JOE ICONIS: TAKING THE RIDE - Interview
Composer, lyricist and book writer Joe Iconis talks to dramaturg Shirley Fishman about his fascination with musical theatre and the subject of his new musical, Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson
SF: You’ve written a number of musicals, including Love in Hate Nation and Be More Chill, for which you received a Tony nomination for Best Musical Score in 2019. How did you get into musical theatre?
JI: For my sixth birthday, my father took me to see my first musical – Little Shop of Horrors. I was immediately hooked on musical theatre, the idea of being in a room with other people watching the story unfold, and music being part of that story. At the end of the of the show, these giant vines fell from the top of stage onto the audience; I’ve always felt that those vines zapped the love of theatre into me.
SF: How did your passion for musicals grow from there?
JI: For every birthday or holiday, my gift was always to see a show. My grandparents had a piano in their house, but no one ever played it. When my family moved to Long Island, they gave us the piano. I was about eight years old when my parents said, “We have this piano, Joseph should take piano lessons.”
I took lessons — but I really didn't like them. As I was attempting to play, I was also seeing shows. I’d come home and start picking out tunes on the piano by ear. The deeper I got into musicals the more I found myself playing songs, without fully understanding what I was doing or how. By the time I was ten or eleven, I was getting really good, just from improvising. I'd go to the library and take out whatever books they had about musicals, and I began to realize there were people who wrote musicals. I thought, “That’s what I want to do. I want to write musicals.”
SF: You were so young, how did you go about doing that?
JI: I had done some acting in summer programs and camp stuff. At that age, the only way you could really participate in theatre was to be in it. I wasn't good at it, and I knew it. I had terrible stage fright, but I loved being part of it. That’s when it sank in that I might be a person who makes shows, rather than being in them. Throughout high school, I musical directed shows and participated in that way.
After I graduated, I went to New York University as a music composition major. The program was very classically geared, mostly instrumental music and some film scoring. All the while I was thinking, “I want to learn how to write musical theatre.”
I worked with a composition teacher at NYU named Dr. Steven Rosenhaus, who taught me the nuts and bolts of songwriting. But I was still only writing music. Dr. Rosenhaus said, “If you're writing theater, you need words. You have two choices — either try to write the words yourself or find a collaborator.” At the time, I was very introverted. So, out of necessity, I started writing my own lyrics. By the time I graduated, the lyrics had become just as important to me as the music, and I started finding my voice.
SF: When did you first encounter Hunter Thompson?
JI: I was a film buff and excited to see Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, starring Johnny Depp, directed by Terry Gilliam, one of my favorite directors. I knew who Hunter Thompson was, had read little bits of his writing, but had never fully read a book of his.
SF: What struck you about the film?
JI: The movie is different from the book for sure, but I wasn't used to experiencing a film, book, TV show or a play so artfully conceptual. The movie felt like a wash of ideas, tone and symbols, as opposed to a narrative driven by the wants and desires of one character. I thought it was poetic in a way that I wasn't used to, especially since the content felt so “sex, drugs and rock-and-roll.”
SF: Was that when you started reading Thompson’s books?
JI: I remember reading his Kentucky Derby article. Then I read Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72. I knew about the formation of Gonzo, but I never really turned into a Hunter S. Thompson obsessive.
SF: You say you weren’t obsessed, but recently I heard you say that you found him fascinating.
JI: I loved watching him be interviewed on late night TV. I was intrigued by him as a character.
SF: He was complex — a lover of drugs and guns with an outlaw persona that he created, but there was another side to Hunter Thompson — a serious writer with a moral compass like no other.
JI: Yes, and the more I read about him, the more enthralled I became. He was so mysterious; he seemed impossible to pin down.
SF: How did you go about doing that?
JI: I was excited to try to put this person at the center of a musical and use the form, not necessarily to get to the bottom of Hunter Thompson, but to explore what he meant to the people in his life, the larger world and to himself.
SF: Did you say to yourself, “I'm going to write a song as alive, present and in the moment as Hunter Thompson wrote?”
JI: Yes, a hundred percent. His writing was like music to me. I wanted to try to capture the active experience of creating the Kentucky Derby through music, lyrics and theatre.
SF: The 60s and 70s, when Thompson was at his writing peak, were politically, socially and culturally so fraught and turbulent. How did you decide which moments to capture for the show?
JI: Hunter intersected the culture at exactly the right moment. The collision of politics, counterculture and rock-and-roll made him. His writing style, what he wrote about, and how it affected the culture felt like a piece of live performance to me.
The pieces of writing he’s most known for happen to be the pieces many consider his greatest accomplishments. I wanted to investigate his persona, the moments that led to his artistic breakthroughs, how they affected his personal and professional relationships, and the aftermath. They became my guideposts for the story of this musical.
SF: How did Chris Ashley get involved?
JI: I had been a fan of his, specifically because of his Rocky Horror revival. I loved it so much, I saw it many times. I was completely enamored with him as a director. In 2007, I was doing a series of concerts with my gang at the West Bank Cafe in New York City. I invited Chris to come see one of them. The next day we went to breakfast, and he told me he had become Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse. He asked if I had any musicals I was thinking about writing. I told him that Hunter Thompson had been on my mind a lot, and I thought he'd be a really interesting central character for a musical. In 2008, I got a call from the Playhouse saying they wanted to commission me to write it.
SF: When did you have a complete draft ready for a workshop?
JI: It took a while. The first proper reading was in September, 2015. I spent the first half of the pandemic rewriting the script and having Zoom sessions with Chris. We didn’t have another reading with actors and the creative team in a room together until August, 2022.
SF: How far away are you now, from your initial ideas and impulses about the show?
JI: I'm close to some and far away from others – but in a great way. I love how many of my initial impulses are present on stage. I think that at opening night the show will be one I could never have written in 2007.
SF: In what way?
JI: I’d like to think that I've grown as a writer. Being older has given me a perspective I didn't have when I first conceived the show. Living as an artist has really changed me and made me understand Hunter as a man on a much deeper level. And the world has changed so much.
SF: In the weeks to come during rehearsals and in previews with audiences, what do you hope to learn?
JI: I'm someone who passionately loves actors. There's nothing I love more than wrapping a role around an actor. I so appreciate that Chris shares the same passion, and the Playhouse fosters the kind of environment I love creating in. Even though it's about Hunter Thompson, the show is so ensemble-driven that it's about all of the human beings on stage. That sense of community is something that you can't fake. I've spent so much time writing by myself, there's no substitute for being in a room with 10 to 20 people who are all offering their energy and ideas. Every time we’ve been able to be in a room together the show has grown. As for rehearsals, I just want to keep being open and keep allowing this show to become more and more itself. So, to answer your question, I just want to keep working on it.
