildly successful run in LA. Produced by the iconic Michelle Visage, *NSYNC’s Lance Bass, Brian Pendleton, Kelley Parker and Directed by Bradley Bredeweg. “

Tickets: www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/scissorhandz/