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58 Open Book 59 Bears, Oars, Metaphors 60 Cinema with Gravitas 61 Off the Shelf 62 Chapter & Verse 63 Ensnared

The big production number “What You Want,” from the London production of Legally Blonde of the 2001 Reese Witherspoon film. Their production opened in 2007, ran for 595 performances on Broadway (and thousands more worldwide), and earned Benjamin and O’Keefe a Tony nomination for best original score. With Kevin Murphy, O’Keefe wrote the musi- cal Heathers, based on the 1988 film. It premiered off-Broadway this April and earned its authors a Dra- Laughter and Lyrics­­—Legally ma Desk Awards nomination for outstanding music. Benjamin was Musicals by Benjamin and O’Keefe excite Broadway. busy working with Tina Fey at the same time on a musical version by Dick Friedman of Fey’s 2004 filmMean Girls. “Our competing, terrifying, high-school retty much any Broadway produc- the Throne) to a coveted Broadway niche as musicals,” she says. In July the couple er would take a call from us if we musical composers and playwrights. They mounted a cabaret show, The Songs of Nell had an idea,” says Laurence O’Keefe. are on a short list of those who can reliably Benjamin and/or Laurence O’Keefe, at Manhat- ““Of P course, it might be a short call.” deliver accessible, clever, high-energy (and tan’s 54 Below supper club. “Yeah,” says Nell Benjamin. She imagines a sometimes high-decibel) productions. And that opera about Stalin? In 2012 pitch. “ ‘We’d like to write an opera about “We like to write fast-moving shows in Benjamin and O’Keefe introduced a small-

l Stalin.’ ‘Well...thanks, Larry and Nell!’ ” which the plot changes during the songs,” scale production of Life of the Party. Set in They both laugh. Partners in art and says O’Keefe. the Soviet Union in 1953 and chronicling ction of of ction life (married in 2001) since they met at “We don’t feed you the clues about how the making of a socialist-realism movie Harvard during auditions for the im- you’re supposed to feel,” Benjamin says. musical, it’s a tragedy with a heavy dose onde musica —the l prov group On Thin Ice, Benjamin ’93 “Catch up with us. Come on the ride with of black comedy. The score resounds with y b

ll and O’Keefe ’91 have gone from writing us.” Their biggest success to date is the grand opera, old-fashioned adventure mu- u Kingdom prod United Lega Hasty Pudding shows (1993’s Romancing sprightly Legally Blonde, the musical version sic, and dead-on socialist-realism prattle:

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“Our progress is extraordinary/Our cast unlikely recent cult successes: Bat Boy: show music. From the opening number— and crew energetic./ They do all that’s nec- The Musical. That venture grew out of su- “Hold Me, Bat Boy!”—which wouldn’t essary/To form a unified aesthetic.” permarket tabloid story alleging the dis- be out of place on a Led Zeppelin , In 2001, O’Keefe revealed his protean covery of a cave-dwelling humanoid who he runs through a cornucopia of musical talents in the music and lyrics for what escapes into civilization. O’Keefe turned idioms. He has gleefully pleaded guilty to became one of the theater world’s most the premise into an affectionate sendup of borrowing from, among others, , ’39, D.Mus. ’67, , , Alan Jay How to make sense of the U.S. Su- Lerner ’40 and Frederic Loewe, Gilbert o p e n b o o k preme Court? “Judicial opinions…can and Sullivan, plus the rock world’s Bad defy easy comprehension,” write Loeb Company, Boston, and Queen. “My musi- University Professor Laurence Tribe, cal influences. I’ve been stealing from them The Brink of who often argues cases there, and ever since college,” he says cheerfully. “You Joshua Matz, J.D. ’12, in Uncertain Jus- might hear a chord from , but tice: The Roberts Court and the Constitu- Bernstein stole that from Petrushka....When Revolution tion (Henry Holt, $32). “It doesn’t help [in Bat Boy] it was time to show the simple that in controversial cases, the Court townsfolk of West Virginia, there’ll be a frequently erupts in a confusing cacophony of competing writings. Nor do its opinions country sound. When it was time for the always offer a comprehensive and transparent view of the Court; sometimes they are terrible dark secret from the past to erupt, downright misleading.” They attempt to deal with the uncertainties. From the prologue: you’ll get grand opera. So content dictates form.” H. L. Mencken reputedly But he constantly strives for a said, “For every complex twist. “You can have a song with problem, there is a solu- a very traditional harmonic struc- tion that is simple, neat, and ture and a very traditional melody,” wrong.” O’Keefe explains. “Put a weird tim- Understanding the Supreme bre on it and a cool new beat, and Court undoubtedly qualifies as you have a brand new sound....The a “complex problem.” The nine novelty itself sparks a new kind of justices currently issue more emotion. Nell keeps me honest.” than 70 opinions every year, And vice versa: they amiably finish some of them thunderbolts that each other’s thoughts and punch rock American life and others lines, aided by what Benjamin la- rightly destined for obscurity. bels their “shorthand.” With a hand in nearly every Both grew up close to the New

major issue of our time, from k York City theater scene. After col-

privacy and affirmative action istoc lege they worked for 10 years in to gun rights and health care, the Court is with fundamental principles, argue over Hollywood on sitcoms and TV movies, inescapable. Yet it is also mysterious and what the Constitution means and what then moved back to Broadway. Along the secretive, committed to rituals and reason- role they should play in giving it life, and way they had to learn to lose some of the ing that even experts struggle to under- offer signals of where they are heading. trappings of their Harvard fields of concen- stand. Its opinions are poked and prodded, These opinions open a window into the tration, English (hers) and social anthro- examined under a microscope and held up justices’ hearts and minds, giving us a pology (his). “It was weird for us to realize to the light. The public hangs on to rumors glimpse of how they view the world.… that words come last,” recalls O’Keefe. “We of backroom drama, while scholars read In some important domains of consti- were told, ‘Yeah, thanks for the five-minute tea leaves and prophesy the future. Clear tutional law, a majority of the Roberts patter song with a thousand syllables...au- trends predominate in certain areas of law, Court stands on the brink of revolution diences aren’t gonna like that.’ ” but efforts to develop a unified field theory yet seems profoundly uncertain about The need to discard also came into of the Court…inevitably fall short. Even in whether and how to proceed. In other play on Legally Blonde, says Benjamin: “At this age of statistical models that seek to domains, it has already initiated major one point we wrote a rather ingenious wring hidden meaning out of human behav- changes whose long-term effects are song about passing the LSATs. It was very ior, the nine men and women who make clouded in mystery. Some of these devel- well-crafted...and [everyone was] totally up the Court intrigue and surprise us.… opments reflect a desire by the justices uninterested.” As they compose in their Of course, an effort to understand the to remake our constitutional under- Manhattan apartment, where they live Roberts Court…must reckon with more standing, while others have been forced with their 20-month-old daughter, Perse- than just its results. The Court issues by dramatic cultural, technological, and phone, the couple tolerate each other’s opinions in which the justices grapple political upheaval. meddling—usually. “If I’m working on a lyric that doesn’t have music yet, and he’s

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(Right) Two scenes from Benjamin and O’Keefe’s improbable musical Life of the Party, set in the Stalin­­ist USSR of 1953. (Far right) The creative couple working on different mu- sic, I have to be in another room,” says Benjamin. “Otherwise my lyric will scan to whatever’s com- ing out of the room next to me.” “Either one of us might propose a lyric,” says O’Keefe. “The tunes can come from either of us. The job of polishing the music usually falls to me. We don’t write the lyric first and then the music. We write the first verse of you want, what you want, what you want is the lyric and maybe the first chorus of the right in front of you!’ That’s what they’ll lyric, then turn it into music...which changes remember.” The finished number be- the lyric. We go back and write the second came a show-stopping centerpiece eefe k ’ verse and second chorus. I might say, ‘OK, while meeting O’Keefe’s top criterion: You have eight syllables, then three...can “Try to start a song with a bang or a rence O u

a we make it more like six and two, because surprise and then end with a bang or I have a cool melody which you’re suggest- a surprise.” ing.’ It literally bounces back and forth, very Producers can expect many more fast...music/lyric, music/lyric.” ‘Where’s the chorus?’ It needs a chorus! calls from the team. “We have a backlog of

ell Benjamin and L Consider “What You Want” from Le- You have thousands of ideas bouncing off 10 to 20 ideas that we love,” O’Keefe says. gally Blonde. “I didn’t know the tune yet,” each other and now we need a moment “We’re trying to build a larger tent to con-

rtesy of N says Benjamin, “but I knew the scansion.” that’s repetitive, memorable, and wit- tain the things we want to talk and sing u o

C O’Keefe adds, “When I heard it, I said, less—as a break from all the wit. ‘What about.”

tional Book Award; one novella; and a raft Bears, Oars, Metaphors of nonfiction that culminates in this year’s two-book salvo. John Casey explores woods and stories. Their author is an unusual athlete. Though it involves some bona fide sports, hile studying with Kurt my life is writing and reading, one-third is Room for Improvement narrates an astonish- Vonnegut at the Iowa getting outdoors, and one-third is…just life.” ing collection of what might be called ad- Writers’ Workshop in the The “just life” part includes his three ventures. At age 30, for example, he and his W late 1960s, John Casey ’61, marriages and four daughters. The rest wife lived four years on an island in Nar- LL.B. ’65, enjoyed quite a range of experi- of Casey’s trifecta shines in a pair of new ragansett Bay in a house without electric- ences. A neighboring farmer taught him to books. Room for Improvement: A Life in Sport ity, furnace, or telephone. One night there, castrate pigs; the next day in class he was describes the wild outdoor adventures Casey, rowing a skiff, guided a lost, and reading Proust. Such contrasts were hardly he has pursued across more than 50 years probably drunk, stranger’s yacht through a shock to the budding author. As a boy, he’d as an “adrenaline junkie.” Beyond the First two miles of rocky water to a marina. stayed in the New Hampshire woods with Draft: The Art of Fiction is crammed with On his fiftieth birthday, he celebrated by his Uncle Charlie, who taught his nephews stories and ruminations on creative writ- walking 50 kilometers through the Blue to fish, hunt, and cross-country ski. Young ing, a subject Casey (johndcasey.com) has Ridge Mountains from midnight to eight Casey also frequented Paris, home to his taught at the University of Virginia since a.m. in January. Casey acknowledges the Uncle Drew, a highly cultured gay man and 1972. He knows the craft intimately, hav- appeal of several popular incentives for denizen of the Left Bank who, with two of ing published five novels, includingSpar - athletic exploits: health, vanity, mastery, his equally cosmopolitan friends, took the tina, a summer saga of a coastal Rhode Is- playfulness, and the siren song of endor- boy around the City of Light. ”Then it was land “swamp Yankee” and his adventures phins. In addition, “I wouldn’t write if I back to the woods,” he says. Now, at 75, spearing swordfish, building a boat, and didn’t read a lot,” he notes in Room’s pref- Casey proffers a concise bio: “One-third of dealing with love, which won the 1989 Na- ace. “I also wouldn’t write if I didn’t get

Harvard Magazine 59 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746