'Elf' gets a musical makeover and a visit to Costa Mesa

Dec. 20, 2016 6 AM PT

The 2003 movie “Elf” starring Will Ferrell as Buddy, the North Pole helper who learns he’s human and heads off for New York City to find his biological father while spreading the joy of Christmas along the way, won over critics and made more than $220 million worldwide.

It wasn’t too long before Broadway beckoned.

With a peppy score by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin (“The Wedding Singer”) and a book by Thomas Meehan (“Annie,” “Hairspray” and “The Producers”) and Bob Martin (“The Drowsy Chaperone”), “Elf the Musical” opened in New York during the 2010 holiday season. A touring production that launched in 2012 has proved to be such a hit that there are East Coast and West Coast versions.

Now, “Elf the Musical” has arrived in the Southland, just in time for Christmas, running Dec. 20 through Jan. 1 at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

Segerstrom President Terry Dwyer called the musical comedy a “joyous, big-hearted, fun-filled holiday classic.” He also noted that it had taken years for the stars to align and “Elf” to reach Costa Mesa.

“The tours are routed by entities in New York, and sometimes the timing doesn’t work out for us,” Dwyer said. “But we’ve kept in touch with him every single year and anxious to find a time when the routing of the tour would allow them to come to Orange County.”

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Tony Award winner Meehan had been a fan of the film, directed by Jon Favreau.

“It really is a hilarious movie,” Meehan said. “The movie had a lot of heart, but you can heighten the emotion when you add music.”

He said that people frequently come to him with ideas for musicals based on movies but that making that kind of adaptation often is impossible. “There’s no place where they naturally could sing,” Meehan said. “Something like ‘Elf’ or ‘Hairspray,’ we could see where we would have fun and add songs. It becomes a whole other piece of work.”

One character notably missing from the musical is Papa Elf, played in the movie by Bob Newhart. In the stage version, Santa narrates.

“We thought the story was more about Elf and his American family — his real father, his mother, his little brother, all that,” Meehan said. “That’s the heart and soul of it. His father is kind of the Scrooge who becomes a good guy.”

Sklar and Beguelin worked for four years on the musical with Meehan, Martin and director Casey Nicholaw (Tony winner for “The Book of Mormon”) in Meehan’s living room.

“The process of writing songs for us usually starts with an outline of the entire musical,” Sklar said by email. “We try to map out the whole show structurally and find places that we think will feel organic to musicalize. Some songs came easier than others. We have plenty of songs that didn’t make it to the final version.”

The team also changed the opening number from the 2010 production, writing a new song for the return to Broadway in 2012.

“While we liked the original opening number, we felt that we wanted to try a new one that had a little more subversive humor in it and also gave Buddy a real star entrance,” Sklar said. “We were pleased with the result, so that’s the official opening song: ‘Happy All the Time.’ ”

The traveling version of “Elf the Musical” has been revamped by director Sam Scalamoni, who has been with the tour from the beginning.

“I was able to do my own version of the show — hire a choreographer and a brand new creative team. So it’s really our own production of the show,” Scalamoni said. “The only member of the original Broadway team that’s part of my team is a costume designer. So some of the costumes are familiar, but some of them are completely different. We reimagined them. We’re very proud of it.”

Scenic designer Christine Peters came up with the idea of turning the set into a pop-up-book brought to life, with Santa reading the story. It’s fun and imaginative, Scalamoni said. And practical.

“Elf” is a bus and truck tour. The scenery can be loaded and unloaded into theaters easily and is flexible enough to play two-day stints in smaller markets such as Fresno or longer runs in bigger halls like Segerstrom.

“It really does feel like a Broadway-size production” despite the production’s efficient size, Scalamoni said, adding that show features 26 performers and a nine-piece orchestra. “We didn’t want it to feel like a scaled down tour. We want it to feel like you are seeing a Broadway show.”

Scalamoni said he’s frequently asked about the difficulties in finding not just one but two actors who can embody the humor, heart and optimism that Ferrell brought to the title role.

“I said, ‘Well, you know the thing about Ferrell is that he’s so honest in the movie. He’s so sincere,’” he said. “So we always cast a guy who has just a big big heart like the way Will plays it in the movie.”

Segerstrom audiences will be seeing Sam Hartley as Buddy. Hartley played the Beast in tours of “Beauty and the Beast” that Scalamoni has directed.

“He has such a great heart. He really embodies Buddy,” the director said. “It was not his own stage persona, but sort of his offstage persona that made me think he should come in and read for Buddy.”

Though he had seen the touring production of “Elf” last year, Hartley didn’t revisit the movie because he didn’t want to accidentally do an impression of Ferrell. “Nobody can do Will Ferrell like Will Ferrell,” Hartley said.

“I think what’s so successful about the work he did in the movie is because of how simple and sincere he is.”

Not only does the musical have a great heart, Scalamoni said, but it also has a message that Christmas is more than just Santa Claus. “It’s about spending time with the family,” he said. “It’s about the special moments you spend during the holiday time.”

And though some actors may kvetch that they have to work on Christmas, the cast of “Elf” can’t wait to perform that day.

“There’s no better way to celebrate than getting to do what we love,” Hartley said. “That’s the dream.”

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“Elf the Musical”

Where: Segerstrom Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays; ends Jan. 1

Tickets: $29 and up

Info: (714) 556-2787, www.scfta.org

Follow The Times’ arts team @culturemonster.

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