By Beth Deitchman
It’s the “grandmother of all body-switching stories,” declares director Christopher Ashley of Freaky Friday, the beloved novel that chronicles a chaotic and dramatic Friday in which a mother and daughter wake up magically trapped in each other’s body and have to spend the day literally walking in the other person’s shoes. But make no mistake—this new musical, which recently opened at the La Jolla Playhouse (following a Fall 2016 East Coast run at the Signature Theatre in Virginia), is a brand-new, contemporary take on the iconic tale.
Like the 1976 and 2003 feature adaptations (as well as the 1995 ABC television movie), the musical Freaky Friday is based on Mary Rodgers’ 1972 novel. The new production, which was developed by Disney Theatrical Productions for licensing, boasts a book by acclaimed TV writer Bridget Carpenter (Parenthood, Friday Night Lights) and music by Pulitzer Prize and Tony® Award-winning duo Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey (Next to Normal, If/Then).
Freaky Friday has long been a passion project for Ashley, who also serves as Artistic Director for La Jolla Playhouse; he first directed an adaptation of Rodgers’ novel for children’s theater when he was 21. “It was the first show I ever directed,” he says. “I always loved how at the center of the original book, in this contentious relationship between mother and daughter, was that simultaneous wish, ‘I wish that you could understand what it is I go through every day.’” Ashley always felt the story was ripe for exploring on the stage. “I think this idea of being inside of someone’s head and understanding what it’s like inside their reality, musicals do really beautifully,” he opines.
The body-switching twist hinges upon magic, which in the new production happens by way of a pair of mystical hourglasses—a symbolic choice, Ashley explains. “We’re very playful with time. We’ll be in real time, and then the music will shift and some character will freeze and we’ll be in someone’s head and everything will go to half time,” Ashley says, “but the center of the magic is really in the acting.” There are two main characters in the story: mom Katherine and her daughter, Ellie, who are played by Heidi Blickenstaff and Emma Hunton, respectively—who also seamlessly play Ellie and Katherine following the switch. Sounds a little confusing, but according to Ashley, “Watching those two souls get swapped back and forth, you always know whose soul you’re looking at—even if the bodies are changing—because the acting is so specific and so bravura.”
Pulling off this theatrical feat requires incredible collaboration and incredible trust, Blickenstaff and Hunton tell D23… along with a little bit of dramatic larceny. “As actresses, we have done nothing but steal from each other. You can’t do this without doing that,” Blickenstaff laughs. From the earliest days of rehearsals, the two have leaned on each other; they’ve discussed how each character should walk, how they should move, how they should deliver lines. “Fundamentally I am very much like Katherine, the mother, and Emma is very much like Ellie, the daughter,” Blickenstaff says, “but we also have the other living inside us, which is interesting. For me, playing Ellie for 90 percent of the show is incredibly liberating, because Katherine [and I] are very Type-A, and Emma is incredibly the opposite. She’s a little bit like a lovable tornado—very much like Ellie.”
“In a show like this, where you have to live every day, all day, in such extraordinary circumstances, you have to have someone there to help bring you back down to reality,” Hunton explains. “There’s a gorgeous intro with all these horns and strings, and it’s very Disney and it’s very Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey,” she says, “and I have to go out there alone for, like, five seconds before Heidi joins me and that’s scary. [During previews] I looked at her and said, ‘You know when you get to the top of a roller coaster and you want to back out all of a sudden?’ and Heidi just said, ‘It’s OK—I’ve got you.’”
The story and the music are so emotional that not only do both actresses feel like they’ve been on a roller coaster throughout each performance, director Chris Ashley has picked up on it as well, they confess. “We get notes all the time not to cry as much as we do,” Hunton shares, and Blickenstaff states unequivocally that is impossible. “I want [Chris] to get up there and try to get through it! It’s a cry-fest—it’s a love/cry-fest,” she laughs.
The heartfelt emotion is due in no small part to the music. “Tom is so tuneful and Brian writes lyrics with such wit and heart. They created a score that comfortably lives in the very contemporary teenage high school world and can also capture the world of the mother on the day before her wedding—her whole work life and emotional life,” Ashley says.
Blickenstaff and Hunton have both appeared in productions of Next to Normal, and love the challenges and opportunities that come with singing the female roles Kitt and Yorkey are so adept at writing for. Blickenstaff is amused by friends who thought it was “cute” that she was cast in Freaky Friday. “This is the hardest role I’ve ever played in my life, and I’ve played Diana in Next to Normal!” she tells them, and adds, “It’s vocally a feat, but emotionally it’s something, too. It’s a journey.”
Veteran TV writer Bridget Carpenter, who wrote the musical’s book, is best known for the series Parenthood and Friday Night Lights. “She just has a monster skill set and talent for telling contemporary stories about parents and their kids, and what’s funny and what’s true,” Ashley stresses.
Freaky Friday marks the third Disney Theatrical production to be staged at La Jolla Playhouse, which hosted the U.S. premiere of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 2014, as well as a “Page to Stage” workshop of Peter and the Starcatcher before its Tony-winning Broadway run. Ashley says, “Disney is the Cadillac of producing partners, and [Disney Theatrical Productions President] Tom Schumacher is one of the very few people who, when you go into a meeting about a play, you walk out with a whole new understanding about your story and how to tell it.”
The stars are also longtime fans of Disney storytelling. “Disney has always been part of my life,” Hunton says, from watching her VHS copy of Beauty and the Beast four times back to back, to crying at the opening score of Hunchback during its La Jolla engagement. Blickenstaff has played Ursula on Broadway in The Little Mermaid—and performed at D23 Expo in 2013—and recalls, “When I was a kid I was obsessed with two things: all things Broadway and all things Disney. And when I was lucky enough to marry my Disney love with my Broadway love, I really felt like I had won the lottery.”
Freaky Friday’s engagement at La Jolla Playhouse has been extended through March 19, 2017. Give a listen now to the song “No More Fear” to hear Emma Hunton (singing as Ellie… singing as Katherine!), and join us this Sunday, February 19, for D23 Member Night at Freaky Friday.
