Heidi Cline McKerley has known she was going to be directing Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812 at Horizon Theatre for a number of years now. Usually engaged as what she calls a “hired gun” around town, McKerley collaborated with Lisa Adler, Horizon Theatre’s artistic director, on securing local rights to the acclaimed musical, and her proposal letter of why she was the ideal person to helm the show sealed the deal.
She cited all the large musicals she has directed over the years, as well as her involvement with numerous Anton Chekhov productions, dating back to her time at Soul-stice Repertory Ensemble, where she served as the founding producing artistic director from 1991-2002. The letter did the trick — Horizon landed the production and will stage it October 20 through November 26.
Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812 is based on 70 pages of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace — the section involving 19-year-old Natasha and her relationship with bad boy Anatole, as well as the outsider, Pierre, who looks after Natasha. Pierre is dealing with his own agenda — searching for the meaning of life. All of this takes place as the titular comet is expected to land and end the world.
Pierre is in the midst of an existential crisis, circa 1812 Moscow, as the musical begins. That is something McKerley immediately responded to. “I love me an existential crisis — King Lear is my favorite Shakespeare,” she says. “It’s a divine human condition problem to play around with, and, ultimately, here it’s [told] through the other story lines. Pierre is headed toward middle age, and Natasha is just starting off in society, engaged to Andre but falling for Anatole. Pierre winds up healing himself when his world is expanded. He is able to wake himself up out of this crisis because he tunes into his fellow man.”
The director calls the musical Dickensian due to its large number of roles and admits it might be a challenge for some to keep up with all its players. “There is some investment you have to make in the characters,” she says. “Some theater companies put a family tree in their program. I have directed in a way that I want nobody to question who is related to who.”
What started at a small speakeasy cabaret venue in New York 2012 made its way to a tent in the Meatpacking District and eventually landed on Broadway in 2016. With Josh Groban in the role of Pierre, Comet was nominated for 12 Tony Awards and won two.
McKerley feels more people would know more about Comet if another high-profile musical, Hamilton, hadn’t followed it with such a huge pop culture stomp. “It does have a lot of the same sensibilities: taking a classic story and giving it contemporary overtones. Everything is a delicious duality in the show. If we think one thing is true, the opposite is true.”
Dave Malloy, who is responsible for the book, music and lyrics, calls it an electro-pop opera. “It is classic in feel but has quick tracks that come in to give it a contemporary sensibility throughout, which is an attempt to make what is classic more approachable to all audiences,” says McKerley.
One of the challenges for its producers was how to retain the audience immersion that had made it such a buzzy pre-Broadway work. When she saw it on Broadway, McKerley realized it was unlike usual fare. “The design was innovative — the audience was on the stage. Even on our balcony cheap seats, actors were near and around. That is why people really hooked into it and the ultimate message.”
In McKerley’s Horizon production, the bar and tables will be audience seating. “Its immersive quality has been with the production since its tiny beginning, with people standing on tables, people sitting on laps, people serving food and drinks. Like we did with [the musical] Once, we have flipped the space to be in a configuration it’s never been in before. It will be almost impossible not to be close to an actor.”
The cast includes Daniel Burns as Pierre, Alexandria Joy as Natasha and Terry Burrell as Marya, Natasha’s godmother. Burrell has been doing research to find out more about 19th Russian culture, including checking out War and Peace from the library to get more of a feel of what Marya is about.
“She is very liberal, a little bit of a gossip and warns Natasha here about Helene, Pierre’s wife,” says the actor. She’s also very intrigued by the character’s arc: “I am playing with the contrast of when you first meet her. I make her a little ridiculous, a little silly, but you can’t make her so ridiculous that she is not believable. When she finds out the truth about Natasha and goes after her, the sense of betrayal is profound.”
For Joy, the role of Natasha is a dream role. “I’ve been in love with the show since I first heard it in college,” she says. “I sang ‘No One Else’ for my senior showcase, and it was always a song that scared me. Now that I am getting a chance to play it with so much more experience under my belt and confidence, it is the most exciting thing I’ve ever gotten to do.”
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Jim Farmer is the recipient of the 2022 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Theatre Feature and a nominee for Online Journalist of the Year. A member of five national critics’ organizations, he covers theater and film for ArtsATL. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he has written about the arts for 30-plus years. Jim is the festival director of Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ film festival, and lives in Avondale Estates with his husband, Craig, and dog, Douglas.
