A staged reading of a new romantic musical comedy was held in Des Plaines on Sunday, June 6 and Monday, June 7, 2010 at Stage One Productions  in downtown Des Plaines.

Audience feedback was strongly positive:

... It is smart and picks up speed rolling Uphill..Fantastic character development -- I cared and wanted to know more and guessed a bunch of stuff about more than half your folks... and who knows with more than a few hours of rehearsal and one other performance, I might have had a few more favorites.  Tom and Kathy were gems.  You wrote good, witty, honest & real stuff...Given the proper settings--sound -stage-and all the things money can buy, ... you have a winner.

I liked it very much, and I am a tough critic...I was impressed by the sophistication of your production and interested in the content every minute. I could see how carefully you had paid attention to the experience of learning tango and how funny you found some parts.Your casting of your characters seemed nearly perfect.

I really liked the idea of new people learning to dance which requires that they relate to each other

Pacing is very good – holds interest

The lyrics made the beautiful Argentine music accessible.

Moves well, pacing is good. Interest in characters builds well. Hotel scene is fundamentally funny...and clever. Fun ending...makes you want to dance.

This is  truly delightful!  The voices of the actors are remarkably strong. The dancers are intriguing and the dialog is clever and humorous.

Made me smile and want to dance.

...very entertaining and refreshing...the storyline was amusing and fun to watch....dialog was well written.

Along with all the compliments were insightful comments that will make the show better going forward.

Frank Corrado sat down recently for some questions about his new play, New to Tango, which will have its first staged reading in June 2010.

Did you mean “Two to Tango?”
Thanks for getting the reference. No, the play is called “New to Tango.”

Which is about?
Six people who decide for a bunch of reasons to take a class in beginning tango.

That’s pretty straight forward.
Well, it’s a little more complicated, as everything to do with tango is.

OK, then where did the idea come from?
Back in 2004 I went to an evening of dance sponsored by the city of Chicago. It’s called  “Summerdance” and is held in Grant Park .Each week is a different  kind of dancing. The week I went, it was tango, which started with a lesson and then I was hooked. I had seen tango on TV once with this older guy and younger woman and the footwork was amazing. Anyway, the couple giving the lessons at Summerdance passed out cards and I signed up.

And the musical came from those lessons?
Those and many other lessons over the past five years. And from attending the annual August international festival in Chicago sponsored by the American Tango Institute which brings in people from all over the U.S. and teachers from South America.

So you became a tango dancer.
The tango people call them “tangueros.”  I was, and am, just average, though I continue to take lessons and because tango teachers are often also performers, I’ve been able to study under some really good ones.

Why aren’t you better?
There are lots of reasons.  First of all you have to practice a lot. I don’t have a regular partner so that’s part of the problem.  Second, I don’t have long legs. That would be helpful. Another reason, maybe the one that got me to writing, was that I didn’t find a lot of the music very exciting. The teachers, no matter who they were, seemed to keep playing the same old songs during lessons.

Tango music not exciting?  And you ended up writing about tango?
I guess that was part of the point of the musical.  In the history of tango there are two absolute rock stars – Carlos Gardel who was the first real international tango star and who wrote some of tango’s greatest hits and Astor Piazzola, an Argentinian who grew up in New York, was discovered by Gardel , and who spent a lot of his early life in the U.S He fused tango with jazz and brought a rather moribund art form back to life. Most people who tango here in the U.S. are really into the bands and singers who bridged these two legends. This “Golden Age” of tango music is very much like American big band sound of the 30s, 40s and 50’s. 
I noticed that when I heard the music of Gardel and Piazzola, my emotions and dancing abilities improved, so when I decided to write this musical, I made these song writers a big part of it. It’s really homage to them as much as a story about new dancers.

Sounds like you are a bit of a tango snob as well.
Actually, I love the new tango rock music and have included two of those songs - in the opening and closing.

Did you have any previous experience writing a musical?
Back in 1984, I collaborated with two colleagues to write a musical about the Federal bureaucracy in Washington DC. It played for about four months at a local dinner theater. It was called “Feds.”  Plenty of people have written about politics, but this was the first musical I know of that was about bureaucrats. It got some nice reviews, including the Washington Post.  Then in 1990, I collaborated with an old friend, the late Jack Cooley, on a musical review about falling in love in the golden years. It was called “Still Kickin’.”  Never produced.

What’s special about New to Tango?
A couple of things. I believe it is the first real American musical about tango. Tango shows like “Forever Tango” are wonderful at highlighting great tango dancing, but I wanted to do a story about student dancers and why they had gotten involved in tango. I also wanted to focus on the beauty of the music, some of which people will recognize from movie tracks and pop charts, like Gardel’s “Por Una Cabesa” from Scent of a Woman or Louie Armstrong’s vocal of “Kiss of Fire.” One tune, the closing “Pa’Bailer” was recently even used by Honda for a TV commercial.

So you wrote the book and lyrics?
Yes.  I’m convinced I couldn’t have partnered with two better songwriters than Gardel and Piazzola, and some other songwriters included from the vast tango repertoire who provided wonderful melodies for my lyrics and for the many dancing sequences in the musical. In a way,  I feel like the writer who saw “Kismet” in the music of Borodin.

If these tango writers were around, would they like New to Tango?
From what I’ve read about their lives, I really believe they would.

Is the show going to be produced?
Your lips to God’s ear. I hope so. It’s very traditional and, I hope, lots of fun. Hopefully, it will be appreciated by an audience of tango afficiandos, but my real intent was to write for a general audience.

How long did it take to write?
About a year, including a four month period of writer’s block last fall.

How did you get over that block?
Well, after my mother passed away last fall, at the wonderful age of 98, the energy level seemed to come back and by the Christmas holidays I could see the finish line. Also, I was lucky to be able to meet with one of the great musical theater directors in Chicago, David Bell, and felt encouraged enough to finish up.  While I was hanging out in Denver over the holidays with my grandkids, I remember mentioning to my daughter-in-law that eight o’clock in the morning was a difficult time to be writing a seduction scene.  At that point I knew I had nailed it.

What is this “staged reading” thing?
It’s an opportunity afforded to those who write for the theater. With film scripts, and I’ve written a few, there are few chances to tweak it after it goes into production. But with plays, a reading - where actors literally read from scripts in their hands- is different.  It’s kind of like seeing your work come alive and watching the audience react to it. You get to see the play in real time, hear the songs, check the timing and see if the audience is on the same page you are. It’s a real benefit to the writer and can really help improve the chances of success.

Where do you think New to Tango will end up.
Broadway… I hope.

Good luck.
Well if it does, there will be many people to thank, especially  Netza Roldan, the head of the American Tango Institute in Chicago  and his terrific assistant, Alison Hamilton, for their really generous support of this project. Definitely gives it street cred.