It confused critics and galvanized audiences almost 50 years ago. Now, “I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road” is coming to Cleveland for three performances, produced by the Musical Theater Project.
“It was our journey,” said co-writer Gretchen Cryer. “We went from that ‘50s sensibility and then moved through the whole upheaval of the ‘60s and into the ‘70s and suddenly we all were in new territory. And we wanted to write about that subject.”
Cryer worked with her longtime composing partner, Nancy Ford, on the show as their marriages were splitting up. Ford remarried and later won two Emmys, while Cryer forged ahead as a writer-performer and single mom to her son, Emmy winner Jon Cryer. In 1978, though, when their new show opened off-Broadway, critics weren’t impressed by the story of a 39-year-old nightclub singer who was re-writing her songs - and her future.
“The original reaction in New York was not good,” Cryer said. “All of the reviewers really didn't like it a lot. And they didn't know it was funny; that's the crazy part. It was making fun of male chauvinism at that time. The character of the manager is a typical guy, you know, a macho guy of the time. And he had his ideas about the place of a woman and what a woman should be.”
“I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road” found many influential fans. Gloria Steinem reportedly brought her editors from Ms. magazine to see the show several times. The classic sketch comedy show “SCTV” created a parody starring Andrea Martin and Catherine O’Hara. “Saturday Night Live” even produced an homage, “Stretch Marks.”
“I remember going out with Gilda Radner after one of the shows,” Cryer said. “She said that there's one number in the show, ‘Dear Tom,’ in which the woman character talks about having gotten divorced. That she had become infantile in her marriage… having become a ‘lunatic child’ when she was married; talking baby talk. And I remember Gilda said, ‘I’m a lunatic child; that’s what I do.’”
Still, filling seats was a struggle until legendary producer Joseph Papp had an idea: Have the cast participate in talkback sessions.
“The audience would stay and start asking us questions,” Cryer said. “Because it was an inflammatory subject at that time, people started arguing in the audience with each other. Couples who came would argue with each other, and then they would argue with us. And so, it became an electric situation.”
Audiences can expect the same weekend. Carol Lasser, emerita professor of history at Oberlin College, will moderate the talkback sessions at Dobama Theatre, a space that’s very similar to where the play premiered almost 50 years ago. Cryer and Ford, both 89, will be there, too.
“I think it's not hyperbolic for me to say this show is iconic,” said Bill Rudman, co-founder and artistic director of the Musical Theater Project. “I brought them into Cleveland eight years ago to do what we call a ‘docu-concert’ that would focus on their entire body of work in two hours. They co-hosted it with me and it sold out.”
The production at Dobama stars Natalie Green and Chris Richards. Oberlin’s Anjanette Hall directs and Nancy Maier is musical director for a five-piece group and two backup singers performing the Grammy-nominated score. Rudman wanted the production’s sound and look to reflect the show’s 1978 origins. Yet he said the message and sexual politics are universal - and timely.
“Not that it ever became untimely, but it's become timely in new ways - and in ways that are a bit disturbing, at least to me, politically,” he said. “In Project 2025, the term ‘patriarchal society’ is right in there. And that, for me, is a real potential step backwards.”
Although the Dobama shows are sold out, Rudman will interview Cryer and Ford for a three-hour audio documentary, to air as part of his nationally syndicated show, “Footlight Parade,” which airs on WCLV.
