NR: The main criticism of the first show was that people couldn't follow the story and that you didn't understand the relationship between the three people.

NC: I also think they just ran out of time. It's one thing to get everything up on stage, and then once it's on stage, then it takes a certain amount of time to listen to the audience and hear their response, and to tighten the show and move things. It's an extremely time consuming event and to do that in town is extremely difficult. Usually what you do is you go to a town and you get as much as you can. Then you have that time before you reopen in the next town to make some big changes. You have a week or two weeks. When Victor/Victoria came into New York, they went back into rehearsal for two weeks before they opened, to make the changes. Here, Pimpernel was doing them in public and they ran out of time to make all the changes. I give Peter a lot of credit for getting a huge show up on its feet. And, I think Bobby did an extremely wonderful job taking that and focusing things tighter.

NR: In the concept CD, it seems like the focus is on Marguerite a little bit more than on Percy. Was that true in the readings as well?

NC: I don't know. I think it was fairly even.

NR: It's not really even now. In the first version of the show, it was a lot of Percy. Now it's even more. He's on stage constantly. He goes off to change his clothes, that's about it.

NC: He's on stage more than she is, but she seems to go through a more emotional roller coaster.

NR: OK. He's carrying all the comedy. She doesn't get any of the comedy.

NC: Right. She had some funny moments in the reading. I'm trying to remember things that were different. The whole "Storybook" scene was different. She actually tricked Chauvelin, or he pretended longer. There were lots of little things that were different. That section changed a lot.

NR: I'm confused. In the beginning when she hands him the note?

NC: No, in "Storybook" when she's in disguise (in Act 2). That used to be different in the reading, and then it was different in the first version. There were little details like that in which Nan has played with things, and I don't know whose ideas were those. Were those things that Peter had asked for, or were those ideas that Nan came up with based on things not working? It's hard for me to say because I'm going from memory from two years ago. I've seen the show in so many forms; the full version, then the hour version, then there was the first Broadway version, and then the second Broadway version (the one with the prison scene cut and a few changes there.) Then the Bobby Longbottom Broadway version, and now there will be the new Bobby Longbottom version.

NR: Has she spoken to you about what she's going to do for the new version?

NC: No.

NR: NO????

NC: It's TOP SECRET.

NR: I'm sure a lot of it is top secret. I was just curious if there were any hints. We know it's a smaller theater. I'm guessing, since they're going to take it out on the road, that they're not going to have this huge elevator that they have in the Minskoff.

NC: No, but I don't think the show relies on that.

NR: Well, yeah, but it's such an amazing effect in "Into the Fire."

NC: But, you know what to me was always in my head? When we did the readings, because all we had was music stands, there were no props, there were just the actors. It had a very "story theater" feel, like Nicholas Nickleby, something like that, where it's very minimal yet your mind is making it so much more. To me, playing from that, "Into the Fire" would have been so cool when that change happens if you had someone jump from up above the stage, carrying a rope to hoist the sail. So, out of a trap in the floor, you'd have this person jump down and this huge sail that almost filled the whole stage would come.

NR: So, this was your idea. Nobody's done this.

NC: No, no one's done it. That was just what I saw in my head at that moment. We would have a stage direction that would say, "Percy's study turns into a ship." It's easy for someone to say that. How do you do that on stage? To me, that's what I always saw in my head at that moment, this huge white sail rising instantly, like they do on a sailing ship. To me, that would be very exciting.

NR: I've been trying to think down the road if a community theater group tried to do this show. In that case, when you don't have a Broadway stage or a Broadway budget, how do you stage this?

NC: To me, that's the fun of theater. How can you make things happen in a simple way? I think audiences love that and I think audiences miss that. If the audience is just sitting there and they're handed everything, it makes them slightly inactive when they're watching. If you're relying on your imagination, if what's happening on stage is encouraging the audience to use their imagination to fill things in, and become active in the process of theater, then the evening is the actors' working, but it's also the audience working with the actors and together the actors and the audience are creating this event that only happens that one time. The next night will be different. It will be a different audience, and the things on stage will be a little different. All their minds will meet to create whatever that evening is. To me, that's the excitement of theater.

NR: As a director, looking forward if community groups or other groups look to do this, and they don't have a Percy who's as dynamic and talented as Douglas Sills, is the entire show relying on that one person, or are there other ways to work around that? It seems to me that it really relies a lot on him.

NC: You have to have a very strong Percy, but keys can be changed. That production was built very much around what Doug does so beautifully. The "Peter Hunt blueprint" of that was really built around what Doug does. The goal for each cast is to have the show built around their strengths. You hire people because there's something about them that you feel...who they are as a human being is right for this role. It's not always what they look like. There are certain technical things that have to be met sometimes as far as what people look like, what notes they hit, what style of voice, but the bottom line is there's some quality that they have as a human being that's right for the soul of that character.

Interview conducted and photographs by Nancy Rosati.