From a Tiny Room to Australia: This Is Why We Make Theater

By Ken Davenport

Eight years ago, I got a phone call.

“Do you like Neil Diamond?”

My answer came before the question was even finished.

Hell. Yeah.

A few months later, I was sitting in a tiny room at Ripley Grier Studios with Michael Mayer, Sonny Paladino, and Anthony McCarten. We were playing songs. Reading draft scenes. Talking about what a Neil Diamond musical could actually be. It was the kind of room where things either quietly die . . . or slowly become something.

Last weekend, I found out exactly what that room became.

From Ripley Grier to Australia

A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical just had its Australian premiere. After Broadway. After two years on the road. The show that started with a phone call and four people crowded around a piano made it to the other side of the world.

I was there to see it.

And so were Michael, Sonny, and Anthony. The people who were in that room eight years ago, standing together in Australia, watching something we built open in front of a whole new audience. There are very few moments in this business that feel like that.

(I wrote about why Australia was always the right first stop for this show. You can read that here.)

“Sparkly Neil Diamond”

Leading the Australian company is Will Swenson, the actor who created the role on Broadway and who my daughter has permanently renamed “sparkly Neil Diamond.” (She’s not wrong.) Watching Will bring this show to a new country, in front of an audience discovering it for the first time . . . it’s something I’ll carry for a long time.

The People Who Make It Possible

None of this happens without the right collaborators. Producer Paul Dainty (who spent years presenting Neil’s concerts in Australia) brought the show home in a way only he could. My partner Bob Gaudio (Jersey Boy himself) was there. And Neil Diamond and his wife Katie trusted us to build something worthy of his music and his life.

I am so grateful to all of them. And to the incredible Aussie cast and crew who brought it to life night after night.

Australia is just the beginning . . . and the show that keeps on bah, bah, bah-ing is going to keep going.

What I Want You to Take From This

I’m not writing this just to celebrate. I am celebrating. But there’s something else.

Somewhere right now, there is a theatermaker sitting in a small rehearsal room who has no idea what that room is going to become. Eight years is a long time. There are a hundred moments along the way where something like this almost doesn’t happen. And then one weekend, you’re standing at the back of a packed house in Australia watching an audience discover something you made – and you remember exactly why you do this.

That’s theatermaking, folks.

If you’re in a small room today, imagine what could happen. And if you’re not in one yet . . . what are you waiting for?

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To read my other updates on A Beautiful Noise through the years, browse the library below: