Ohio native Andrew Graham manages much of the organized chaos of Playhouse Square-bound 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical' as tour's music director

Jun. 2—Andrew Graham grew up in one of those little Ohio villages you may never have heard of even if you've spent a lifetime in the Buckeye State.

His parents would drive him from tiny McArthur, about halfway between Chillicothe and Athens in the southeastern part of the state, to Columbus to see theater and to Cincinnati to experience opera. And during his high school years, as he was getting serious about music, he studied piano at Ohio University in Athens.

However, the music director of the first North American tour of the Tony Award-winning Broadway hit "Moulin Rouge! The Musical" — set to begin a nearly monthlong stint at the KeyBank State Theater at Playhouse Square in Cleveland — also has plenty of memorable Northeast Ohio experiences.

He recalls as a kid going to see the "Victory Tour" featuring Michael Jackson and his siblings in Cleveland, where Graham's uncle lived.

And a few years ago, he worked on a stage-musical adaptation of Disney's "Freaky Friday" that ran at the Cleveland Play House and at a few other notable regional theaters around the country.

However, what really stands out is an experience he had during his days as a student at Ohio's Capital University, in Bexley. He and his girlfriend at the time — he notes he's been married to a man for nearly a quarter-century — oversaw a musical production at the Lorain Palace Theatre, in which he also played the drums.

He remembers being awed by the place.

"Whenever I walked into theaters when I was really young, they felt very sacred," Grahams says during a phone interview from Cincinnati, where "Moulin Rouge!" was playing. "They felt like a church. That was sort of my first experience of having felt that."

Graham has worked in many a theater since.

Although the faculty at Capital wasn't exactly sure how to help him break into big-time musical theater, he says, they knew he had to move to New York City to do it. So after a year in London — where he studied piano accompaniment and saw a bunch of theater, falling even more in love with the art form — that's what he did.

Through the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, he met folks including Robert Lopez, who's co-created acclaimed comedy musicals "Avenue Q" and "The Book of Mormon" — two of the notable shows on Graham's list of credits.

It was while working on "The Book of Mormon" in Boston — where "Moulin Rouge!" premiered in 2018, a year before its Broadway debut — that Graham saw it. It is, of course, based on writer-director Baz Lurhmann's 2001 film, "Moulin Rouge!" — a music-filled, visually spellbinding affair set at a club in 1900 Paris.

"It's a jukebox musical ... but it's very well written and constructed," he says of the stage show. "And it's just pure escapism, and I absolutely loved it."

Graham knew the show's musical director and tried to sell himself while offering his compliments on the work.

"I said, 'I absolutely loved the show. (If) you're ever looking for a musical director to take (the show) on the road, please let me know,'" he recalls. "Now this was, like, 2018. Of course, as you know, the world (soon) fell apart."

In fact, Graham, having gotten the gig, says he had things lined up perfectly, with "Mormon" closing just in time for him to start work on the "Moulin Rouge!" tour. Then COVID-19 happened, and the former closed early and the latter was delayed. Cleveland actually was supposed to see this production almost exactly two years ago, the show having been announced as part of the ill-fated 2020-2021 KeyBank Broadway Series.

Graham, not surprisingly, is a fan of the movie, remembering seeing it with a group of theater friends when it hit theaters.

"It was the first time a contemporary movie ever really felt like a musical," he says, adding that the years since have brought several movie musicals. "It's not as big of a deal (now), but at the time ... it felt like they made this for us. ... We were so excited to go see it."

When you think about adapting the film to the stage, at first glance, it may seem straightforward. For starters, much of the action takes place in one setting, the club, and the movie already has all the music a show could ever need. On the other hand, it has that undeniable Luhrmann visual aesthetic characterized by impactful cinematography and rat-a-tat-tat editing that infuses it with energy.

"The cuts are so fast-paced that it just feels manic at times, but that's part of its charm," Graham says. "There's a lot more music in our version, and I think the music — I've never really been told this — in my mind, the music (does) almost what the video editor did. There are lots of music cuts and a lot more mashups, as the kids say, or medleys, where lots of songs are being thrown together.

"And that helps sort of create that vibe that the movie gave because obviously with a stage play, no one tells you where to look, and you can kind of look anywhere."

Lurhmann loves the show, Graham says, and even had a little fun with it during a stint in Las Vegas. Before the performance started, when performers were mingling on stage, the director of films including "Romeo + Juliet," "The Great Gatsby" and, most recently, "Elvis" asked the costume folks to lend him a tophat.

"And he just walks across the stage with, like, one of the ensemble girls on his arm," Graham says. "He crosses the stage, and nobody even knew it was him. It was very funny."

Director Baz Luhrmann had to make a few moves to make sure 'Elvis' was in tune

As for the serious business of making the show work, Graham's duties as music director for the tour included teaching the music to the cast in New York, prior to hitting the road. Now on tour, he conducts the show from behind the piano — pretty common for a pop show, he says — and can "milk" moments here and there when he feels the crowd is really into the show.

As demanding as the two-act affair is from a music perspective — it brings together pieces of more than 150 songs, including some that hit in the years since the movie's release — Graham is thankful that the entire band tours with "Moulin Rouge!"

"On most tours I've done, part of your job is when you arrive at the city, you do an orchestra rehearsal when, I would say, you put in almost half the band locally," he says. "This show, because it's so quick .. with the edits and the tempo changes, it's a little bit more difficult to just throw an orchestra into, and so they agreed to just travel the band with me, so that's really lovely.

"It also makes for a really incredibly tight, amazing band," he continues, adding that with a typical show, it can take three or four performances before the music gets to where it should be. "The audience doesn't know, but I know."

"Moulin Rouge! The Musical" scored 10 Tony Awards, including the coveted honor of Best Musical.

Graham talks up the tour's dancers and the lighting effects and says that while it's a challenging show to pull off, playing for "unbelievable" audiences has been rewarding.

"To feel that energy come back from the audience onto the stage — it's been really electrifying."

'Moulin Rouge! The Musical'

When: June 7 through July 2.

Where: Playhouse Square's KeyBank State Theatre, 1519 Euclid Ave., Cleveland.

Tickets: $32 to $129.

Info: PlayhouseSquare.org or 216-241-6000.