Grammy winner Melissa Manchester did it for “my magnificent mom,” who at 80 just started a new job in a Los Angeles stationery store where “she has new people to complain about, and new women who have never seen her clothes.”
Country star Pam Tillis did it for her mom, aunts and “everyone in my growing circle of friends facing 50.”
And Kathie Lee Gifford? She did it for her daddy. “He died almost four years ago,” the longtime TV personality said. “He always thought women ran the world and never got credit for it. So I think it would make my daddy very happy that I have been involved in this.”
“This” is writing songs for “Hats,” a lighthearted but heartfelt new musical that celebrates women who, Gifford says, “have paid their dues on the home front, on the work front and in the bedroom – and are now saying, ‘It’s my turn.”‘
Manchester, Tillis and Gifford, who represent the songwriting spectrum from pop to country to Christian, talked together by phone recently from all over the world – Manchester in Los Angeles (“in my pajamas”), Tillis in Branson, Mo. (“in my overalls”) and Gifford from a cruise ship docked in Croatia (“in my thong!”) – to discuss their fun yet deeply personal all-star collaboration.
“Hats” opens in its world premiere Wednesday at the New Denver Civic Theatre.
“It’s for every woman who has faced that 50th birthday and has fears about the future,” Gifford said. “Women like my mom, who lost her partner of 54 years.”
“Hats” was inspired by the Red Hat Society, the fastest-growing women’s movement in the world. More than
1 million women make up its 42,000 chapters in 30 countries from Algeria to Venezuela. There are 606 chapters in Colorado alone, or more than 20,000 women. The only requirement: that they be at least 50 years old.
That’s not an age that scares Manchester, who passed that milestone in 2001. “My fire alarm goes off whenever I have a birthday cake,” said the author of “Midnight Blue,” “and I am proud of that. I insist on every single candle on that cake.”
Tillis’ attitude toward aging is simple: “Exfoliation is the key,” the daughter of legend Mel Tillis joked. “No, I’m just being goofy, but here’s the deal: Aging is really about dropping baggage. There is a real freedom that comes with getting older.”
Fighting aging’s isolation
The Red Hat Society is dedicated to giving older women, many of them surviving spouses like Gifford’s mother, a reason to get dressed and get out of the house.
“That’s a key point, because isolation brings insanity, no matter what stage of life you are in,” Manchester said. “Women are living so much longer, so by the time they are joining the Red Hat Society, it’s just the start of a gigantic new chapter of life. And to do it in a joyful community that encourages them to keep growing and to keep happy and to stay connected, then, gee, that sounds like a good date to me.”
“Just to know that they are not alone,” interjected Gifford.
Actually, when these three get going, it’s best to just step back and let them interject:
Gifford: “Sometimes women really feel as if they are the only ones who have ever lost their husbands, or the only ones whose children have grown up, or whose grandchildren don’t call. And they come to find out, ‘Gosh, here are thousands of other women who feel the same way, and they are right here in my hometown.”‘
Tillis: “That is so true.”
Gifford: “I want to write a song called, ‘Just When You Thought You Dropped Your Last Egg.’ Sorry to get into this with you, John, but at a certain point in our biological lives, we women do drop our last egg, and that part of being fertile and giving birth is over.
“But if you continue your evolution as a human being, as God’s creation, then you are able to be more fertile in other ways than you ever were in your life before.”
Tillis: “I absolutely believe that, honey.”
Gifford: “Before, you were so busy giving birth and nursing and admonishing and teaching – and then all of a sudden you wake up and realize, ‘Gosh, I have the whole day in front of me. I could write 10 songs by the end of the day. I could give birth 10 times today.’
“So what we have given up perhaps in the size of jeans we wear, we gain in the size of the canvas on which we are able to paint. And that is thrilling.”
Dread of 50: “The hell with it”
“Hats” is directed and choreographed by the esteemed Lynne Taylor-Corbett, who graduated from Littleton High School in 1964. It’s the story of “a 49.99-year-old woman” who dreads her 50th birthday until meeting the Red Hatters.
Rather than seek out a single songwriting team, the “Hats” creators sought contributions from a variety of writers all at, over or approaching 50. The list includes the legendary Carol Hall (“The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”).
Manchester, best known for “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” wrote two songs for “Hats” with composer Susan Vaughn. “Invisible,” she said, is a bittersweet tune that talks about how women become inconspicuous to society at a certain age. “They are not acknowledged in advertisements, on TV, in movies and certainly not on radio,” she said.
In the broadest stroke, she said, her new song might remind fans of “Don’t Cry Out Loud.” “But it’s not really that, because I could not have written ‘Invisible’ 30 years ago,” she said. “I needed to have the weight of experience and time passing and to really stand firmly in the shoes that I have earned through experience.”
Her other new song, translated from its Spanish title, is “The Five Stages of a Woman’s Life.”
Gifford: “That’s a fantastic song, Melissa. And what’s the last thing the women say?”
Manchester: “They say, ‘The hell with it.’ After sucking it in and slimming down and worrying about all that nonsense … the hell with it.”
“Brilliant,” said Gifford, who was approached to write the lyrics for a song pre-titled “I Don’t Want.” It would express all the reasons the lead character does not want to turn 50. “That was so easy for me, it was like yawning,” said Gifford, who turned 50 in 2003. “They really shouldn’t pay me for that one.”
She wrote two more songs with David Friedman that were later blended into one tune titled “Yes, You Can.”
“That song came from years ago when I was in a bad, roller-coaster love affair,” Gifford said. “This thought came to me: ‘If you settle for what you’ve got, you deserve what you get. You can change your life, but it has to start with you.”‘
Tillis: “I can’t wait to hear all these songs!”
And they can’t wait to hear “The Older the Fiddle, the Sweeter the Tune,” which Tillis penned with Pat Bunch, her lyrical collaborator since age 16. When that title was presented to her, Tillis couldn’t believe it hadn’t already been taken.
“I said, ‘You are kidding me, right?”‘ she said with a laugh. Hers is an updated take on the Bob Wills classic, “Don’t Be Ashamed of Your Age.”
“They really wanted to interject a fun, hoedown country flair to give the characters a chance to get down and boogie,” said Tillis. “I love this song because I do really believe that if you continue to grow as a person and deepen your relationships and let go of ideas and attitudes that don’t serve you best, then at a certain point in your life, you do get better. The music does get sweeter.”
Raves from the “Hat” ladies
Gifford and Manchester were in New York this summer when “Hats” was first presented in workshop form. The audience that first night was made of typical Big Apple theatergoers, and Gifford thought, “Uh-oh. What are we in for?”
But for the next night’s performance, the producers bused in the Red Hat Society. Suddenly jokes that fell flat with theater snobs “landed with a perfect 10,” Gifford said. “It was hysterically funny.”
Manchester said the ladies in red “were crying and cheering and feeling included – and not pandered to. It was really touching.”
“Hats” is already finding its audience in Denver. The first six weeks are 65 percent presold, or about 8,000 tickets. But while the goal for most new musicals is Broadway or bust, the “Hats” creators have no intention of taking it to New York, where it would likely be savaged. Instead, they have signed a development deal to bring “Hats” to up to 28 Harrah’s casinos across the country.
“I think that’s really smart,” Manchester said. “If you bring it to New York, you’re just going to cut it off at the knees. This is populist theater, and it doesn’t make any bones about what it’s not. They are smart to get it out into the country and then, hopefully, the world.”
But before the world, “Hats” comes to Denver. Gifford and Manchester will be at Wednesday’s opening.
Manchester: “Absolutely. And I’ll be bringing my mom.”
Gifford: “What a great idea, Melissa. I think I will try to bring my mother, too.”
Manchester: “I said to my mother, ‘Do you feel like going to Denver?’ She said, ‘I wouldn’t miss it.’ I don’t believe she has a red hat. but she does have red hair. … That’s close enough.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Hats”
MUSICAL | New Denver Civic Theatre, 721 Santa Fe Drive | Songwriters include Kathie Lee Gifford, Pam Tillis, Gretchen Cryer, Melissa Manchester, Amanda McBroom, Carol Hall and Susan Birkenhead | Directed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett | OPEN-ENDED | Opens Wednesday, then 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays | $37.50-$39.50 | 303-309-3773, 866-464-2626, ticketswest.com, all King Soopers locations.
