Empire

Last night, I saw Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull’s new musical Empire, which just had its first preview at New World Stages under the direction of Cady Huffman.

The play tells the story of the construction of the Empire State Building, using as a framing device a woman whose family has a certain connection to it. Exactly what that connection is isn’t clear to the audience at the beginning of the piece. As it happens, it isn’t entirely clear to the woman herself.

 

Jessica Ranville plays Sylvie Lee, an outspoken feminist in 1976 whose daughter Rayne (Kiana Kabeary) wants to become an iron worker. Sylvie, who has mixed feelings about her family’s ties to the construction industry, provides some of the show’s exposition, but also learns a few things herself, including about her mother (April Ortiz), a Mohawk woman who might know more about the construction of the Empire State Building than she’s let on in the past.

 

Young men from the Mohawk Tribe have played a crucial role in the shaping of the New York skyline, including pivotal work on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building. The musical centers their stories, though it also maintains a great deal of focus on Frances Belle “Wally” Wolodsky (Kaitlyn Davidson), a former political operative who (in this version of the story at least) makes sure the building actually gets built. Like Sylvie, Wally might be a composite of numerous individuals, as it takes a lot of people to build a skyscraper.

 

Some of the figures in the musical are historical, though, including Al Smith (played by Paul Salvatoriello), the former governor and presidential candidate who later became president of Empire State, Inc. That company acquired the site of the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, which shut down in 1929. The plan was to demolish the hotel and construct the world’s tallest building, but the stock market crash made that look increasingly unlikely. Still, Smith persisted, aided by financier John J. Raskob (Howard Kaye) and in the play by the possibly fictional architect Charles Kenney (Albert Guerzon). This trio sings a wonderful song called “Moxie” that’s a tribute to the outrageous ambitions of all New Yorkers.

 

Other great songs include “Stuck With You,” “Touch the Sky,” and of course “Empire.” The play might take some liberties with history, but always in service of emphasizing the hard-working and often unknown men and women who turned the dream of a building in the sky into a reality.