“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” director Nick Day hasn’t slept much lately with the rock musical opening Thursday night. The Communication junior took a break from rehearsal to talk with The Current about guy-liner, Jackson’s legacy and creating 60 characters with 13 actors.
The Current: What should people expect from the show?
Nick Day: It is a kind of play that nobody will have seen before. It’s a wonderful hodge-podge of styles and sensibilities and themes and interests intellectually. It’s wild, it’s unpredictable, and it’s bloody.
The Current: How did you bring a rock musical to life within the Louis Room?
ND: It’s quite an interesting process. Going from the moment I chose this show a year ago, I knew I wanted it to be big and loud and bright and super bold. So, me and Rachel Marchant, who’s the producer of the show, accumulated an amazing team of designers. We talked to people early and often to get them on board because the show is extremely complicated in terms of design. You know, it covers hundreds of years of history, and moves really fast — no scene lasts longer than maybe three or four minutes — and takes place over a multitude of locations, has more than 60 characters and is also a full-fledged rock musical with a band and about 15 musical numbers, and all of those need to be like you’re in a rock concert.
The Current: Why did you choose “Bloody Bloody” for your musical?
ND: I was really interested in doing the kind of play that seemed to ask too much of the people performing it. So, having 13 actors try to play 60 characters trying to cram all of the stylistic, thematic things into this shows.
The Current: Jackson was a pretty controversial president, especially with the Trail of Tears and Corrupt Bargain. What is your stance on his presidency?
ND: I am a history major, and I don’t pretend to be an authority on such things, but researching the history behind this show and the history of Jackson has been pretty fascinating to me. He’s certainly controversial, and certainly there’s a lot to be embarrassed by about his legacy, but he nonetheless fascinates me, because it’s quite rare in studying history to encounter a president who was so unapologetically bold, so kind of overrun by his own passions and his own ideologies that carried him to do insane things and there’s just a lot to be learned from that. I don’t know how I stand on it because doing the show and doing my own research has led me to see him as a human being, and not an idea and that’s sort of the point of the show too is that he’s a very complicated person, much like we all are.
The Current: How do you create an emo-rock president?
ND: Well, there’s a lot of guy-liner involved, a lot of black fingernail polish — first step. The script does a lot of that work for us. It’s an extremely well-written show. I guess the biggest thing I can say is that it’s just unapologetic.
The Current: What musical number is stuck in your head when you leave rehearsal?
ND: I would say the opening number, “Populism, Yea, Yea!” It’s a super, super repetitive song. It’s quite loud, and it’s totally thrilling to watch. Now that we’ve staged it and we have lights and everything, it’s burned in my mind just the image of watching that song.
