#FFB: Steven Lutvak
I could not be more excited about today's feature discussing a topic of great importance. Therapy, in my opinion, is just as important as fitness and nutrition but rarely gets the attention it needs. Fit for Broadway is mind, body, and soul and Steven is the perfect representation of holistic health. It was such a treat to interview Steven who is an open book, completely willing to share wisdom from his own life experiences and journey through the theatre world. Steven attributes his success to balance, therapy, dedication, relationships, fitness, and body awareness, which is why
Steven is Fit for Broadway!
BIOGRAPHY: In the New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote “An upper-middlebrow Billy Joel crossed with a lower-highbrow Tom Lehrer with a pinch of Debussy: that's how you might place the music of the singer, songwriter, pianist and raconteur Steven Lutvak in the artistic hierarchy of contemporary songwriters.” This year, Steven made his Broadway debut as Composer and Co-Lyricist of A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER, which won the Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle, and Tony Awards for Best Musical. He and his collaborator, Robert L. Freedman also won the Drama Desk Award for Best Lyrics, having earlier, together, won both the Fred Ebb and the Kleban Awards for their theater songs. Featured in Time Magazine's PEOPLE TO WATCH column, Steven wrote the title track to Paramount’s hit documentary, MAD HOT BALLROOM. Additionally, Steven has performed his own songs himself at Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Recital Hall, and most of the major New York Cabaret rooms, including The Oak Room at the Algonquin, Rainbow and Stars, and the Russian Tea Room. Other awards include two Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Awards; the first Johnny Mercer Emerging American Songwriter Award; and a New American Works grant from the NEA. He is particularly proud that several of his songs are included in CLASSIC AMERICAN POPULAR SONG, a follow-up to Alec Wilder’s classic textbook, AMERICAN POPULAR SONG. Steven has released two solo albums: THE TIME IT TAKES and AHEAD OF MY HEART.
INTERVIEW:
Jane: In the discussion I previously heard, you mentioned 3 keys to success that I believe are so important. Can you explain a little about each?
Steven: The three things I said were: 1) save money, 2) find a life partner, and 3) find a therapist…but maybe I should change the order of that, actually, because getting the right therapist will help you find a partner!! It’s funny because I’ve lived without all three of those, although I’ve always almost had a therapist, for a very long time. [I had] the wrong therapist, at one point, and I stayed much too long.
I got myself into terrible debt on several occasions when I was younger, which can be crippling. I didn’t have to do that. However, I was very lucky though in that I bought the apartment which is now my studio, my work place, when I was 24. It was the second most fiscally responsible thing I ever did, because it’s allowed me to live in New York, and do what I do. I refinanced several times in order to get myself out of debt… not a great methodology, but it worked, and it got me here.
One can always save even a little bit, and the times when I’ve had even a little bit of extra money in the pocket have made a huge difference. It makes you feel supported in a way and I think self-support is so important in our business… support of any sort, is important in our business. I’m also the person who will say every young actor needs to have a really beautiful audition outfit -- and that’s going to cost money. You need to have that great audition dress that you always feel great in, and you can work in that for awhile -- and particularly because you know the rule is when you get called back wear the same outfit… that really matters. I wish I had been wiser financially through the beginning of my career.
I think I had opportunities for romantic partnership which I didn’t take, and I have some regret about that. But I think being happily partnered now, fiancéd, the fancy word for engaged!! -- it just makes a huge difference to have somebody at your back. I think that’s important, any kind of support like that, and certainly and maybe above all, a really good therapist makes all the difference [with the] stresses of this business… I think in the entertainment industry is the same as life in the rest of the world -- only moreso: everything is more heightened, and that’s among the tricky parts of it, because I think we are a business that loves glamour and that’s very dangerous, very, very dangerous. We all become instant friends and that’s dangerous and we think that professional success will fill all those holes, and that’s dangerous.. That’s maybe the most dangerous of all. But I think finding someone that you can work out those things with… I think that’s deeply important.Jane: I want to dive a little into your thoughts about therapy. I am a huge advocate of therapy but I find there is a stigma associated with therapy… That you are somehow “messed up” if you’re consistently in therapy. I’ve found that the times when I’ve benefited most from therapy are the times when I haven’t been in a crisis and when I’m just sorting out the subtleties that make life a little bit easier.
Steven: I think that’s right, I like that you say sorting out the subtleties because I have found with my shrink, nothing is too small to discuss, because it always has larger resonances. Yes, people make jokes… my agent makes jokes with me all the time about all the therapists I see and I’m the first to make the jokes too but I find [therapy] really helpful. It gives me a place to gain some perspective and again, in our industry, it’s not easy to gain perspective, particularly because for so many of us, what we do, is everything. Our self definition is often wrapped up in what we do, and I think separating out the strands of that, and keeping it just a business and reminding ourselves that we don’t really know those people, for instance, can be enormously helpful. It certainly has for me.
One of my big investors for a Gentlemen’s Guide…we met and he was interested in becoming involved in the show and at the end of the meeting… I had told him the whole story of the lawsuit, producers dying on us, and the 11 years of struggle to get here and the investor, this enormously successful businessperson, shook my hand and said, “I’m so impressed with your dedication and your perseverance… and the amount of therapy you’ve gone through.” And I asked, “How did you know?” And he chuckled and said, “You could have never gotten through all of that without therapy! -- and I thought, “I like this guy, he’s my kinda guy.” And of course he was right, I could have never gotten through all of it without the kinds of help that I sought and was able to find.
If therapy is working, it gives you choice. The right therapist will allow you to understand that in a certain way, everything is a choice, and the work in that room can bring you to a place where you’re conscious about the choices you’re making. Unless you’ve done that introspective work, you’ll be stuck doing the same things, making the same choices again and again. A good therapist won’t guide you to make any particular choices, but will guide you to the realization that you can do things differently.
Jane: I think regarding health people focus on the physical, both through fitness and diet, and forget that mental health is a huge component of a being healthy.
Steven: I think you’re right, though, about there being a huge stigma around it, but to anyone who’s considering it, no one ever needs to know that you’re going. I think for a lot of people, it’s about their admission of their needing a certain kind of help, and maybe it’s just the way I’m constructed -- but I’ve never had a problem asking for help, in any way.
Jane: When did you start going to therapy?
Steven: I started going to therapy in 1981. I had just come out to my family, and I think that my parents sent me with the hope that the therapist would “change” me, which I don’t believe was ever part of his [intention]. I’ve had a lot of great shrinks, and I’m currently seeing the best of them, by far but [my first therapist] ended with my realization that he was deeply homophobic and I needed to get out of there, and did -- which is not to say I didn’t get a lot out of it.
Jane: What role does fitness play in your every day life?
Steven: I go to the gym every day. It’s mostly yoga, I do yoga 3, 4, 5 times a week and the days in between I swim. I run once or twice a week depending on how I’m feeling because it’s harder on your body. If I could, and if the schedule worked out, I would do yoga every day.
The voice teacher I work with said to me… I had begun working with her well over 20 years ago, and she looked at me one day and said, “Unless you get some bodywork, I can’t work with you anymore.” I thought, “I don’t want to give up my spot in her studio, so whatever this ‘body work’ is, I’ll find out.” And I worked with a great bodyworker and she really opened me up. That was the beginning of my understanding of how important bodywork is. On a day when I sing, as I still perform regularly, I do yoga, I get bodywork, I have a voice lesson, and then I go sing. Of course you can’t do all of those when you do 8 shows a week but all of that is deeply important. There’s a kind of openness that we can’t get to. You need someone else to help you get there. I used to go to pilates with my voice teacher, and she would, in the middle of class, say, “Think about what’s happening in your spine right now,” “Notice where that’s putting your jaw.” It was fantastic!
Jane: Why do you think having a partner is so important?
Steven: It’s not unlike what I said about having a therapist, although, of course, in a very different way. My fiancé, Michael, is not taken in by glamour at all. At first it made me crazy that he would poke holes in my totems, the things that were so important to me, and now I’m so grateful that he pokes those holes. Again, to keep everything in perspective and to help keep my feet on the ground. During the time we were moving A Gentleman’s Guide To Love and Murder to Broadway, he would say, “Everybody settle down, everybody take a breath.” In fact, I named the publishing company that handles my portion of the income as a songwriter “Everybody Settle Down Songs.” I think that having a life outside of the industry is really important. Again, everything is about balance and moderation. I think it’s very dangerous when the business becomes, for those of us who can be obsessive, all-consuming. It’s important to know there’s life outside of what you do.**APPLAUSE** I could not agree more! Over the past year, I've realized my work improves the more I develop in other areas of my life and - J.
Jane: I’m reminded of a quote I heard in the documentary about auditioning called “Showing Up”…”I think that when I was younger and auditioning that there’s a sense of going in to show the best part of you somehow that you kind of polish yourself up and learn all the words and give it your best go and what I’ve found is actually that’s not what people respond to in the room. They don’t respond to the polished penny. What they’re responding to actually is the darker part of you or the part of you that’s a little screwed up or a part of you that’s insecure or hasn’t got it all together. That actually people like to see that part of you because that’s what’s human and I used to leave that human part of me outside the door…kind of being the teachers pet in a way, wanting to show the good stuff and that wasn’t the good stuff, that wasn’t the stuff they wanted to see.”
What are your thoughts on this?
Steven: Well, that’s also why therapy is so helpful, because it allows us get to a place to understand those things, forgive ourselves for them, understand where they developed from and make better choices about them. I think talent is part of it, but soul is another part of it, and if you are somebody who has made peace with him or herself, then that reads. You can tell when someone is only their resume, you can see that.
When you think of the great Musical Theatre stars, musical comedy performers, they’re all wildly eccentric – but they own who they are. I mean Barbra Streisand’s been in therapy for as long as therapy’s existed. You think of Betty Buckley, Patti Lupone, Kristin Chenoweth, they are all exaggerated personalities, but they embrace the exaggeration, in a certain way. And you can also feel when someone walks into an audition room and is not one with themselves. I think, frankly, you can feel that in people’s music, and I’m speaking now about composers; you can tell who’s really done work. You can see who’s in touch with the deepest, darkest, most complex parts of themselves.
Jane: I think with that topic, going back to relationships… When I first got to New York it was all about putting on the perfect version of myself, always being put together, and feeling that when I was put together that’s when I was at my best. And a partner does the complete opposite. When you’re stripped of everything that you think makes you your best, they see you for who you really are. I talked to my therapist a lot about it in the beginning because it was a weird form of attention because we're not used to getting attention for the flaws and…
Steven: …for you who really are. That’s completely fascinating and speaks to the heart of what we’re talking about. Michael would say this right now…I came into our relationship with a particular sense of myself and he said, “No, you’re not that at all. You’re a middle aged Jewish guy, who’s kinda shlumpy.” There’s a great deal of comfort being seen that way, and being loved either despite that, or maybe even because of that ,and that’s something you can never get in a rehearsal room. You get [seen] for what you can do, not what you are.
And related to that, somebody recently asked me “Given the year you’ve had, what’s been your proudest moment in all of this?” I said, “My proudest moment was when our associate producer was leaving the audition room and before she walked out…I don’t think she meant for me to hear…she elbowed our lead producer and said ‘Make sure you know what Lutvak thinks. He’s the quiet guy in the back of the room.’” And I was so gratified to hear that. Because I can promise you, ‘twas not ever thus! I [used to feel] I had to be the smartest guy in the room, the loudest guy, and have the first opinion. I think it’s deeply important, and seems relevant to this all, to hire the best people you can and then trust them. And I think there’s an enormous amount of letting go which, also, frankly, a therapeutic issue…letting go of control has been an issue for me but I’m very proud of [the place I am now].
Here’s another reason to be in therapy… work out as much as you can separately, away from the rest of your life, so that you’re not foisting your shit on everybody around you. We’ve spent our lives, standing and singing and delving into our guts and our own experiences, and re-examining them and exploring them, and in a certain way trying to make sense of them.
Jane: Was there ever a moment in your journey that you felt like giving up through the challenges with A Gentleman’s Guide?
Steven: When we were going through the lawsuit on A Gentleman’s Guide, my collaborator and I were confident we would win the lawsuit…but he and I, separately, without talking about it until after the fact, went through a period when we thought we could really lose it. I remember thinking, “I’m going to have to sell my apartment to pay for this lawsuit; I’m going to have to go on anti-anxiety medication for the first time in my life.” I was having horrible nightmares and it was incredibly challenging, but even through that, a friend of mine who’s a therapist and a life coach, curiously enough, said he learned a lot from my going through the lawsuit because he said I never got angry. It was always “Ok, what do we do now?” I knew we had written a good show, and I knew at very least it just worked, from beginning to end.
But I think it’s true that ultimately, I have thought about “giving up” much less than most people in the business. I don’t know if that’s in part extreme vanity, certainty in my abilities, or if it’s my ridiculously optimistic nature that it would all be ok. I thought I would make my Broadway debut in my 30’s then I thought, “Ok, it’ll be in my 40’s…” I never thought I’d be 54, and making my Broadway debut… and never did I think I’d be 54 and making my Broadway debut with the show that would end up winning the Tony Award for Best Musical!
Jane: There’s an amazing TED talk with Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat Pray Love and she discusses getting back into the creative process after such a huge success. She explains the difficulties she went through during the phase post Eat Pray Love and the expectations she felt from the public and herself. How are you feeling about your next phase after such an incredible success?
Steven: I’ve done a lot of work with Tyne Daily over the years, I’ve played for her in a lot of cabaret things and I’ve coached her, and we’ve become great buddies. She said to me during the Tony Awards season, “Remember what this is all about: it’s about what’s next.” I’m trying to be very, very careful about what’s next. There have been some projects that have been offered to me, some old and some new, that I have turned down -- and I know I’m not popular with some people because of it. I’m 55… I don’t have an enormous amount of time left, I’m aware. None of us have a lot of time left, no matter what age. But what changes as one gets older is one becomes more aware of that. I want to be careful that I’m working on things that I’m passionate about, that will stretch me, and especially those in which I believe 1000%. One of the great joys for me, and I believe for Robert and me, is that when we wrote A Gentleman’s Guide, nobody commissioned it from us. It was my idea to write it, I asked Robert to join me, and we went through all of it simply for the love of the art -- and that’s a great privilege and obviously it’s paid off in every way rather exquisitely. Robert and I had the best time writing it, and I think that shows.
One of the things I know about myself is that I’m not jaded. I’ve remained very optimistic, even with all the struggles we had and still, I just love the work.
The bodywork, on the most basic leve,l teaches you how to feel, and stay in touch with your body while it’s being worked on. Because of that, in great part, anyway, I know when something feels right to me. [There are] projects that are coming up now to which I say, “YES!”…. and there are projects to which I say…”Hmmm…”
Jane: To sum that up, it seems like it’s really about staying in tune with yourself.
Steven: Yes.
Jane: What’s your advice for composers, specifically?
Steven: My advice to all writers and specifically composers is: you know when it could be better. And there’s no shame in going back and making it better. One of the great joys about working with Robert is when something is finished it’s polished and I think there’s a great lesson in that.
