Bill Kenwright has directed or produced everything from the Broadway hits "Medea" (starring Diana Rigg) and "A Doll's House" (starring Janet McTeer) to the films "Die, Mommie Die!" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." But he says that what they all have in common is a simple story.
"I'm a minimalist," Kenwright says by phone from his London office. "I like a straightforward, focused journey."
On Tuesday, Kenwright's production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Whistle Down the Wind" begins a run at the Citi Wang Theatre. Kenwright says the show fits in with the stories he likes to tell. "It's about love, innocence, and religion, and the premise can be explained in a sentence or two," he says. "Three children discover an escaped convict in their barn. The first thing he says is 'Jesus Christ,' and they think he is the savior."
"Whistle Down the Wind" features Webber's music, lyrics by Jim Steinman (best known for writing Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell"), and a book by Webber, Gale Edwards, and Patricia Knop (best known for her screenplays, including "9 1/2 ½Weeks"). The 1961 film, starring Alan Bates and Hayley Mills, is considered a classic in England. "Here in England, that movie is our 'It's a Wonderful Life,' " Kenwright says. "We all know it so well that when Andrew played a song for me and told me he was planning to turn it into a musical, I thought he was crazy."
Webber, Steinman, and Knop moved the setting from the north of England to the American South in the 1950s, but the show's 1996 Harold Prince-directed tryout flopped before reaching Broadway, and although the show had a 1998 London run with Edwards as director, it was not considered a great success.
"I loved the notion of setting the story in Louisiana at the time of the birth of rock 'n' roll," says Kenwright, who sang in his own rock band in the '60s. "Although I didn't see the original production, I couldn't understand why it didn't work. It happens at a time when racial and religious bigotry and rock 'n' roll all came crashing together, when a family would go to church and be warned that Jesus is coming back and he's going to get you for your sins."
In 2001, Kenwright directed a streamlined production of the musical and produced a tour of the United Kingdom that ran for three years before playing London in 2006. The success of that production led Kenwright to mount a tour of the United States, which began last fall and starred Boston's own Andrea Ross, who left the tour before the Boston stop to head back to school.
"I could watch this show night after night," says Kenwright. "There's something so powerful about the innocence of children that turns a hostile situation around. My dream has always been to get it to Broadway. Audiences really respond to the show, but we haven't gotten the best response from critics. I guess you either buy into the simplicity or you don't."
Kenwright says he had the same experience with Willy Russell's musical "Blood Brothers," which has been running in England for 20 years. "Critics never warmed to that show, but audiences love it and we had a good long Broadway run, too. My accountant wants me to produce only the hits," he says with a laugh, "but I can't think about it that way.
"At the end of the day, I do it for me," he continues. "I've got a movie starting in a few weeks directed by Stephen Frears and starring Michelle Pfeiffer ['Cheri,' based on a story by Colette] and Felicity Kendal is opening in a revival of Noel Coward's 'The Vortex' in the West End in February, so I'm busy."
Through Feb. 3. Tickets: $25-$69.50. 800-447-7400, citicenter.org.
Notes
Two of the newly named Huntington Theatre Playwriting Fellows, Rebekah Maggor and Jacqui Parker, will have productions of their work on stages starting this weekend. Maggor revives her show "Shakespeare's Actresses in America," a look at how actresses from Sarah Bernhardt to Kathleen Turner have interpreted Shakespeare's heroines. At the Wimberly Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts, Sunday through Feb. 11. Tickets: $15-$50. 617-933-8600, bostontheatrescene.com. Next door at the BCA's Plaza Theatre, Parker's Our Place Theatre Project is presenting the eighth annual African American Theatre Festival, which includes Charles Fuller's "Zooman and the Sign," Celeste Bedford Walker's "Camp Logan," and Parker's own "Feathers on My Arms . . . Zora Neale Hurston's "Flying High" through Feb. 9. Tickets: $28. 617-933-8600, bostontheatrescene.com. . . . "Shear Madness" opens its 29th year downstairs at the Charles Playhouse on Tuesday, with an entirely new cast. The latest crowd of hairdressers and detectives includes Elliot Norton Award winner Larry Coen, Rob Najarian, Jennifer Ellis, Ed Hoopman, stand-up comedian Stephen Donovan, and Kathleen Monteleone. Tickets: $40. 617-426-5225, shearmadness.com.
