Fred Gratzon is an ideas guy. Entrepreneur and founder of two Iowa companies that took off like rockets back in their day—The Great Midwestern Ice Cream Company and TeleGroup—Fred is also one of the funniest fellas I know. We connected at a writers’ event a few years ago and he spilled the beans about a project up his sleeve: for quite some time, he’d had a burning desire to turn one of his books, The Lazy Way to Success, into a theatrical production. Because when the lyrics for 33 songs start pouring out of you, it’s not time to turn off the faucet. It’s time to write a musical.
Last spring, Fred and his wife, Shelley, showed up to watch the rehearsal for a community-theater production of Oliver I was involved in. The show was several weeks from opening, the numbers were rolling out in messy fits and starts, but the Gratzons sat through the entire three-hour stumble-through. Toward the end of the night I scooted into their row and said, “Sorry, this isn’t much to watch yet. Still pretty rough.”
“Are you kidding me?” said Fred with his signature kid-in-a-candy-store grin. “We are in absolute bliss! The chaotic comings and goings, the kids, the costumes, the out-of-tune band! We can’t get enough!”
The dude is a theater guy, I thought. Just late to the game, is all.
But batter up! At age 79, Fred is making up for lost time. The world-premiere production of The Lazy Show takes place May 3–6 and 8–10 at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center. This original musical comedy blends Gratzon’s hilarious wit and go-lucky life philosophy with an outrageously fun collection of historical characters spanning the ages. With book and lyrics by Fred himself; score by Jake Cassman (Los Angeles), Alejandro Villanueva Medina (Mexico City), and John Howard (San Diego); music direction by Jim Edgeton (Fairfield); and stage direction by Richard Morell (Fairfield), The Lazy Show celebrates themes of “doing less and accomplishing everything” through the collaboration and genius of local theater artists as well as national and international talent.
The Lazy Show follows the story of a recent college grad who doesn’t want a job, doesn’t want to work. The town’s elders, horrified that his anti-work attitude is corrupting the community’s youth, conspire to kidnap him and subject him to Laziness Conversion Therapy. The plan goes haywire, of course—launching a whirlwind tour of various points in history when sheer laziness changed the course of society. “We’re talking major, major advancements that actually happened because someone was just too damn lazy,” says Fred.
Add in a little romance (“wildcat kisses,” to be specific), and a healthy dose of fun-poking at the toxicity of capitalism, and you’ve got yourself a wildly entertaining story told almost entirely through song. (Oh, and I’d be remiss not to mention the amazing two-person camel suit Fred constructed—with the help of his five-year-old granddaughter—out of faux fur, paper maché, basketballs, and a trash can. Fred may also have missed his calling as a puppet designer.)
After welcoming me into his home office and showing me the previous day’s project—some hilarious film footage of his three “villains” flying through interdimensional space (i.e., flapping their limbs in front of a green screen), Fred sat down with me to answer some questions about The Lazy Show. Thirteen years in the making, it was bound to produce some good stories.
Okay, Fred. What were your first little inklings that this musical needed to happen?
First, a little bit of prequel: I wrote the book The Lazy Way of Success and self-published it in 2003. And it got a color photo on the front page of the style section of the Sunday New York Times, along with great press coverage from the LA Times, Des Moines Register, Hustler magazine, and the highly prestigious Conference Board. From all that publicity, I was able to sell the language rights to 10 foreign publishers, and I started getting fan mail from all over the world. For some reason, several people wrote back and said, “You should turn it into a musical.” But I had zero intention of doing it. I said, “Oh, isn’t it cute that people are telling me this, isn’t it funny?” But I know the exact day. Thanksgiving 2012, we were at Shelley’s sister’s house. I was between projects and I thought, why not do it? And the story, the songs, the whole structure, it just flowed right out of me. It was extraordinary. I was loving it so much. I gave myself six months to see if I could flesh out a first draft, but just like that—two, three months—it was done. That was the easy part. Finding a composer? That took me seven and a half years.
Being a total unknown in the world of musical theater—and a newbie to music in general—how did you finally find your composing team?
All the usual suspects in town were not interested because I had no background in theater. I had no background in songwriting. I had no background in playwriting, you know, and so everyone was polite but basically telling me to pound sand. So I advertised in the Dramatists Guild magazine. A little classified. And I got a response from a guy who’d been nominated for a Tony Award for best musical score. (Side note, he lost to Phantom of the Opera!) Anyway, he read my script and he loved it, but he said, “Look, I’m too old and crotchety. This project is too big. I can’t deal with it,” but he was giving me fantastic advice. He said, “There’s a song here that’s funnier than Mel Brooks,” and I took that to the bank! Then he looked at the love song. “It’s dishwater. It is terrible. Your song—” he said, referring to my final lyric, “is this wildcat kiss.” So I scrapped the whole number and wrote a new song with that concept. And it’s steamy. It’s so fun!
Eventually, I started to get responses from composers from all over the world—one from Japan, people from South America—but this one guy from Mexico City, Alejandro Villanueva Medina, he wrote this tango for one of my lyrics. God, it was good. And so we joined up, and he’s written nine of the songs. But it was slow going and he told me, “Look, you have 33 songs in your show. You need to add another engine to the train.” And by miracle I found Jake Cassman. He’s a Second City Hollywood guy. Comedian, musician. A godsend. And he was fast. But one song was left: a barbershop quartet. I found “Barbershop John” on Fiverr.com. It’s a freelance site for all sorts of singers, musicians, software designers, you name it. Amazing resource. And John was perfect. The song he wrote is sung by four 10th-century monks explaining why they’re not going to adopt Arabic numbers to replace Roman numerals. It’s a blast!
Many pieces came together for this production in ways you hadn’t planned. Tell me about a few of those happy accidents.
First, I have to mention our musical director Jim Edgeton, God bless him. It couldn’t have been done without Jim. Clearly couldn’t have been done. I had Jim, I had the Sondheim Theater booked, and it was time for auditions. Initially, I was worried the characters I had written were mostly men and mostly white. I was concerned. But all that changed when people showed up for the auditions. I’ve got a Black actor playing Abraham Lincoln, you know? I’ve got ladies playing the 10th-century monks! I’ve got Doug Marshall playing a female schoolteacher. He’s so funny, he’s like Dame Edna. It’s just perfect. I’ve got an 11-year-old kid playing a 40-year-old German soldier from 1860. An 11-year-old kid! And he’s also playing Plato! Initially, I was thinking that particular song was weak, but when it got cast with that kid as Plato, next to this older actor who’s playing Jacques Cousteau in a bathing suit, I mean the whole thing became hilariously great. I would never have thought of it in the beginning, but now I think it’s the only way it could have been done.
Most of the cast members are Fairfield people—but not all the usual suspects—there are a lot of fun surprises.
That said, after our local round of auditions, we still had no leading man and no leading lady, and I was worried. I mean really worried. There was one young woman from MIU who was perfect, but she had a conflict. We were practically suicidal. I advertised on Backstage.com, did a nationwide search, but wasn’t getting any hits.
And then one night, completely depressed about not having my two leads, this woman responds. Nicole Jones, from New York City. Perfect in every regard, she can sing, she can dance, and she has a comedic sense. And that same night, one of my composers, John Howard, happened to casually mention in an email that he was starring in this film on Amazon Prime. I knew he could sing because he sang all four parts of the barbershop quartet he’d written, but I rented his movie and was blown away. He was brilliant. The credits were still running and I’m emailing him, “John! John, what do you think?” And he said, yeah, he’d come!
It’s the whole evolution—the joy of writing the songs, and then seeing the composers put music to it and take it to a whole other level—was so thrilling. And then, watching our director Richard Morell having these actors do their business while they’re singing. And seeing the animated projections designed by Wox [Rodolfo Rincones], I mean, everything gets higher and more exhilarating.
I’m going to be a wreck on opening night. I am. I mean, it’s seven and a half years from dancing in my shower, singing my songs—and now I’m gonna see it on stage.
Okay, I have to ask. Has any part of this project allowed you to be lazy? [Long pause] . . . Actually, no. I have had to be so incredibly focused and disciplined to make hay while the sun shines, because tick-tock, tick-tock. I’ll say this: I haven’t been lazy, but I haven’t worked. I’ve avoided all work. I don’t believe in work. I just believe in play and having a good time, and that’s when work disappears. It has to be fun.
That said, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a rockier emotional roller coaster than producing this show—and that’s saying a lot given that I’ve frequently hung by my fingernails during my entrepreneurial escapades. Maybe that prepared me for this.
There are moments when I’ve really panicked, because, you know, I’m making financial commitments based on future hopes. But what I say in my Lazy book that I wrote back when I was probably an ignoramus is: when you take on a project—learning to play a saxophone or flying kites, it doesn’t matter what it is—you get to a point of progress where you’re on the edge of a cliff and you get a vision of what it takes to be great at that point—a commitment of finances and time—and the next step is a leap into the unknown. And when you take that leap, somehow you get this kind of support from the Universe. The finances arrive, and the right people arrive, and the creativity to keep you from crashing.
I’m convinced that that invisible support comes from having made a gargantuan commitment—where you put everything on the line to take the next step. And sometimes you’re not getting supported—like the rigging we planned for our “Peter Pan” flying moments, it didn’t get supported, insurance companies couldn’t hang up the phone fast enough. As crushing as that was, I had to take a righthand turn and find another avenue, and that solution got supported immensely.
We had another knee-buckling setback when a central actor in two scenes had to quit the show. Did I panic? Damn right, I did! Yet that evening we came up with a solution that I think will be funnier, more compelling, and frankly, unforgettable. Ya gotta love it!
Any final thoughts, Fred, as you prepare to open The Lazy Show?
I wish I had started earlier in life. I wish I had more time. I mean, I love it. I even love the rewrites. If I get inspired by rewriting something, you can’t tear me away from the computer!
But it seems the best part about theater, well, the best part about life, I think, is creative collaboration, finding that creative partner. And if the relationship is one of love and trust, what gets created is something greater than what either individual could have done independently. And musical theater has so many avenues for that. It’s just enormous.
I mean, really, in a comedic way, I found it too late in life. I’m 79 now. But I’m doing it. I’ve never been happier. I’ve never been happier.
Opening Night is May 3rd!
I’ll be honest. I was choking back tears at the end of the interview, moved by the sheer leap of faith it’s required on an almost daily basis—a seemingly winning combo of Naïveté, Chutzpah, & Dumb-Ass Luck, which happens to be the name of Fred’s other book. And seriously, after the risk and the guts it has taken to create something brand new on this large a scale, I’m pretty sure Shelley Gratzon deserves a gold medal.
As with everything, Fred thinks big. He’s booked seven nights for The Lazy Show in Fairfield’s most awesome auditorium. For you and me, that means seven chances to get off our hineys … and go be lazy in the theater!
I’m betting we’re going to laugh our asses off.
The Lazy Show runs May 3–6 and 8–10 at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center, 200 N. Main Street in Fairfield. Buy tickets online at FairfieldACC.com or at the box office. (641) 472-2000.
