The Phenomenon of Joe Iconis- & Family Part II

By Alix Cohen…

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

“Broadway Bounty Hunter” (book by Joe with Williams and O.G. Lance Rubin) starred Annie Golden as a down on her luck Broadway star who made ends meet with a very different profession. “Love in Hate Nation” was a 1960s rock romance between two girls in a juvenile hall. Iconis figures he’s authored a dozen produced musicals to date including two song cycles.

“We’re a family dedicated to helping get his vision on stage. It’s a deep level of trust,” Lorinda Lisitza states in no uncertain terms. “Joe has a talent for finding supportive people who want to hold each other up. We do that on stage and behind the scenes …

“When I found out during COVID in 2020 that I had cancer, Joe and Lauren (his wife, writer/performer Lauren Marcus), were the first people I called. They sent a lot of care packages then sat outside with me and visited.” Iconis worked around her when Lisitza later suffered through treatment. She babysits for Jason SweetTooth Williams’ little girls and Joe’s daughter Roxie.

“There was one night when I was so upset about a bad review a show of Joe’s got that I threw a glass out a window,” Jennifer Tepper winces.“ The Family is as invested in their leader as much as he is in them. “I have friends I grew up with, but I don’t see them as much as I see these friends. These have been the closest people in my life for decades,” Eric William Morris tells me. “Most of my friends are in the Family. If I’m gonna be hangin’ out, it’s with one of these guys,” Williams says.

“Joe smacked me around a little when I was having personal issues and told me I needed to get my shit together. He offered anything I needed, a place to crash, financial help. He’s the shirt-off-his-back kinda guy…When he won the Kleban Award, he gave a big party. When his song “Broadway, Here I Come!” was featured on “Smash” (the tv show), he gave a big party…

His parents have that kind of I’ll take care of you mentality too,” Williams continues.” We’ve known them for years and are often at their house on Long Island. Every year at Christmastime, they invite anyone who doesn’t have a place to go. There’s a piano. It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas kind of feel.”

In 2006 Iconis was commissioned by Christopher Ashley at La Jolla Playhouse to write what would become “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical”. (Iconis’ concept.) He went through a series of book writers and in 2020 fully took over book-writing duties in addition to music and lyrics. The show played La Jolla in 2023. Ashley is directing its Washington production as well.

“It’s less about Hunter’s writing and more about him as a person,” Iconis reflects. “ I was so taken with how some stories lived up to the cartoon, renegade, drug-taking wild man and others painted a picture of a serious writer and moralist who had pure beliefs in what America could be.” The New York Times calls it “a frenzied, frothing act of theatrical resurrection,” adding “Thompson is played with feral charisma by Eric William Morris…”

Morris did a table read in 2019 but didn’t play the gonzo journalist in La Jolla and never thought he had a shot at the role. “I personally identify with his focus, drive, and obsession to leave a legacy,” he muses. Audience members sometimes dress as Hunter.

Lisitza plays his mother. “I think the show uses Hunter’s eye, observations, and behavior as a lens to look at political history and how history repeats itself,” she observes. Williams plays Ralph Steadman known for his illustrations of Thompson’s work; also a peacock, a bat and the book, The Great Gatsby.

Iconis is now a father. Wife Lauren Marcus sings to baby Roxie. I ask whether parenthood has changed his creative life. “I never wanna put on my kid that she’s the thing in my life that’s helping me not be crazy or stressed, but she is. When I’m with her, it completely wipes away everything else…” Unsurprising from a man who admits to crying at movies.

“I feel Roxie’s influence on Hunter for sure. I think the show got a little bit warmer and more human. There’s always been this family section at the end with Hunter and his adult son. I think it got deeper. Also, I added an infant character played by a puppet that can hoist its fist or finger in the air. It’s a talented baby. I think Roxie would find those moments hilarious.”

The Annual Joe Iconis Christmas Extravaganza was inaugurated 2008 at Ars Nova. It began as a holiday concert with a few scripted moments. There were 10 performers, a few dressed up. Lisitza played drunk Mrs. Claus and Williams played Santa from the beginning. (She bought her own costume.) Morris plays bartender Mr. Macabee who can’t be kept from the stage. Actors slot in and out between other commitments. Even admitted non-performer Tepper appears for the fun of it.

The show eventually moved to 54 Below where it sells out successive nights every year. It’s now fully scripted and extravagantly costumed. “We’re up to 60-70 cast members and honestly, if I could, I’d have it be 100. If I ever got Lin-Manuel Miranda famous and money were no longer a consideration, I’d have as many performers as audience members.

One day I’m gonna do it,” Iconis declares with the anticipation of a pilgrim.“I write a new script every year, but certain characters come back. It’s so insane and I’m so proud of it.” That that they have only two weeks rehearsal is astonishing. A unique evening of Hellzapoppin’ fabulosity, the show is described as:

…part rock concert, part theater piece, and part theme park attraction… Featuring brand new holiday songs, old favorites, a huge cast of musical theater all-stars, tiny elves, enormous reindeer, an inebriated Mr. and Mrs. Claus, and more whiskey-fueled shenanigans than you can shake a candy cane at, it promises to be the hap-hap-happiest holiday hoedown ever seen on stage.

Iconis devotes a considerable amount of his time to hustling. “If I could spend ¾ of the time writing that I spend hustling, I would’ve written twenty musicals. It’s constant, incessant; never gets better only harder. For Hunter, I’ve personally invited hundreds of people. I have a spreadsheet. 90% don’t respond.”

“In times like this when things feel so heavy, I immediately want to make something inspiring, invigorating and hopeful. Joy and celebration are a real “fuck you” to things that depress us…I think Hunter Thompson is defiantly optimistic. ‘And refreshingly complex. Ultimately it’s about how art changes the world.”

I ask about his bucket list. “I want to be able to sustain a life in the arts. I want it to be a little easier to get my shows up. I want to have to worry a little less about money, to devote myself to the creative side of things. And I want a Sardi’s caricature.”

Mr. Joe Iconis: https://mrjoeiconis.com/

All uncredited photos courtesy of Joe Iconis
Opening Photo by Stephanie Wessels

COMING UP:
July 24 and 25, 2025 – Be More Chill 10th Anniversary Concerts
Two River Theater- Red Bank, New Jersey
https://tworivertheater.org/whats-on/be-more-chill-10th-anniversary-concert/#dates-tickets

July 28 & 29, 2025 Joe Iconis & Family
Barrington Stage Company
https://barringtonstagecompany2.thundertix.com/events/245809

August 18 & 20-23 Joe Iconis & Family
54 Below 254 West 54th Street
https://54below.org/events/joe-iconis-family-5/