SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Most new Broadway shows these days feature big stars, big budgets or adaptations of well-known intellectual properties. What are the odds that a two-person original music from Britain can open on Broadway with little fanfare and get enthusiastic reviews and encouraging word of mouth? What are the odds that B. J. Leiderman does our theme music? The intriguingly titled "Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)" seems to have beaten the odds, as Jeff Lunden reports.
JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: The setup is straight from a rom-com. An over-eager young Brit named Dougal visits New York for the first time to attend the wedding of a father he's never met. He's picked up at JFK Airport by Robin, the tightly wound younger sister of the bride, and they seem completely mismatched.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK)")
SAM TUTTY: (As Dougal, singing) It's the capital city of the USA.
CHRISTIANI PITTS: (As Robin) It's not.
TUTTY: (As Dougal, singing) The city I swore I would see for myself one day.
PITTS: (As Robin) But you've actually been to New York before?
TUTTY: (As Dougal) Yes. No, but I have seen "Home Alone 2" quite a few times.
PITTS: (As Robin) You serious?
TUTTY: (As Dougal, singing) There's pizza for breakfast.
KIT BUCHAN: The best rom-coms are kind of revisionist rom-coms, something like "When Harry Met Sally..."
LUNDEN: Kit Buchan has written a script and lyrics for two strangers with his longtime friend and former bandmate Jim Barne. It's their first musical. Buchan says they wanted to question the tried-and-true formula.
BUCHAN: What happens if you can't really afford to inhabit that kind of storyline? Because historically, anyway, rom-coms tend to be about quite genteel people who have time and money to just wander around (laughter) and fall in love.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK)")
TUTTY: (As Dougal, singing) New York. I'm already talking the talk in New York.
LUNDEN: The Gen Z pair from opposite sides of the Atlantic aren't just struggling financially. Christiani Pitts, who plays Robin, says they're really struggling to find themselves.
PITTS: She's kind of in between where she wants to be and who she is, and she's got some family issues going on that have just kind of put a cloud over her life.
LUNDEN: Robin works as a barista in a coffee shop.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK)")
PITTS: (As Robin, singing) What'll it be? I'm Robin. I'll be serving you this morning. Thanks for waiting. I'll be right with you.
And she's been managing until she runs into Dougal, who is kind of forcing her to confront the way that she's choosing to get through her day.
LUNDEN: And Dougal, who Robin describes as a golden retriever, but with a little less boundaries than that, wants to make the most of his 48 hours in New York and spend time with Robin. They go off to her neighborhood in Brooklyn to pick up the titular wedding cake. They also bond over her Tinder page.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK)")
PITTS: (As Robin) Ooh, what about Cody?
TUTTY: (As Dougal) Cody?
PITTS: (As Robin) Cody could be fun.
TUTTY: (As Dougal) He's terrible at spelling, and he seems to have a gun.
PITTS: (As Robin) He's Scorpio.
TUTTY: (As Dougal) Scorpio? He's dangerous.
PITTS: (As Robin) So what? He is fascinating.
TUTTY: (As Dougal) Absolutely not.
LUNDEN: Sam Tutty played Dougal in London and reprises the role on Broadway. He says that Tinder song opens the door between the two characters.
TUTTY: There's sort of like a spark of chemistry and a spark of playfulness, and then it goes back to what you've been exposed to for the first 15 minutes, which is sort of this captain optimism versus, you know, captain realism.
LUNDEN: These two characters travel across New York, bickering and finding commonality on a simple set which uses two turntables. One is filled with suitcases of all shapes and sizes, painted gray to suggest the New York skyline. And of course, both characters carry their own emotional baggage, too, says director Tim Jackson.
TIM JACKSON: They both feel like they've been left behind to a certain extent, and so we thought that a baggage reclaim vibe was the right place to take it.
LUNDEN: Jackson worked with set designer Soutra Gilmour to make sure the suitcases contain surprises. You open one up, and it becomes a pair of subway seats. You open another up, and it's a hotel minibar.
JACKSON: The way we built it, actually, was that each of those surprises gets a little bigger as you go through the show. So it builds and builds and builds, so that we didn't want it to feel stale or, oh, there's another one.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK)")
TUTTY: (As Dougal, singing) They're singing Christmas carols on the late-night radio.
PITTS: (As Robin, singing) So may I have this dance, dear...
CHRISTIANI PITTS AND SAM TUTTY: (As Robin and Dougal, singing) ...Under the mistletoe?
LUNDEN: Of course, in a traditional rom-com, Robin and Dougal would get together at the end. She'd be running back to meet him at JFK. But as Dougal flies off to London, their relationship is very much in the air, says composer Jim Barne.
JIM BARNE: It's also nice for us to leave it open in that sometimes we get to think of them, I don't know, maybe meeting up one day or commenting on each other's Instagram posts.
LUNDEN: Librettist Kit Buchan says it took almost a decade to write "Two Strangers," and the move to New York initially terrified him.
BUCHAN: We told somebody it was coming to Broadway, and he said it couldn't have happened to two less ambitious men (laughter). But I think we must have been ambitious in some way because we found the energy to kind of make something that clearly people are able to respond to, and I'm so happy about that.
LUNDEN: Tickets for "Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York)" are currently available through next July.
For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK)")
PITTS AND TUTTY: (As Robin and Dougal, singing) If I believed the joy I knew was left behind. You've changed my mind. And if this is all... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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