A conversation between Johnny and June director/co-writer Des McAnuff, co-writer Robert Cary and Director of Artistic Development Gabriel Greene.

GG: How did you both become involved in The Ballad of Johnny and June?

DM: When I was approached to do this show [by the Cash estate], I went to Nashville to meet with [Johnny and June’s son] John Carter and we bonded instantly. The Playhouse connection is that his dad was close friends with Roger Miller, who wrote the songs for Big River, the adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that we did in 1984. That was Johnny Cash’s favorite Broadway musical. As soon as I came home, I made what I considered to be the obvious call, and that was to Rob Cary. We’ve collaborated on several projects, and while I don’t necessarily think of Rob as a “country cowboy,” he has an ability to master all genres.

RC: Des and I had enjoyed working together so much in the past, and it was exciting to find something that we were both passionate about. What appealed to me about this show was – because of the kind of music Johnny and June sang and because of the nature of their relationship – this was something that felt very intimate, with a very human, beating heart. 

GG: What was your way in to this story? 

DM: The idea of making it a story about Johnny and June’s lives together came from both of us; we felt very strongly that that’s the way to do it.

RC: As much as there is known about June herself, there seemed to be greater depths that we could explore. There’s a lot of fascinating contradictions and complexity and humanity that exists in the love story, but also exists very much apart from Johnny. June brought with her such a tremendous history and presence that it felt like we could really tell a compelling story with it. 

GG: How involved has the Cash family been in the development of this work?

DM: John Carter has been our primary partner on this. He’s been tremendously helpful, because he’s not using this as a promotional tool for the Cash estate. He doesn’t want the romanticized fairy tale; he insisted we dig into the truth about his family. 

RC: One of the great things about John Carter is he really does understand that the most important thing is to see his parents as human beings. Their art will speak for itself, and his position as their child speaks for itself in the show. But he understands that seeing them as actual people and not as just icons is the way to tell an honest story. The way he approached it was, “why tell the story if it’s not honest?” – which is not always the experience you have in these kinds of situations.

DM: Drama comes from conflict and, to a large extent, from pain. John Carter was very forthcoming and essentially gave us license to open a vein. 

RC: The joy of writing this show has been to try to see everybody as a full human being, not just a protagonist or an antagonist. It’s about exploring what is antagonistic within ourselves as we take our hero’s journey.

GG: How did you aim to distinguish this from other versions of their story, such as the 2005 film, Walk the Line?

DM: I think the movie is meant to be a kind of fairytale, and the basic thrust is that June saves Johnny. The movie did what it did perfectly well – it wasn’t intended to be a documentary, and the performances were terrific. But John Carter made it very clear that that was not the whole story. The Ballad of Johnny and June is a dark story, but it’s ultimately extremely moving and uplifting because of the demons that they conquer together.

RC: An oft-heard phrase around addiction is “let it begin with me,” which means we’re all ultimately only able to help, or save, ourselves. What I find most moving about this story is that it’s not a narrative of a person coming into a troubled person’s life and teaching that person how to get their life together, because that’s not the way it works. It’s really that they abide; they go through the journey of being flawed human beings, and they stay together through that. 

DM: Johnny and June were like a royal couple. There was almost an inevitability to this marriage. You have the Carters — the family that took country music, with its roots going back to West African instruments, Black music, and Appalachian music, and brought it into the modern era; and then you have Johnny, the reigning prince and heir apparent. It was a baton that was passed to him. In other words, it wasn’t just a personal romance; they saw themselves as having a responsibility as a couple. With some couples, that could drive them apart. But with Johnny and June, it was one of the things that really bonded them.

RC: Lots of music genres have artists who are deeply connected to their audience, but country musicians feel responsible to their audience. Not just to giving their audience a great show, but also giving them an authentic piece of themselves. Johnny and June felt that obligation, and sometimes it was a burden, but for the most part they thought of it as a great honor. Not as a profit motive, but as a higher calling. They both were also people of deep, abiding faith.

DM: Think of the challenges they took on at the time: they’re running a major national television variety show. They have a newborn baby and they’re touring and they’re recording songs. Most marriages would crumble under that kind of pressure, and ultimately it seemed to just reinforce them and reinforce their bond.

GG: What can audiences expect on stage? 

RC: What I love about the show is the idea that it’s constantly in motion – we’re going through their lives using the music. It’s the joy of seeing some songs performed as they might be performed at the Grand Ole Opry, and other songs are a part of our interior story, getting us to the next destination. Even our set is meant to resemble a train car, because Johnny had a long-standing relationship with songs about the railroad. 

DM: To Rob’s point, it goes back to “Hey Porter” in the beginnings of Johnny’s career and kind of carries on from there. I think it does have real resonance, and it creates the foundation for this journey. When country music was born – the ‘20s, the ‘30s – we were in the Great Depression and Prohibition for a large part of that. Johnny and June both understood hard times, and I think that gives our story a kind of soul. This show is actually high velocity, but it’s also quite simple and very close to the audience. It has a kind of honesty, this piece; there’s not a lot of artifice. It’s got a lot of flesh on the bone and there’s not a lot of accoutrements. 

RC: From an early stage, I said this project is “Des Unplugged,” because it does have this kind of acoustic, very human, very present feel. Johnny and June were sophisticated artists, but they were also straightforward and simple, and I hope the show captures that.

DM: That’s a really great point. There were contradictions in them. I suppose that’s one of the things that makes them so stage worthy. This is, I dare say, an important story to take on: these two iconic figures that people think they know so well, and then we discover there are passageways and corridors that they went down that most people are just oblivious to. The depth of his addiction is mind-blowing, and the fact that they got through that and then got through her challenges and John Carter’s, it’s an amazing American story.

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