Justin Kalin first heard about “Which Way to the Stage,” a play by Ana Nogueira, right after it premiered Off-Broadway in 2022, when a normally measured friend in New York posted his thoughts about the show on social media.
“He posted a story the night he saw it – just like, the most effusive, lavish praise,” Kalin, who is the associate artistic director at Out Front Theatre, said. “He really loved the production, the script – everything.”
When he looked more into the show, Kalin found that it fit right in the wheelhouse of Out Front’s mission these days – producing shows that center on queer joy, laughter, and hope.
“That’s largely by [Founder and Producing Artistic Director Paul Conroy’s] design and his instruction,” Kalin said. “It is becoming more and more, with every production, our little lane that we like to travel in. It’s the lane that I think we operate best from.”
Directed by Kalin, “Which Way to the Stage” will play at Out Front Theatre from March 12-28. The show follows Jeff (Matthew Busch) and Judy (Caty Bergmark), two theater lovers and aspiring performers, as they navigate the theater world in New York City. The show is punctuated by moments of them waiting outside the stage door for the 2014 Broadway musical “If/Then,” hoping that star Idina Menzel might make an appearance.
For Kalin, it’s a dream years in the making.
“To me as a director and as a theatrical producer, there’s nothing more exhilarating than falling in love with a project like this and thinking about it for so long, and getting a cast together effortlessly brought everything I was thinking about out of my brain and onto the stage,” he said.
Part of what drew Kalin to the show was how easily he could see himself and his friends in the characters. When casting the show, he wanted to find actors who innately understood the theater world. They needed to know what it felt like to love the art form unabashedly, but also be able to recognize how absurd it is to exist in a world where you’re constantly performing for strangers, asking them to pass judgment on you while you simultaneously pass judgment on them.
“Ana Nogueira, the playwright, has the most innate ability to capture theater artists and people in a way that’s not really overwrought or precious,” Kalin said. “She is so clearly a member of the theatrical community, and this is such a lived experience kind of play.”
“Which Way to the Stage” explores themes of friendship, queerness, and femininity, particularly when it comes to the ways in which we seek external validation and approval from others. Despite its specificity to the theater world, Kalin said he thinks those themes and the way they manifest can be true for anyone.
“No matter whether you get [validation] or not from any of those people, it’s never enough. And it will never be enough,” Kalin said. “The most authentic validation, the most satisfying validation, is figuring out how to validate yourself and how to pull that from inside of you.”
Kalin also described the show as “Waiting for Godot,” but for musical theater people – a quip he heard first from his trusted dramaturg, Elliot Folds.
“It completely changed my view of the show and broke my head wide open,” Kalin said. “Instead of a leafless tree, this characters are waiting at the stage door. And instead of Godot, it’s Idina Menzel.”
Get tickets and more information about the show at outfronttheatre.com.
