Edgerton musical to open

'Piccadilly' adaptation debuts in Fayetteville

Composer Mike Craver was skeptical when writer Clyde Edgerton asked him to help transform the nursing home novel "Lunch at the Piccadilly" into a musical. Whoever heard of a musical set in a nursing home?

But as the play approaches its world premiere at Cape Fear Regional Theatre in Fayetteville, Craver wonders how he ever doubted it would work.

"It just didn't seem to be the kind of place that would lend itself to a musical," Craver says of the fictional Rosehaven Convalescence Center, where Edgerton's feisty characters live. "I guess my first thought was, 'These people are elderly. They can't just jump up and burst into song.' But they can, and sometimes they do."

The musical follows the nursing home residents as they make music and mischief while struggling with the frustrations of aging and medical bureaucracy. It's cheerier than the 2003 novel, in which a beloved character dies and another is haunted by a past sexual indiscretion. The play also has a new surprise ending.

"I've tried not to make it a totally light play," Edgerton said in a telephone interview from his home in Wilmington, where he is a creative writing professor at UNC-Wilmington. "There are very important societal issues that involve age and race that are part of the play that are not in your face but are there because they're important."

Cape Fear has premiered adaptations of three of Edgerton's previous novels, "Raney," "Walking Across Egypt" and "The Floatplane Notebooks." Those productions emboldened him to take a new leap with "Piccadilly," writing the script himself and contributing to the score. In the novel, Edgerton includes lyrics to songs that a character writes. He later composed music and recorded the songs, a few of which are part of the musical.

Edgerton immediately thought of Craver to work on the adaptation. A former member of the Red Clay Ramblers, Craver performed off-Broadway in the outlaw musical hit "Diamond Studs" and in Sam Shepard's "A Lie of the Mind." He also co-wrote and performed in "The Oil City Symphony," which Edgerton loved.

The admiration is mutual. Craver, a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill who now lives in Davidson County, is a fan of Edgerton's inherently theatrical style and irresistible Southern flavor.

"His ability to capture real people conversing and the real humor that results from that is a strong point," Craver says.

In "Piccadilly," Craver, who is 57, takes the role of nursing home resident Eli Greyson and plays digital keyboards and guitar in the three-piece onstage band. Greyson, who has been sickened by lead poisoning, wanders around trying to catch butterflies. Fayetteville native Mayon Weeks portrays one of the novel's most memorable characters, a guitar-playing preacher named L. Ray Flowers, who dreams of bringing nursing homes and churches together as "nurches."

Edgerton says he learned a lot from guest director Steve Umberger and the actors, who scrutinize his dialogue constantly, asking questions about the characters' motivations and suggesting changes. And Umberger says Edgerton is one of the most open-minded writers he's worked with.

"The best people in this business are good collaborators," says Umberger, who was the founding artistic director of Charlotte Repertory Theatre. "You need people who aren't so protective of their particular territory that they can't take a suggestion or understand that the collaboration is going to improve it."

The Cape Fear audience will be collaborators, too, says Umberger, who hopes to continue shaping "Piccadilly" after the run.

"I think this will tell us more that will then be useful for the next round," he says. "There are unlimited possibilities in it."