Caro Meets Music Interview Musicals & Opera Interview

Benjamin Scheuer: The Lion

By TW Editorial | Published on Thursday 14 August 2014

New Yorker Benjamin Scheuer is the writer and star of ‘The Lion’, a musical featuring one man, six guitars, and a story of love, loss and survival that had its UK premiere at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe under the name ‘The Bridge’.

Scheuer has recently finished a season off Broadway, and brings the show to the capital this month for a number of dates at the St James Studio. I put some questions to him ahead of his London run.

CM: What gave you the idea for creating the ‘The Lion’?
BS: With my band Escapist Papers, I recorded an album called ‘The Bridge’. And I was performing songs from this album in coffee shops around NYC. I wanted to know what I was going to say between songs, so I wrote a script (and then, eventually, 16 new songs). ‘The Lion’ is the true story of my family. In 67 minutes. With better light design.

CM: The show was dubbed “the best new musical of 2014” during its off-Broadway run. Do you think of the show as musical theatre or would you describe it differently?
BS: Musical theatre is a genre that’s ripe for change; ‘The Lion’ certainly is a musical, in that it uses song to further the active story of a character on a journey. The songs, in their ‘theatrical context’, are ‘dramatic’; outside their theatrical context they function as pop songs. It’s important to me for the songs to feel relevant outside the realm of theatre.

CM: The show premiered last year at the Edinburgh Festival – has the show changed or developed since then? It was called ‘The Bridge’, then, wasn’t it? Why did you change the title?
BS: Sean Daniels, the director of the show, is a creative force of nature. Since Edinburgh 2013, we’ve worked together to add five new songs, new scenes, better jokes, and four more guitars to the show. And we have better costumes. Kirk Miller, of Miller’s Oath in NYC, made the clothes I wear on stage. Along the way we discovered that the show asks the question “What makes a lion a lion?”, hence the new name. (Also, it’s easier for people to get me stuffed-animal-lions to put in my dressing room. Stuffed-animal-bridges are harder to come by.)

CM: You recorded some of the songs used in the show with your band for an album that came out earlier this year. Did working on the tracks with other people have any impact on the way you perform them in the show?
BS: Working with others is always an influence. Geoff Kraly, my record producer, also plays in my band Escapist Papers. He’s a tremendous songwriter in his own right; he plays in a band called Paris Monster with drummer/singer Josh Dion. I’m lucky to be part of a great community of artists, all of whom have a great influence on my work. A one-man show takes a whole lot of people.

CM: You have also written more conventional musical theatre shows, how does writing these shows compare to more conventional songwriting?
BS: Sometimes “conventions” are things we do because they work; like using perfect rhyme in a song, that’s a good idea. Sometimes “conventions” are things we do because we’ve always done them. Doing things simply because we’ve always done them is a bad idea. I like to ask questions, to always try something new, something that feels strange and un-workable.

CM: Your career has crossed the worlds of music and theatre, do you feel more at home in one more than the other?
BS: I love spending time in the recording studio, playing with microphones, and computers, and crafting words out of sound. The theatre is a fantastic world for creativity and excitement: lights and a set and costumes and “that-person-sitting-three-seats-away-is-attractive…” I like to use each medium for that which it has to offer. Theatre is so immediate, and each member of each audience makes every performance different. It’s wonderful to be influenced by, and stay connected to the audience. Thus, connect with me on Twitter.

CM: The title track to The Lion was made into an award winning animation by Peter Baynton – how did that collaboration come about? 
BS: Peter Baynton, what a brilliant man. He and I just released our second animated video, for ‘Cookie-tin Banjo’, the opening number of ‘The Lion’. This video is water-colour-paintings come to life, with paintings by the fantastic Nicholas Stevenson. Check out the video here.

CM: What’s next for you and ‘The Lion’? 
BS: First up there is ‘Between Two Spaces’, an art book that I made with photographer Riya Lerner. It tells the exact same story as the music video for ‘The Lion’ and the book is for sale here to raise money for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society. I’ve also been in the recording studio making the record ‘Songs From The Lion’, with Geoff Kraly, my long-time record producer. And the song ‘Weather The Storm’ will certainly be a single with another animated video from Peter Baynton.

CM: What other projects do you have in the pipeline?
BS: I’m playing four UK concerts, opening for Mary Chapin Carpenter, starting 29 September at the Royal Albert Hall.

‘The Lion’ is on at the St James Studio from 19 Aug until 7 Sep. See the venue website for more info and tickets.

LINKS: www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/ | www.benjaminscheuer.com/ | twitter.com/benjaminscheuer