Audiences can't get enough of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change!

07/17/2001

By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News

Natalie Caudill / DMN The Dallas cast (top to bottom): Ashley Wood, Carrie Slaughter, Doug Jackson and Amy Mills

A theater with a hot property usually guards it like a starved dog growling over a fresh bone. But with I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change! it's share and share alike for Theatre Three and Fort Worth's Circle Theatre.

The musical revue by Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts about relationships from the first date through death or divorce has been a major hit for both companies. Theatre Three opened it last summer and then moved the show to its basement. There it generates a profit of about $2,000 a week. The theater's executive producer-director, Jac Alder, says that income is a major reason his organization has had its best financial year ever.

"It's like some small foundation sends us a check," he says. "I've gotten to where I think bringing in some money is a really good thing."

But Mr. Alder had no objection when Circle's Rose Pearson wanted to produce the show, too. In fact, the two of them had to persuade the licensing organization, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Theatre Library, to allow two versions in such close proximity. Now I Love You is doing so well at Circle that the company is looking for a venue where it can continue when the stage is needed for the next play in its season.

Natalie Caudill / DMN The Fort Worth cast (left to right): Michael Ellis, Jenny Thurman, Lois Sonnier and Todd Hart

"We're not too close to Dallas, but we're close enough," says Ms. Pearson, Circle's executive director. "People mostly cross over the county line to see the other version after they seen the local version and liked it. It has built a real spirit of cooperation between the two theaters. That's the way it should be. We're all in this together."

Rights to I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change! have been available to professionals outside New York only since December 1999. Since then, it has had 83 productions around the country. Currently, 25 are still on the boards. The original New York production has been going since Aug. 1, 1996, making it the longest-running musical revue in off-Broadway history.

I Love You gave Terry Dobson, Theatre Three's longtime music guru, his first time at bat as a stage director – and he hit a home run.

Ms. Pearson first cast Todd Hart in her version, then asked him to direct it. "I never saw the Theatre Three production," Mr. Hart says. "Finally, I didn't go to Theatre Three because I wanted to start as fresh as possible."

Because of the long runs, Theatre Three and Circle have had to find extra people to move in and out of the four roles. Carrie Slaughter has done all but three of the Dallas performances (Arianna Movassagh subbed). Amy Mills has performed the role Linda Leonard usually plays "only" 40 times – a hefty run by local standards. Ms. Mills' real-life husband, Doug Jackson, has actually done more performances than the actor who opened the show, Greg Dulcie. Donald Fowler has substituted for Ashley Wood when he had assignments elsewhere – such as the title role in Fort Worth's recent Hamlet.

Circle was caught without a standby when Mr. Hart developed an irregular heartbeat the second weekend of the show's run and had to cancel some performances. Now Michael Ellis has learned his role – and if Neil Mowles is out, Mr. Hart does Mr. Mowles' part and Mr. Ellis steps in for Mr. Hart. Melinda Wood Allen, so good in Stage West's Cowgirls, is ready to go on for either woman at Circle.

What is there about I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change! that can keep 14 local actors working indefinitely?

"You know what, everybody has a sexual urge from time to time," Mr. Alder says. "This show is about as universal as you can get. It also captures the Zeitgeist – the feeling of the present moment. It's pop in feeling – but right on the nose."