NR: Do you write the story first and then decide where you need a song?

ED: I usually adapt a work in the public domain so I do an outline, and then I fill in dialogue. If I see, "Ooh, he's really got to sing a song to her here" then I'll write a dummy lyric and then I refine it, but it always comes from the work first.

NR: How long does it take roughly?

ED: A year.

NR: That's for a full scale musical? That's what Fanny Hill is, right?

ED: Yes. You can have a very cohesive draft in three months. You can see where the songs are but it's not complete. I work very fast. I like to get so I can see the whole lay of it. The first draft of Fanny Hill...the minute I thought of it I knew it was a good idea.

NR: I think I read on Playbill Online that you were saying that it's not obscene...

ED: (laughs) The original book is obscene. I was looking for subject matter.

NR: Where would you rate your version, if you were going to put a movie rating on it?

ED: PG.

NR: Really?

ED: Yeah, there's no nudity. It's insinuative, the way Chicago is or the way Cabaret is. I don't know what you'd rate those. They're naughty. Fanny Hill is naughty. It's almost a cartoon. It's funny. I used humor. When she's being chased around the room by an old man, as opposed to it being done in a pornographic sense, it's funny. He's a hundred years old, and I'm really trying to capture how absurd that is. I expect you to see her legs but I don't expect to see her naked. I expect her to be sexy but I don't expect her to be vulgar. A number of the situations that she finds herself in are very compromising but I try to treat it in a way that lets you enjoy it without feeling uncomfortable.

NR: Do you find that people question you when you say you're doing Fanny Hill? Do you think you're going to have to defend yourself or explain it all the time?

ED: I've had some instances like that. But, I can ask them if they've ever read Gaston Leroux's book The Phantom of the Opera. If you think it's anything like the Broadway show, you're very mistaken. It's an idea. You use it as source material. If it's in the public domain you can do whatever you like. This was written in 1750, so believe me, it's in the public domain.

NR: At least you know the author's not going to come after you.

ED: I think that the reason that nobody ever thought of doing it is because of that. It has something like 35 sex scenes in it, but when I got the idea I thought, "What if I look for the plot points and just skip all that? - OK, she was born here, she had to go to London, her parents died, she had to get a job, she meets a woman who seems like a mother figure but she's actually a madam, but Fanny's so naive." It's a fantastic story that she ends up getting into a profession and she didn't even know what it was. She has no options so she does it, but then she finds a man that she really loves, and she loses him, then she becomes very famous for her profession and in the end he comes back and he doesn't know what she does. It's a wonderful story. By the end she lives in the biggest house on the highest hill. She's weathered all this adversity and she finally marries the man she loves. I think it's sweet. She has all these adventures on the way.

NR: Now, you're hoping this will go to Broadway I believe.

ED: Right. Goodspeed is a place where people try things out. At Chester, they try new things and from there came Annie, Shenandoah, Man of La Mancha. It's been a launching pad for a number of shows that came here. People go up and look at things there. They spend a lot of money putting them up so you get to see a really fleshed out version of your show. When producers come and look at it they're really seeing your show. It would cost me two hundred thousand dollars to do this in New York. They're taking care of everything for me. And you know, two hundred thousand dollars up there is a million dollars down here, so you get a lot of bang for your buck. It's a real shot to have your show be seen. We have a wonderful cast and everyone's very excited.

NR: Did you start rehearsal already?

ED: No, we start Monday. I finish here Saturday.

NR: You get to sleep on Sunday?

ED: (laughing) I think everyone should have one day, don't you?

NR: Everyone should have one day to rest. God took one day to rest so I think you're entitled. (laughs) OK, so you have this next show coming up. Anything else going on?

ED: I wrote a musical with A. R. Gurney called Richard Cory based on an early play of his and we did it at Playwrights Horizons, at Manhattan Theater Club and at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Conference, and now it's going to be done in Dallas at the Lyric Stage. That's the company that did Cather County, my piece that I did two years ago and it won the Leon Rabin Award for Best New Work in Texas. They're doing a full version in January and February, so things are popping.

NR: Let me ask you this. What do you prefer doing - musicals or dramas?

ED: Some drama like Midsummer Night's Dream, which I just did, has a very musical feel to it. Doing The Iceman Cometh, it does not have a musical feel to it. It's long. My character is unbelievably depressed and hopeless and I end depressed and hopeless. After doing that for several months, I'm finding myself longing for a musical. I was booked to do Mr. Bumble in the revival of Oliver! which Cameron Mackintosh is bringing over, but now for some reason or other it's on hold again. That was supposed to have started in the fall and I was really looking forward to it. I've been working on "Boy For Sale" for the last year and now I guess it's going to be put off again, so I don't know what's next. The idea of going to Connecticut to do this short, fun, lively, sexy musical...I couldn't be more thrilled. I'm bringing a motor scooter up because it's the country. I'm going to be puttering around in the woods. I did that the last time I was up there. I'm so excited about it. I feel like I'm going to summer camp. Plus I know everybody up there and I know a lot of people in the cast. It's like being with my pals.

NR: That's wonderful. Good luck with it.

ED: Thanks.

Ed is such an interesting person to talk to. His interests are so varied and I found the different aspects of his career to be fascinating. He was the first Thenardier that I saw in Les Miz, and I still remember how very impressed I was with his portrayal ten years ago. His performance as Ozzy was such a marvelous component of SP1 and I'm happy to see that his post-Pimpernel career is flourishing. I wish him the best in all of his projects.

Questions suggested by:

Margaret Lo, Thom and Colleen Rosati, Shari Perkins, Tom Robson, Joanna Morton-Gary, Jan Combopiano, Michelle Irons, Tim, Susan Cassidy, Eric Kolb

Interview conducted and photographs by Nancy Rosati.