Musical-Making Couple: Turn of the Screw
Matt Conner and Stephen Gregory Smith bring "Turn of the Screw" to musical life
“Like most disgusting married couples, we like all the same things,” Stephen Gregory Smith says. “We tend to gravitate toward the same material, toward the same manner of storytelling.”
Smith and his husband Matt Conner are increasingly telling stories together. Both local actors, the couple first teamed up to create a new musical a few years ago: a zombie-less adaptation of the 1968 cult horror film Night of the Living Dead. Now comes their second collaboration, a musical adaptation of Henry James’s gothic classic The Turn of the Screw, about a sensitive young governess caring for two troubled orphans. Smith notes that it “has all the elements of Downton Abbey but with just a little bit of supernatural and psychological terror.”
Virginia’s Creative Cauldron is giving the musical, featuring music by Conner and book and lyrics by Smith, a grand world premiere with a superb cast led by Signature Theatre standouts Sherri Edelen and Susan Derry. “We’re very excited about our cast,” Conner says. “Definitely worth the ticket price.
Later this year, Conner and Smith will premiere another new musical, a holiday-themed Silver Bells (featuring a book by Allyson Currin) that Conner calls “Golden Girls meets Sordid Lives.” The two will also appear as actors in the dark musical comedy The Fix. Both shows will be at Signature Theatre, the company nearest and dearest to the couple, whose wedding reception was held at the Shirlington complex in 2013.
The two are also closely tied to Creative Cauldron, where they are teaching artists. It was Laura Connors Hull, the emerging company’s founder, who suggested the two adapt The Turn of the Screw. “It would be very easy to do a safer show,” Smiths says. “For a smaller theater, especially, to take such a chance on a world premiere is very bold and very brave.” — Doug Rule
The Turn of the Screw runs to Feb. 22 at ArtSpace Falls Church, 410 South Maple Ave. in Falls Church. Tickets are $25. Call 703-436-9948 or visit creativecauldron.org.
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