Q&A: Playwright Itamar Moses discusses his adaptation of 'An American Tail'
In April, the Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis premiered an adaptation of a beloved children’s film of the 1980s.
“An American Tail” tells the story of Fievel Mousekewitz, a Jewish mouse who faces religious persecution in Russia. Fievel comes to America, where he and his family have been promised there are “no cats.”
It's a story of immigration and community organizing. Tony Award-winner Itamar Moses wrote the new script and lyrics for the show and spoke with MPR News Arts Reporter Jacob Aloi.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
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Your work includes plays like ‘Outrage’ and TV shows like ‘Boardwalk Empire.’ It often has a lot of humor in it. But it also features heavy themes geared towards an adult audience. I'm curious if the approach has been different writing something with families in mind.
Yes and no. On the deepest level, you're always just trying to write something that feels truthful. And sort-of soundly constructed, and where the story works, and the thing moves [for] young audiences. And adult audiences both appreciate that.
The other thing is that I'm adapting a film that already has all of these sorts of [young adult] elements built in, you know, it's a fable about anthropomorphized animals, right, it has like a fairytale quality.
That the bar is, if anything, slightly higher, in terms of attention span and things you can hook into, in a way that is accessible. Not dumbing it down because, actually, kids are super smart. They're smarter than we give them credit for. And they like being told the truth, because they're being lied to all the time in their lives by adults. But there's something — it makes you want to lean into the magic and the metaphor a little bit more, I think, than with adults.
The piece that people most know you for is your work on ‘The Band's Visit,’ which itself was an adaptation of a film. I'm curious about what goes into adapting a work from a film to a different medium versus an original work.
[In] both “The Band’s Visit” and “American Tail,” the first thing I did was sit down with the movie open on my laptop screen, playing it scene-by-scene with a text document open next to it.
And then, just as I went through it, asking myself, okay, what within this piece, will hold just as well translated directly to the stage with no changes, and then you start sort of building it that way. You end up with a bunch of stuff that you can just take directly from the source material. And then there are gaps.
Even though “American Tail” has some songs, it only has three or four. So even if we kept them all, and I think we kept three of the four, you needed to write new ones to fill out a score.
“Band’s Visit” didn't have songs except [for] the diegetic music that the band performs. So in both cases, then you have this text that you're building the songs up on top of like, this is the foundation? And can we drill down into this moment? Can we cannibalize this moment for it for a song all by myself?
You've talked about how being Jewish has influenced some of your work more explicitly. And I'm curious what it's like working on this show that explores that a little more.
It's funny because it's true that for the first 15 years of my career, I almost never wrote characters who are explicitly Jewish where it seemed relevant to the story. I think I had this instinctive aversion to being pigeonholed as this or that kind of writer. I was like, “Oh, no, my play is universal.”
And then I think, gradually, the longer you do this, you realize more and more that the more hyper-specific something is, there's this paradoxical way in which it feels it feels more universal, first of all, and secondly, that you're actually preventing yourself from going to the deepest places you possibly can, by not mining what's most deeply yours.
“The Band's Visit” was a real turning point for me ... it was close to the first time that something I'd written anything, for instance, set in Israel, that was the first time I'd ever done that. All of my work since then has leaned in one way or another, I think a little bit more strongly into that, sometimes very subtly.
And then sometimes, you know, it just depends [on] what's called for by the piece. Like, not everything is about that. And then it's also made me think more deeply about the specific identity of each character. And sometimes you want that —not to necessarily be part of the script, like, oh, actually, we could cast this in 50 different ways. And it's super interesting to do that. But I think the responsible thing to do is make a choice about which you're doing and why.
Now I feel extra motivated to do that. Because I've been made aware of my Jewishness in sort of a negative way in this country. I haven't felt that overt sort of feeling of antisemitism is anything other than like this fringe thing that existed but didn't impact my life very much at all. That was how it felt for most of my life.
And in the last five years, and then even more so in the last year or two, I've suddenly felt it in a new way. And so that's made me, I think, want to double down on that a little bit more,
How has that influenced working on a show like this about Jewish resilience?
It's really a story about immigration, about how America is made up of waves and waves of immigrants. And the choice every wave of immigrants has, once they've sort of established themselves and figured out some zone of safety.
If that indeed happens. Do you turn around and hold that territory? You know, do guard it jealously, and, or do you sort of pay it forward in a different way and try to be more welcoming to the waves that come after you.
So that feels like the core of what this story is … the fact that the Mousekewitzes have to flee Russia because of pogroms is the inciting incident ... but then it's about how that weaves with all of these equivalent stories and analogous in various ways stories that everybody has, or every mouse has.
But, in a subtle way, it has felt like a great outlet for some of the feelings that of having had been having about this stuff generally.
To include things like Jewish prayers, like prayers in Hebrew, you know, that are sung because here we are doing this musical and, you know, we slip in. The opening scene as a Hanukkah party, right? So, getting to do that stuff on stage, and put some of that stuff sort of explicitly out there, has felt like a subtle form of defiance.
Audio transcript
["SOMEWHERE OUT THERE" PLAYING]
FIEVEL MOUSEKEWITZ: (SINGING) Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight--
INTERVIEWER: That is Fievel Mousekewitz from the 1986 animated movie An American Tail. The Mousekewitz family, who are mice, flee religious persecution in Russia and come to America where they have been promised there are no cats. It's a story of immigration and community organizing.
And it's now a timely new musical playing at the Minnesota Children's Theater company in Minneapolis. MPR Arts Reporter Jacob Aloi sat down with the show's playwright Itamar Moses-- who also won a Tony Award for the musical The Band's Visit-- to ask about turning a film into a stage show.
ITAMAR MOSES: The first thing I did was kind of sit down with the movie open on my laptop screen playing it scene by scene with a text document open next to it, and then just as I went through it, asking myself, OK, what within this piece will hold just as well translated directly to the stage with no changes? And then you start sort of building it that way.
So you end up with a bunch of stuff that you take directly from the source material. And then there are gaps. Even though American Tail has some songs, it only has three or four. So even if we kept them all-- and I think we kept three of the four-- you needed to write six, seven, eight new ones to fill out a score.
And then [INAUDIBLE] didn't have songs except sort of the diegetic music that the band performs. So in both cases, then, you have this text that you're building the songs up on top of. Like this is the foundation, and can we drill down into this moment for a song?
SUBJECT 1: (SINGING) All by myself I learned to survive. It's lonely, sure, but I've always made do.
JACOB ALOI: You've talked about how being Jewish has influenced some of your work more explicitly, and I'm curious what it's working on this show that explores that a little more.
ITAMAR MOSES: It's funny because it's true that for the first 15 years of my career, I almost never wrote characters who are explicitly Jewish where it seemed relevant to the story. But I think I had this instinctive aversion to being pigeonholed as this or that kind of writer. I was like, oh, no. My play is universal.
And then I think gradually the longer you do this, you realize more and more that the more hyper specific something is-- there's this paradoxical way in which it feels more universal, first of all. And secondly, that like you're actually preventing yourself from going to the deepest places you possibly can by not mining what's most deeply yours.
But Ben's visit was a real turning point for me because it was the first time-- not the first time, but it was close to the first time that something I'd written anything, for instance, set in Israel-- that it was the first time I'd ever done that-- but also like where half the characters are Jewish. And all of my work since then has leaned in one way or another, I think, a little bit more strongly into that-- sometimes very subtly.
And then sometimes, it just depends what's called for by the piece. Not everything is about that. And then it's also made me think more deeply about the specific identity of each character. And sometimes, you want that not to necessarily be part of the script. Like oh, actually, we could cast this in 50 different ways, and it's super interesting to do that.
But I think the responsible thing to do is make a choice about which you're doing and why. Now, I feel extra motivated to do that because I've been made aware of my Jewishness in sort of a negative way in this country. I haven't felt that like overt sort of feeling of anti-Semitism as anything other than like this fringe thing that existed but didn't impact my life very much at all.
That was how it felt for most of my life. And in the last five years and then even more so in the last year or two, I've suddenly felt it in a new way. And so that's made me, I think, want to double down on that a little bit more.
JACOB ALOI: Like you said, you focused in on it more now. How has that influenced working on a show like this that is about Jewish resilience, in a way?
ITAMAR MOSES: It's really a story about immigration, about how America is made up of waves and waves of immigrants and the choice every wave of immigrants has once they've sort of established themselves and figured out some zone of safety-- if that indeed happens. Do you guard it jealously, or do you sort of pay it forward in a different way and try to be more welcoming to the waves that come after you?
So that feels like the core of what this story is about, and anti-Semitism and the fact that the Mousekewitzs have to flee Russia because of pogroms is like the inciting incident and part of that. But then it's about how that weaves with all of these equivalent stories or analogous-- in various ways-- stories that everybody has or every mouse has.
But in a subtle way, it has felt like a great outlet for some of the feelings that I've having have been having about this stuff generally to include things like Jewish prayers, like prayers in Hebrew that are sung. Because here we are doing this musical, and we slip it-- the opening scene is a Hanukkah party, right?
SUBJECT 2: (SINGING) Hanukkah, Hanukkah, festival of light. We celebrate it every year for more than seven nights.
ITAMAR MOSES: So getting to do that stuff on stage and put some of that stuff sort of explicitly out there has felt like a kind of a subtle form of defiance of what you were just talking about.
SUBJECT 3: (SINGING) Then we eat with [INAUDIBLE]. We remember those who've [INAUDIBLE].
INTERVIEWER: An American Tail is playing now at the Minnesota Children's Theater company in Minneapolis through June 18, and that was Tony Award-winning playwright Itamar Moses talking about the play with MPR Arts Reporter Jacob Aloi. We wanted to continue this conversation now, and we're turning to Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman who is Senior Rabbi at Temple Israel in Minneapolis. Rabbi, welcome.
MARCIA ZIMMERMAN: Thank you. Thank you for including me.
INTERVIEWER: I'm so glad you're here. So what is the impact of having explicitly Jewish characters in stories? What does it mean for Jewish people to see these stories on stage in media?
MARCIA ZIMMERMAN: Yes. Thank you. And Itamar Moses was very delightful and insightful in his recollection and his ability to show us the veil behind his creativity. I think that the idea of Jewish stories are really about Jewish pride.
In the wake of anti-Semitism, it's really important for us to uphold what is Jewish and what we are proud of because for me, the antidote to hatred is to feel the pride of who we are as a people and our history and our rituals and celebrations.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah, absolutely. So I one of the important points he made was that the show is about inter-community, coalition building. And I know Temple Israel has done quite a bit of that. What have you found is important in building interfaith and inter-community relationships with other marginalized groups?
MARCIA ZIMMERMAN: Thank you for asking that question. It's so important. When there is any anti-Semitic graffiti or what our community has felt in just the last few weeks-- it's been graffiti around the city that was anti-Semitic. We often want to reach out to our other communities and the interfaith community.
For me, interfaith dialogue is the antidote to religious violence. I can promise you people who are perpetuating violence, hatred, any kind of language that is full of hate are not talking to other people. They are in their own bubble. So interfaith dialogue is the antidote to hate against one's groups.
And it creates a coalition, which is very important to connect and to create these relationships not just in the wake of hate, but in the everyday. And interfaith dialogue is so important to us, and that helps us understand the power.
We were just at the Mercy Mosque on Saturday night for a gathering in the wake of the fires that were there, and the Jewish communities showed up in many, many numbers because we understand what they're going through. And that is for us to build those coalitions and that support and that ability to say, we see you. We understand it. We are going to fight with you against it.
And then there's the diversity within the Jewish community, which people don't always talk about, right? So we have this Eastern European family that comes-- it's my family's story-- at the turn of the century from Russia, and that is a lot of our stories. But our Jewish community is quite diverse. We live all over the world. We live in Morocco, in Africa, in South Africa, in East Africa.
We live in so many places in the world-- Spain, Portugal. We've been pushed out to so many different places, and those stories are different and unique, including the American Jewish community that has Jews of color who have come here from a variety of different places.
Some have experienced the slavery of the transatlantic crossing for the Black African community and Jewish as well, so there are so many stories within the Jewish community, not just the interfaith community, that we are so proud of the diversity of our community. Small, but mighty.
INTERVIEWER: Well, Rabbi, thank you for all the work you're doing to celebrate and uplift those stories and to work together with others. I really appreciate your time.
MARCIA ZIMMERMAN: Thank you so much.
INTERVIEWER: Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman is Senior Rabbi at Temple Israel in Minneapolis. And I should mention arts programming on MPR News is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendments Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
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