THEATER : Will New York Embrace the Pinball Wizard of La Jolla? : Serendipity and hard choices went into debate about bringing the rock opera to New York, then Pete Townshend spoke up

NEW YORK —  “Poor Des,” Pete Townshend said one day late last month, just before the curtain rose on the first preview of the new production of “Tommy” on Broadway. The composer of the legendary rock opera was referring to the show’s director, Des McAnuff, and his voice betrayed a trace of amused pity for his collaborator.

“I’ve been watching him during the last couple of days of rehearsals, and the poor man, he doesn’t know who he is. I feel when he leaves the theater I must help him across the road. And in Cornwall, he seemed like such a smart guy.”

Broadway can do that. To paraphrase writer Larry Gelbart, preparing a musical to open there is a punishment fit only for Nazi war criminals. And in those last hectic days before “Tommy” began previews on March 29, last summer’s halcyon interlude at Townshend’s vacation home in Cornwall, England, seemed distant indeed.

It was there that McAnuff broached the “B” word to Townshend for the first time since the two began collaborating on the stage adaptation of “Tommy”--the latest incarnation of the story of the autistic pinball wizard, Townshend’s seminal rock opera recorded by the Who in 1969. “Tommy” has since been translated to film, ballet and a West End concert version, and last summer, Townshend and McAnuff’s new musical version of the epic sold out a three-month premiere run at the La Jolla Playhouse.

All along there had been plans for a national tour of the show after the Southern California run, but while the two were sailing off Cornwall, Townshend said, “Des suddenly started to talk about how various elements were in place for the show to move to Broadway, and I was quite curious as to why he was even bringing the subject up.”

Townshend was being coy, of course. The New York producers had sunk $650,000 of “enhancement money” into the La Jolla showcase and had the rights to tour the production--”to Peking if they wanted,” in Townshend’s words. But he had personally retained the Broadway and London rights in order to protect what is widely regarded as the most significant achievement of his career.

“I’d decided not to expose ‘Tommy’ to the impetuousness of the New York critics,” said the rock icon, who will be 48 tomorrow. “But, in the end, I felt that if Des was confident it could succeed, then I was confident too.”

“Tommy” will open on Thursday at the 1,600-seat St. James Theatre. Its accelerated march from La Jolla to Broadway this season, and the implications of that gamble for the show’s future success, are to some extent simply a story of talent, sweat and serendipitous timing. But there have also been some hard choices along the way.

In November, 1990, when the Pace Theatrical Group negotiated with Townshend and his representatives for the theatrical rights to the rock opera “Tommy,” Broadway wasn’t on the table. PTG was looking for a product to fill the theaters and subscription series it operates in 22 cities across the United States. Although it has co-produced such shows as “The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber” and “The Magic of David Copperfield” for those venues, the group has largely looked to Broadway to pick up productions for its theaters, and has toured shows such as “The Secret Garden,” “Evita” and revivals of “Gypsy” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“The plan was to tour North America with a production of ‘Tommy,’ ” said Scott Zeiger, the 33-year-old president of PTG. “We envisioned playing arenas and amphitheaters during the summer of 1993 with stars--Michael Hutchence (of the rock group INXS) playing Tommy, or maybe David Bowie as Captain Walker and Tracey Ullman as Mrs. Walker--names that could fill large spaces.”

But that’s not how things worked out.

Having secured the rights, PTG invited Dodger Productions to participate in mounting “Tommy” for the road tour. A loose theatrical partnership with an impressive track record (“Big River,” “Secret Garden,” “Prelude to a Kiss,” “Into the Woods”), this group of baby boomer investors also had a reputation for encouraging the uneasy alliance between rock music and theater--at least what was left of it. It had previously helped produce such Off Broadway shows as “Gimme Shelter,” “Holeville” and “Leave It to Beaver Is Dead.” In fact, Dodger had earlier repeatedly tried, unsuccessfully, to acquire theatrical rights to “Tommy.”

“The tragic flaw of the Dodgers is that we produce what we love, and rock ‘n’ roll is one of them,” said Michael David, 50, one of the group’s partners. “Doing ‘Gospel at Colonus’ on Broadway nearly killed us. But when Pace called, we said, ‘Sure,’ and they handed us a list of directors who they thought were right for it, everyone from Trevor Nunn to Peter Sellars.”

David’s choice for director--Des McAnuff--was not on the list. Not only is McAnuff a partner in Dodger Productions, but he is also the artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse, the theater David thought could best nurture the work. Townshend, after meeting with McAnuff both in London and La Jolla, agreed with the choice, and the producers easily raised the seed money to present a showcase production of “Tommy” as part of the Playhouse’s 1992 summer season. With the cost of the road production around $3 million, the Playhouse could allow them to actually see how it worked for $650,000.

“What we hoped to gain from the La Jolla production was wisdom,” David says now. “We wanted to see what we had--if anything. We weren’t backseat-driving. In the crassest sense, if the show had gotten bad reviews, it was Des and Pete’s idea. If it worked, it was ours.”

Indeed, sanguine hopes had been tested before in La Jolla. “Big River,” for example, went on to win a Tony award, as did “The Grapes of Wrath.” But “80 Days,” with libretto and music by Ray Davies of the Kinks, has so far gone nowhere, as has “ Elmer Gantry.” Graciela Daniele’s “Dangerous Games” made it to New York, only to disappear quickly in a swamp of negative reviews. In fact, McAnuff said, “I don’t think any of us would’ve been surprised if this project had ended with scenery in a Dumpster, and a kind of ‘nice try.’ ”

But judging from the immediate mostly favorable critical response and unusual commercial success of “Tommy,” both the producers and creators were convinced that what they had was fairly significant, though still needing some work. So from the day “Tommy” opened at the La Jolla Playhouse, the producers began to realize that their options had increased. Not only could they press on with plans for a tour, but they could also entertain the idea of proceeding to a more permanent installation of the musical, say in Los Angeles or Toronto. And now too the inevitable buzz had begun: “When are you going in?” McAnuff repeatedly was asked by the New York theater insiders who had begun trekking to La Jolla. In reply, the director only smiled and shrugged.

“When there’s a production at La Jolla which might have a future, we’ve developed this in-house rule: We don’t talk about it,” McAnuff said. “It’s helpful to the integrity of the work process and prevents people from getting too giddy and silly.”

The director spoke to an interviewer on the morning after the first preview of “Tommy,” groggily sipping coffee in the mid-town high-rise apartment he is currently occupying with his wife and 3-year-old daughter, a refuge from the chaos 33 stories below.

He was obviously relieved that the preview had gone far better than expected. The audience, many of whom were aging fans of the Who, had given it a standing ovation. But as “relieved” as McAnuff and his team were, they were also wary. Lots of shows have that kind of early response on Broadway, only to sink from view after the critics weigh in. New York has a way of robbing the glow of the brightest successes, especially those achieved elsewhere.

Even in La Jolla, the euphoria and the bullishness experienced after opening were tempered by McAnuff and others’ feeling that there was a lot of work yet to be done on the musical.

“There were a number of things wrong, particularly in the second act,” McAnuff said. “Nobody was really entirely satisfied, regardless of where the show was headed next. The question became where would be the most advantageous venue to really advance the potential of this project.”

Given the challenges of designer John Arnone’s elaborate visual pyrotechnics, McAnuff soon became more and more certain that going on tour was a mistake.

“I was strongly motivated to move on to a permanent installation for artistic reasons,” he said. “The show wasn’t complete yet, and you can’t do this kind of tinkering and fixing on the road. It’s nearly impossible.”

While setting up a long run in a city like Toronto or Los Angeles could give the production the permanent installation that the director believed was required, Broadway was becoming a more attractive proposition to McAnuff. Theater owners who saw and liked the production were letting it be known that some of what McAnuff described as “the more exquisite houses” on Broadway would probably be available.

By August, when McAnuff flew to New York on his way to confer with Townshend in Cornwall, the director felt that he finally had to talk about the subject everyone was avoiding.

At a dinner at Sam’s restaurant on West 45th Street, a boisterous theater hangout, the director sheepishly told David, Zeiger and the others: “You know, guys, a lot of people are coming up to me and saying, ‘What you’ve got is so strong, you should be wasting no time in coming in. If you take this on the road first and then come into New York, you may be perceived as sneaking in like thieves in the night.’ ”

Audience surveys conducted with La Jolla Playhouse patrons during the run indicated that the show had crossover appeal, attracting both rock music lovers, who rarely attend theater, and traditional musical audiences. The producers were aware that they would have to bring in both to sustain a Broadway run.

“At Sam’s, we discussed the idea that Broadway was as friendly an environment as it could be right now,” McAnuff said, “and that if we waited it would probably become less friendly. We didn’t really want the stigma of being old news that crashes into New York for six weeks to capitalize.”

Still, there was by no means a consensus at the meeting. The history of other rock musicals only served to cloud the issue. “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” was a moneymaker on the road but sank from view quickly once it surfaced on Broadway in 1990. “Beatlemania” (1977) and “Leader of the Pack” (1985) were both flops.

An even more ominous precedent is the London hit musical “Chess,” by the Swedish pop group ABBA, which flopped on Broadway in 1988, grievously wounding its subsequent road tour. But regardless of how the producers felt, the power to move quickly to Broadway rested with Townshend.

When McAnuff left Cornwall, Townshend had only promised to think about the proposition. The failure of the 1979 West End production, though not much more than a concert version, had left a bitter taste, and he wasn’t eager to repeat the mistake on Broadway. “Protecting ‘Tommy’ ” was paramount, he said.

“I didn’t want to blow it,” he said, adding that he knew that whatever else “Tommy” might achieve on Broadway, it could mark a new beginning--or end--for the rock musical.

Mindful of what he called the “geological and superficial” faults that still had to be worked out of the musical, he was doubly cautious.

“I thought the first act in La Jolla was almost perfect,” he said, “but the second act was definitely not quite right. For one thing, it didn’t have an end. And we didn’t really deal a lot with the nuances and subtleties of character and relationship which aren’t necessary in the rock ‘n’ roll condition but which you do have to resolve in the theater.”

Moreover, Townshend worried about his image in New York as one of the grand old men of rock whose mythic piece--”mad, bad, pretentious”--had strong attachments for his fans. “I worried that people might think that I’d deserted them in some way. It was a dangerous act for me because it could be seen as a great betrayal.”

Nonetheless, “Tommy” represented a bid to fulfill his longtime ambition to become a major player in the musical theater. From time to time, he said, he had been tempted with offers from such impresarios as Lionel Bart and Cameron Mackintosh. Though he had hated the first musical he’d seen (“Half a Sixpence” in 1963), he got hooked when he attended “Les Miserables” in London.

“Suddenly everybody in the theater looked at me,” he said of the stir he caused just by attending the show. “I thought, ‘I would never get this interest and respect if I walked into an Eric Clapton concert.’ I felt at home. And, I’m afraid, I suddenly saw dollar bills. Lots of bums on seats, if you know what I mean.”

“Tommy” ended its run at the La Jolla Playhouse on Oct. 4, and the next morning, after partying into the wee hours with the cast and company, the producers met at a nearby hotel. After various plans were debated, Townshend, who had been quiet, rose and said, “I think we should go to Broadway, and I think it should be this season.”

“Once he said that, everybody started concentrating on not what should happen, but how to make it happen,” McAnuff said.

The first requirement was to raise the $6 million needed for the Broadway production. Given the risks, it often takes years to raise the sizable investment for a musical. Pace was in for a third, the Dodgers for another, and a commitment for the remainder quite quickly came from Kardana Productions, which had recently been involved in the hit revival of “Guys and Dolls.”

Unlike his two partners, John Hart, the president of Kardana, had not been a fan of the rock opera. He had initially passed on the opportunity to invest in the La Jolla production. But once he saw it, he was intrigued with its possibilities.

“The second act was still a mess, but the music was driving and the story was touching,” he said. “I felt that it was already good and that it had the potential of being great. New York was the best place to control the work that had to be done on it. The most talented people are here--and the toughest audiences. This show is not a slam dunk. Not unless you keep working on it.”

Hart said he was reassured that Townshend would be available to work with McAnuff on the necessary changes. In fact, Townshend has crossed the Atlantic nearly a dozen times since August, adding a new song, “I Believe My Own Eyes,” to flesh out the relationship between Tommy’s parents and revising scenes to make their reconciliation at the end appear less contrived.

“It certainly isn’t ‘mad, bad and pretentious’ anymore,” Townshend said.

“What ‘Tommy’ has done is that it’s found its place in music theater. It’s found a new context outside the post-psychedelic-drug mentality. It has far more resonance now as a piece about postwar family numbness, parental neglect, abuse. Once you put a young child on the stage, there’s a reality there that can’t be softened.”

With the money in place, there was some pressure to recast with stars to protect the investment and promote advance sales (currently at $2 million). McAnuff said he saw 300 people for the La Jolla production and an additional 700 for Broadway. Yet all the principals remained the same, as did more than 50% of the 30-member cast. These include Michael Cerveris, a dramatic actor with no previous Broadway credits, as the grown Tommy; Jonathan Dokuchitz and Marcia Mitzman as the boy’s parents; Paul Kandel as Uncle Ernie, and Cheryl Freeman as the Gypsy.

“My first obligation in terms of casting was to ‘Tommy,’ ” McAnuff said. “I had no other loyalties. But I think we realized early on that the music was the star.”

Added Townshend: “We talked to stars, but the prospect of going on Broadway and being paid $50,000 a week to do eight shows is not something that’s appealing to the modern wanky little pop star.”

Moving into the St. James Theatre--which has been the home of such legendary musicals as “Oklahoma!” and “Hello, Dolly!”--the creative team worked quickly to scale up the production to compete with its lavish neighbors “Phantom of the Opera” and “Crazy for You.” That posed a logistical nightmare that had the director teetering on a breakdown as previews approached.

Performances now have been going relatively smoothly, and word on the street is good, even enthusiastic, for the show. “That makes me very nervous,” McAnuff said.

Townshend, on the other hand, appears cool, almost cavalier, about this latest chapter in the continuing saga of “Tommy.” “I’m terribly jaded about everything in life except children,” said the father of two grown children and a 3-year-old, “so it’s not a great thrill.”

Nonetheless, he couldn’t help expressing enthusiasm for the process itself. “There was certainly a strong money element in coming to Broadway,” he said. “I know that I will be severely exposed and endangered by it. And I think there’s a price to be paid for it. But it’s not greed. In the end, anyway, the money becomes so little a part of it. I can understand now why Sondheim works for the craft. There are some glorious and sublime moments to be had in the theater.

“If you do become greedy,” he said, “it’s for bigger orchestras, thinner wire, more fire, more publicity, more audience. You want to share this bloody idiocy.”