Atlanta Is In the House: Adapting Working for a 2021 Audience

We chatted with Tamilla Woodard, the Director of our upcoming concertstyle reimagining of Working: A Musical, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, James Taylor, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and more. Take a look!

STORY BY Kathleen Covington

What drew you to want to direct a concert staging of Working: A Musical?

I wanted to tell the stories of the everyday people who keep a city going and to celebrate those folks who are often unseen, overlooked, or undervalued. We’ve been witnessing it for a year now — the folks who don’t have the luxury to work from home but make it possible for those of us who do. I wanted to use the theater as a way to acknowledge and say thank you to those whose collective labor is the very fabric of a city — of any community.

Why is this work important for audiences right now in this moment?

We need to gather right now. We need to gather around stories that remind us of our humanity, of the vitalness of our communities, of how we need each other even in the expressed conflict of our differences. The theater is one of the few places besides sporting events where people from all walks of life may find themselves in the same room, sitting next to perfect strangers leaning in and towards the same thing. In the theater, we can experience the full radius of our emotions in 90 minutes or two

hours or even 60 minutes or so and then go home and savor that communion for hours or many days more.

How will the Alliance's production of Working: A Musical be different from past versions of the work? (How might it be personalized for Atlanta?)

Oh man, all sorts of ways! First of all, ATLANTA IS IN THE HOUSE!! We have been working hard to collect the voices of Atlanta through contributed interviews of the good people who call Atlanta home. We’re talking to everyone from high school students to health care workers about what their work means to them and what the futures looks like to them. We asking Atlanta’s citizens to tell the extraordinary dreams they have for the communities they live and work in. Then we’re taking those very words and putting them into the show on stage every night. And not only that, we’re also asking Atlanta to sing along with us by contributing their recorded vocals to the opening and closing song. It’s a virtual community choir. AND — yes there is more!! — I am so excited for this — we are commissioning an original song created by a super special Atlanta artist and inspired by interviews from remarkable community organizers whose visions are reshaping Atlanta as we speak. This new song is going to be HOT! I can’t wait for you all to hear it.

What has it been like collaborating with Stephen Schwartz to respond to the world we're in today?

Stephen is — I mean — I don’t even know where to start. It’s freakin’ humbling to sit in the (virtual) room with one of the greatest lyrists and composers in ALL OF THE AMERICAN THEATER! Each meeting with him was an absolute master class in this form. And at the same time, he remains so deeply inquisitive of the process and collaborative and trusting as we made our way through the concept and how that would be reshaping the show. From changing lyrics to removing scenes and songs to replace with new interviews from Atlantans, he was always on board, asking questions that would inevitably strength the proposition, clarify, and inspire us forward. His guidance has been tremendous and confidence inspiring. Working is truly evergreen and this sort of modular reshaping and adaptation seems to be part of its DNA. Starting with Stephen himself who, along with Nina Faso, adapted it to the stage from Studs Terkel’s bestselling book of interview with American workers. Stephen adapted

it again in 1982 from its original Broadway premiere (1978) and since then Working has continued to evolve, including the addition of new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda in 2012 and a 2018 Encore series in NYC using unique interviews of the workers at the City Center. Working is truly a piece of art that is enduring and speaks across the ages.

Is there anything you can tell us about the new song?

This new song will honor the intrepid spirit of Atlanta, a city that is in a dynamic evolution. The new song will call to the shared future and also, we hope, make you wanna come up out of your seats and sing along.