Director Scott Ellis relates to a new play about parents who happen to be gay.
By Brandon Voss
Tony-nominated director Scott Ellis had to reschedule our interview when one of his two young children became ill. “It becomes all about sickness and their nanny,” he says of fatherhood. “If their nanny doesn’t show up, you’re fucked. And if they get sick, you’re fucked.”
Sounds like he’s the perfect choice to helm the world premiere of Peter Parnell’s Dada Woof Papa Hot, which opens November 9 at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. Set in the post-marriage equality present, the play stars John Benjamin Hickey and Patrick Breen as a married couple with a three-year-old daughter who find themselves living a domestic life they never imagined was possible.
“There was obviously a lot I connected with,” says Ellis, who adds that being a partnered gay dad himself has “100 percent” informed his approach to the material. “But the thing I loved most about the play is that if you replaced these gay parents with straight parents, it really wouldn’t change anything. Because the truth is that there is no difference. Yes, marriage and having children are relatively new for us, so there’s a learning curve because we had no role models, but it’s all the same wonderful problems and challenges.”
Parnell, the playwright, is also a father. In fact, he and his partner, Justin Richardson, co-authored the gay-themed children’s book And Tango Makes Three. “Peter and I are in similar situations,” Ellis says, noting that their lead actors are unmarried and childless. “It’s nice to be able to speak to them from our personal experiences, like, ‘Look, this is how it is.’”
Despite the play’s universal themes, there is at least one specific gay shout-out. “A lot of straight people don’t get the title at first,” says Ellis of Dada Woof Papa Hot, which jokingly twists the child’s unrelated first four words into the perfect compliment. “Honestly, before our first preview, I was curious if the audience, which I knew would be mostly straight and older, would jump onboard and go with this story, but they did. Because after a while, they’re just seeing a married couple who are parents. It’s remarkable to sit in that theater and see how far we’ve come.”
Next, October 2015.