The Phenomenon of Joe Iconis – & Family Part I

By Alix Cohen…

Composer/lyricist Joe Iconis is as well known for his crossover professional/ personal Family of artists as he is for his iconoclastic musicals.

Film directors Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and Wes Anderson repeatedly work with the same actors. John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote again and again for Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera. Bartlett Sher hires Kelli O’Hara, Jerry Zaks likes Nathan Lane. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail are frequent collaborators

Expanding on that penchant, composer/lyricist Joe Iconis has unwittingly become the fearless leader, wrangler, employment source, inspiration and friend to an unusually large and devoted number of theater artists. They call themselves “The Family.”
Many have been working with the writer in concerts and musicals well over twenty years. They go to each other’s weddings, babysit, cat sit, shepherd one another through illness and tragedy, offer support and celebrate garnered success.

Iconis doesn’t come from a family in the arts. “They’re supportive, but also terrified,” he notes. The piano was just a piece of passed-down furniture until, at eight, he was “lovingly pushed into lessons.” About the same time the boy became obsessed with musicals. He’d see or hear something, return home, and play it by ear.

“Little Shop of Horrors”, “Into the Woods”, and “Anything Goes” were the first musicals Iconis saw. Birthday and holiday presents became tickets. “I really feel those three informed who I became as a writer.” The adolescent outgrew a local piano teacher and was sent for classical training. It was decidedly not what he wanted. “I’d get in trouble for improvising, adding notes. I was orchestrating.”

Most teenagers would’ve capitalized on playing an instrument as a way to make friends and meet girls. Iconis was shy. He loved being IN a theater, but preferred to remain backstage. 6th grade teacher, Ms. Backer had everyone fill out a questionnaire including “What do you want to be when you grow up?” She mailed them back to students upon graduation. Joe had written: A Broadway composer.

The artist didn’t start writing lyrics until undergraduate work at NYU. Asked to decide between collaborating with a stranger or learning new craft, his bashfulness put him in the former situation only when necessary. “The more I wrote lyrics, the more I felt I was meant to do it.” Like Stephen Sondheim, Iconis had no interest in writing only lyrics. “Music is too much a part of me; even when I do write lyrics, music is implied.”

Lorinda Lisitza met Iconis in 2003 when she performed in one of his thesis shows, Plastic (with lyricist Robert Maddock). The two would subsequently write her a one woman song cycle called Triumphant Baby. “He was 22ish, smart, conscientious, a hard worker, but very laid back. You want to do well to showcase his work, but he doesn’t apply pressure. He’s innately lovable,”
she says.

“Joe’s a leader. It’s funny to think of someone so much younger than me as parental, but he’s kind of like the good dad on a tv sitcom who doles out great advice and knows you’ll take it because he raised you right..”Lisitza is an early member of the family, what they call an “OG”, or Original Gangster. “When we’re all clicking, you can feel it.”

“The Black Suits”, centered on a Garage Band in suburban Long Island was produced at Barrington Stage Company in 2012 and Center Theatre Group in L.A. in 2013. The show was about dreams, blood, Pop Tarts, records, drug runs, blue hair, the St. Anne’s Battle of the Bands, and the undying transformative coolness of rock and roll music. Write what you know.

Eric William Morris auditioned for the musical. He didn’t get the part, but made a good enough connection that Iconis later asked him to appear in the “Things to Ruin”, a rock concert about young people hell bent on destruction and creation. “I wanted to please him, for him to be aware that I was serious about what I was doing,” Morris recalls. “I learned pretty quickly that he’s as curious as anyone else that does what we do. There’s no pretense…”

The young men had similar backgrounds. Morris felt “represented” by Iconis’ themes and was drawn to the writer’s sense of humor. “It’s a little dark, incredibly self aware and self deprecating.”

Jason SweetTooth Williams felt similar affinity when cast in The Black Suits. “It was both humorous and deadly serious. Joe wrote authentically to young people, in their voices. I played the drummer – like me, studious, musical, but kind of the grunt of the band. My character had to decide whether to join another group or stay with his friends. The piece spoke to loyalty, which is really Joe’s MO in life.”

“I thought he was cool with a capital “C,” he says sincerely. The men became “Inseparable partners in crime.” Williams also met and became fast friends with Morris performing Things to Ruin. He met his wife-to-be when in Joe’s “Bloodsong of Love” at Ars Nova. “Even connection with my wife leads back to Joe. He was Best Man at my wedding.”

“The last performance of “The Black Suits” I knew I was getting too old to ever do it again. I walked off stage and burst into tears. It was gratitude for having been seen. Joe grabbed me in a really big hug. I get a little teary just thinking about it. He saw me as a rock star. I never felt that way. I think Joe opens people’s worlds to be something they never dreamed of.”

Ars Nova also hosted the first Joe Iconis & Family concerts. Inspired by Robert Altman’s work and The Muppets, Iconis imagined an ensemble of like minded, multitalented artists who would braid their professional and personal lives. “The whole Family idea is loose enough to accommodate the lives of working artists — it needed to allow people to come and go…”

Jennifer Ashley Tepper, now Creative and Programming Director at 54 Below, was a fan of Iconis’ songs before becoming assistant producer on Things to Ruin. She’s been involved with every show except one since 2009, including the Joe Iconis & Family concerts and Christmas Extravaganzas at 54 Below.

“Joe’s passionate about collaboration. Creative decisions I’ve made elsewhere were heavily impacted by my collaboration with him,” she says. “He understands human behavior. A lot of his topics have to do with outsiders. He thinks of himself that way, but writes what might be cliché in an original voice. He’s paternal, a nurturer. Joe will never kick anyone out of the Family.”

Despite inherent frustration, Tepper doesn’t think Iconis has a temper –“though his characters do.” Morris remembers fire in the writer’s twenties. “He hated being put in the box of a young musical theater writer. It softened over the years in a really lovely way.” The only evidence of it now is when the writer gets angry for one of his flock who’s not being recognized or properly treated.

“Oh my God, yeah,” Iconis responds when I ask him if he feels parental. “I could not be more involved in their lives. I take their successes and failures personally. Even though I’m not, I feel responsible for them, especially those who haven’t had an easy go in this business, which is most of them. I feel like my success, if I have success, is gonna lift all those people up, so I feel the weight of them on my shoulders.”

Based on the young adult novel by Ned Vizzini, “Be More Chill” was commissioned by Two River Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey. It’s a Faustian story of achieving high school popularity when the SQUIP, a Japanese nanocomputer pill, was implanted in your brain instructing how to be cool. There are, of course, consequences. “I love the idea of young people being able to see themselves,” he tells me.

The show opened in 2015 but didn’t survive its reviews. Iconis and company nonetheless made a cast album which, miracle of miracles, went viral. Fans created YouTube videos using its music. With help from Jennifer Tepper, it was reborn at Pershing Square Signature Center, then the Lyceum Theater on Broadway. Young people would show up knowing all the lyrics, mouthing along, calling out. Iconis received a nomination for Best Score at the 73rd Tony Awards.

“There was a lot of great buzz. People thought this could be the one. All these producers were lined up to see it. Christopher Isherwood (The New York Times) came unexpectedly, gave it a terrible review, and everyone canceled. Every single one. All with different excuses. “I got my first good New York Times review last week.” Iconis sighs. (for “The Untitled, Unauthorized Hunter Thompson Musical” at Signature Theatre, Washington D.C. as I write.)

Opening Photo Stephanie Wessels
All uncredited photos Courtesy of Joe Iconis

Part II tomorrow