SP: Interview with Nan Knighton

NR: Well, they did it on Broadway with this huge budget and this huge theater. What do you see in the future? Do you see our grandchildren doing this in their high school somewhere?

NK: Oh, God, I hope so.

NR: I hope so too, but how? Well, right now if they do move to another theater...

NK: It's looking close to definite that we're moving to another theater. We've already been and looked at the theater. We started having meetings and I'm crazy about the theater and I think the show will actually play much better in a smaller theater than it does in the Minskoff. We always wanted it in a smaller theater because the show really is intimate and it really is about three people.

NR: But this boat is not intimate and this prison...

NK: I think that the changes that we're going to make to adapt it to a smaller stage are going to be actually quite wonderful. The way I'm feeling about it is it's gradations up each time and I think this is going to be even better.

NR: Scarlet Pimpernel 3 is on the way?

NK: It's crazy, isn't it?

NR: (laughing) Are you going to live through this?

NK: I hope so, because I'm also doing... Saturday Night Fever started auditions and we start rehearsals in July and we open October 21st. And then Pimpernel will be adapting for a smaller stage and rehearsing it simultaneously and going to another theater. It's going to be a wild six months coming up. But, to answer your question, yes, absolutely my fondest hope is that it will be done by my grandchildren's high school. My happiest moments are when somebody comes to me and says, "I like to start off the day playing `Into the Fire.' It really makes me feel like I can go out there and do anything." That's a wonderful feeling. That's really wonderful. You know, the show was about to fold right after the Tony's.

NR: Douglas told me. He described you to me as "the big engine of proactivity for the show."

NK: Awww. I had just come back from England. Saturday Night Fever had just opened in England and I had just gotten the nomination for the Tony Award and I was really flying high and so excited. My feeling was the producers would now really promote the show like crazy because we probably didn't have a shot at winning anything but Best Actor, but we really had a shot at Douglas winning Best Actor in a Musical. So, I thought they would really take out ads, and nothing happened. I was stunned and I started calling up Bill (Haber) and Pierre (Cossette). By the way, I have nothing but good things to say about Bill and Pierre. Other producers would have closed the show down in January and Bill and Pierre were just dreams of producers, but they had basically reached the end of their rope and there was just no money left. I started to realize that they were getting ready to close. They were waiting to see what happened with the Tonys and then they were getting ready to close. Then it became clear that they were probably going to close right after the Tonys even if we did win something. So that's when I kind of jumped on my white horse.

I can't really explain to you what was driving me...well, no I can. I always have gone into the theater once a week through this whole thing, mostly to hang out with the actors but sometimes also to go into the back of the house and watch. I went in the back of the house when I got back from London and heard the audience and heard them laughing and heard them clapping, and saw them walking out with all of them smiling and I just felt that if I didn't try to keep it alive that it was really criminal. If I did possess the ability to keep this thing alive that it was really morally reprehensible for me not to do it because what I had hoped, which was that people would walk out of the theater feeling happy, was what was happening. If I didn't try to keep that happening then it would have just been wrong, and that probably was what drove me more than anything else. In terms of my own personal dreams, I had had the show run for a nice long run and I had been nominated for a Tony, so I could have kind of checked out then and been OK, but I really felt that this was not meant to close. So, that was when I called Bill and Pierre and was really putting on the push, but it was clear from them that they had reached the end of their ropes. Then I sent a fax to Ted Forstmann, and it was a real business fax because he's a real businessman. I absolutely didn't have one emotional sentence in it. I just said, "This cannot close. I know this can run and I know it can run for a long time. Would you be willing to finance a television commercial because that's one of the reasons I feel like we've never done what we could do? People love this show, you know they love this show but they don't know about it. We've got to do a TV commercial. Would you put more money into it?" A couple of people on the producers' side knew that I was going to write this fax to them and basically were saying to me, "Fine, you can write a fax that will end up in the trash can." Nobody thought anything would come of it, but Ted called me within two days and said, "OK, let's talk about this." Then, as soon as I knew that there was a shot, I was like a cocker spaniel with a bone in my mouth. I was not about to let go. I kept at it and at it and at it. I faxed Ted every three days with more and more reasons of why we should keep going and what we could do. I'd write him ten page faxes of advertising ideas. Then he said, "Would you be willing to change?" and I said, "Are you kidding? I've always been willing to make changes." Plus by that point, I'd been able to have a full year of standing in the back, cringing in some places and there were certain scenes that I would walk out of the theater because I couldn't stand to watch them anymore. I said, "I would love nothing more than to get in there and fix the weak spots."

Then there was a moment that was really tense right after the Tonys. We went on Ted's boat. Teddy has an incredible yacht and he invited Douglas and Christine (Andreas) and Terry (Mann) and me and some of his own friends. We went on Teddy's yacht and sailed around Manhattan and it was just an amazing night. But I kept hoping that at any moment Teddy was going to turn around and say, "I've decided to take over the show" and he didn't so I finally cornered him after dinner. It was hysterical because I was standing talking to him and on the other side of the boat, everybody was just staring watching, because they knew what I was doing. They knew I was trying to convince him. He at that point said, "Well, you know, my heart says yes and my head says no." I kept at it. I said, "I really believe in this, Teddy. I really believe that we can run for a long, long time." I think the thing that tipped it finally was when he got together with Dave Checketts. I think for Teddy it was probably that he did believe and he did want it to be as good as it could be. He had always said, "This show right now is B minus level but it could be A." So, I think he really did love the idea of getting in there and taking charge and trying to improve the show but he also knew that he couldn't do the day to day producing. He runs this huge business, this huge conglomerate. So, he got together with Checketts. I still don't know exactly how that happened because I've heard so many different versions of different people taking credit for getting them together. But, they got together. Dave was a friend of Pierre's and he had always loved the show. He'd been at the show five times so he was immediately interested and suddenly it clicked. There was still a period of about six weeks waiting to see if they could make a deal, a very complicated deal. I would go to the theater every week, and the actors, who were hearing a zillion rumors would corner me and say, "What's happening? What's happening?" and I would say, "Just hang on. Just hold tight. You don't see a closing notice up, right?" But it was like a weekly death watch. I couldn't tell them anything. Finally it was official and that was just an amazing moment when we called the whole cast together and told them and it was wonderful.

Then, we had to move like gangbusters. Then I met with Bobby and a couple other directors. It was instantly clear to me that Bobby was the right person to do it. He and I just clicked right away on what needed to be done. We just started meeting. My summer vacation went down the tubes and we just did it. The whole rehearsal period was wild.