Interview: Daniel Goldstein, Lora Lee Gayer, and Adam Chanler-Berat Give More Life to Unknown Soldier

Traversing the 20th century, the musical Unknown Soldier follows lonely gynecologist Ellen, who enlists the help of lovelorn university librarian Andrew to uncover the story behind a mysterious photo of her late grandmother on a picnic with an amnesiac soldier.

Plot-wise, Unknown Soldier is suffused with grief; in real life, that emotion bookends it, too. After premiering at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2015, Unknown Soldier lost its 41-year-old composer, Michael Friedman, to AIDS in 2017. Coauthor Daniel Goldstein and director Trip Cullman continued to journey with the show, giving it a New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons in March 2020, where it was shutdown three days after opening when the Covid-19 pandemic overtook the city.

Four years on, Unknown Soldier has returned to the stage, now receiving its Washington, D.C. premiere at Arena Stage. Goldstein and Cullman never stopped working, using input from their new cast members, including Lora Lee Gayer, Adam Chanler-Berat, and Judy Kuhn, to not just strengthen what’s already there, but expand the storytelling. This is the version, Goldstein remarks, that seems to reach its full potential. Here, he and cast members Gayer and Chanler-Berat tell us why.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What is it like to return to Unknown Soldier now, with so much distance between all of the heartbreaking events that marked its developmental history?
Daniel Goldstein: For this version of the show, we’ve tried to focus on thinking of it as a new musical, unmarred by all that stuff. Our responsibility was to take the four years that we had and figure out how to make it better with new voices and new opinions. When Judy Kuhn agreed to do the show, she said, “It’s not that I’m trying to make my part bigger, but I’d love to know more about this character.” That led to a whole bunch of new writing. Throughout the rehearsal process, Adam and Lora Lee had a lot of questions that we really set out to answer. It’s been fascinating.

We’ve added a decent amount to the script. It’s longer than it was at Playwrights, and it’s actually longer than it was at Williamstown, but it feels tighter and more cohesive than it ever has. The way that Michael has figured into it is, it’s not that we’re making the show about him, but that we’re making the show for him. Is this something that he would feel confident with, or would he shout and run out of the room? I feel like we’ve allowed ourselves to make a show he would feel great about.

Adam and Lora Lee, why were you interested in these roles?
Lora Lee Gayer: I always want to work with Danny, and Trip Cullman is on my director manifestation list, so there was that. When I read the script, I called Danny and I was like, “What I’m struggling with here is how to make my character likable,” and Danny was immediately like, “Oh, no. We don’t want her likeable.”

Daniel: It’s not that we don’t want her likeable, I don’t want you to try and make her likeable. It’s not part of it.

Lora Lee: That exposed so much, because my immediate impulse is to make a female character likable. I’ve done so many of the ingenue roles and I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had a director be like “Just smile more,” which I know sounds so cliché, but it’s true. The fact that I’m so concerned with that, and Danny was like “No, that’s not the point of this,” was amazing. I wanted the part so badly. I had been talking to my therapist and I was like “I just really want a project that challenges me intellectually,” and this is it tenfold.

Adam Chanler-Berat: The initial response I had was dread. The idea of having to confront the Michael Friedman grief is intense. I was putting off reading the script and especially listening to the album because I didn’t want to deal with it. Finally, Trip was like “Are you doing this, or what?” I read Danny’s script, which is like a great episode of Serial, but deeper and with more pathos, and then I listened to the album, which was a tough task on my initial listen, just because that’s all we have left of Michael now.

Daniel: Adam is the only actor in the show now who ever really knew Michael in any major way.

Adam: Hearing his scores is like a way of visiting him and being visited by him. I heard Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson in there, I heard tons of Fortress of Solitude. Michael was working on a few things when he died, but this is maybe one of the last completed things he had made. It felt like an opportunity that I couldn’t say no to.

What is it like to sink your teeth into his score, particularly your big songs like “I Give Away Children” and “Andrew’s Story”?
Lora Lee: I was like, “I bet this is what it feels like learning how to surf.” I just kept falling off the board and it’s kind of painful, but once you finally get it, you are on this wave, and you just have to ride it. Don’t get me wrong, after our first three shows, I had a lot of pain in my shoulders and hands and forearms, and then the next show, I realized that for the whole song, I’m so tense that I’m sore for days. But the words and the melody are just there. If you just let it come out of you, it just happens, which is pretty amazing.

Adam: The idea of it being something you sort of ride is resonating with me. That’s a testament to Michael and Danny as writers. The show is partially about the stories that we tell ourselves and each other to get through the day, and the songs are great stories, written as you would say them. They’re very generous to the people who are performing them. I sort of realized what my song was supposed to do when we got an audience and I heard how they received it. That taught me the topography of the song, how to shape it more, where the turn is, how I can best set it up.

Daniel, this is your third go at the show. What’s the moral of this journey?
Daniel: Michael’s sister Marian came to see the show the other night; she is the keeper of his estate and a close friend to us, and she said, “I feel like the show has coalesced into what I always thought it would be.” All we were ever doing is trying to finish the show that Trip, Michael, and I set out to create, and I think that’s where we are now, and I couldn’t be happier with it. If we move it to Broadway, if we move it to London, if we do it in Australia, if we just license it, I can put it to bed, and I never quite felt that way about it before.

Adam: I would also like to add that DC is not far from New York. It’s a lovely, quick Amtrak ride away, and this could be the last time that you hear a new Michael Friedman score, and that is so deeply worth the cost of a train ride down here. I implore people to come visit us.