Spoiler alert: Actors Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally are in love. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising, as the celebrity duo have been in a very public marriage for 26 years.
In the new world premiere musical “IceBoy!” opening June 20 at the Goodman Theatre, the two don’t couple up — unlike their pairing in the hit NBC comedy “Parks and Recreation,” where their chemistry was unmistakable. (In the case of their characters Ron and Tammy II, that chemistry was incredibly toxic.)
Nevertheless, their combined starpower makes this the must-see show of the summer. And offstage at a rehearsal, the chemistry is there: They share a few smooches between takes of a musical number.
Offerman and Mullally may be known best for roles on screen, including Mullally’s over-the-top comedic performance as Karen in the sitcom “Will and Grace,” but both have roots in theater. That’s actually where sparks first flew: The pair say they fell in love in 2000 during a production of “The Berlin Circle” in Los Angeles (a play that, notably, premiered at Steppenwolf in 1998).
“We were the only two people who weren’t members of the theater company, and we were slightly outcast, especially at the beginning, and so we kind of bonded,” said Mullally. Then she adds: “And also Nick just wanted to bone me.”
Without missing a beat, Offerman slides in with the dry admission, “I do participate in nature.”
“This is our fourth or fifth theater piece together, and we’ve done a lot of TV and film work together,” Offerman continued. “It’s really fun. We make each other laugh. And, dare I say, we’re mutually appreciative of one another’s work. So I think my career has been a long con just to get as close as I can to watch Megan do what she does, and now I’m right on stage with her, so my plan is working out.”
In “IceBoy!,” the production closing the Goodman’s historic centennial season, Mullally plays Vera Vimm, a Broadway starlet who gets upstaged by a recently thawed 40,000-year-old caveman that she adopts in hopes of impressing her social circle. The caveman, after becoming a rising star, inspires legendary playwright Eugene O’Neill, played by Offerman, to pen his classic play “The Iceman Cometh.”
The production is written by a creative team that includes a few Broadway heavy hitters: Jay Reiss, credited here for book and lyrics, is one of the creative minds behind the Tony Award- winning “Twenty Fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” Mark Hollmann, also credited for book and lyrics, won a Tony for the music and lyrics of “Urinetown.”
By all accounts the creative team, which also includes writer Erin Quinn Purcell, describes the musical as a farce with heart. Mullally attributes those characteristics to Hollmann.
“His melodies are just unbelievable,” she said of Hollman, a native of downstate Fairview Heights. “He’s a genius, and some of his melodies are so exquisitely beautiful, but then the very up-tempo, funny songs are also so catchy. And there’s a throwback quality to the music that I absolutely love, because nothing against every single original musical on Broadway, but you know, in recent years, I have a little bit of trouble sometimes connecting to the music emotionally.”
s melodies are just unbelievable,” Mulally said of Mark Hollman (left), who wrote the book and lyrics for “IceBoy!” “He’s a genius, and some of his melodies are so exquisitely beautiful, but then the very up-tempo, funny songs are also so catchy.” Here, he and Greg Kotis accept the Tony for best original score for “Urinetown, the Musical,” during the 56th annual Tony Awards Sunday, June 2, 2002.
Suzanne Plunkett/AP
Offerman, who has been known to regale fans on YouTube with his ukulele, said one of the things he was looking forward to most was singing musical numbers live on stage.
But, that won’t happen.
“I have two big songs that they wrote for me that are quite impressive,” he said. “They’re quite acrobatic vocally, and then they had me perform them [in rehearsal], and then they cut the songs. So at the moment, I believe I have zero songs.”
Even without big Broadway style solos, Offerman says he still has a treat for the audience.
“For any fans of beefy gentlemen, at one point in Act Two, I may take my jacket off, and I may appear in my shirt sleeves,” he said.
Offerman and Mullally are not the only characters in the show audiences will recognize from television. Actor Cedric Yarbrough (“Reno 911!”) plays Mullally’s love interest. His favorite song to perform in the show, “You Never Say Yes,” is a duet with the actress.
“I’m singing to her, about my love for her,” he said, “which in itself is an interesting thing to do — play the boyfriend of a woman whose husband is in the musical. And Nick has gained more muscles. I don’t know if you’ve seen Nick Offerman lately, but he could be the new Thing in “Fantastic Four.” He’s huge.”
The long genesis of the show illustrates just how difficult it can be to get a new musical produced. This process goes back to 2001 when writers Erin Quinn Purcell and Jay Reiss were in a theater company in New York City. They wanted to make a show with a shoe-string budget, and their ideas aligned. Purcell was obsessed with the film “All ABout Eve,” starting
Bette Davis as an aging Broadway star who collides with an ambitious ingénue. Reiss was fresh off reading an article about Orson Welles and how the famous writer-director had wanted to write a story about a man frozen in ice.
“We put together a [play with music] called ‘Hooray for Ice Boy,’ and everyone loved it, and it got great reviews,” said Purcell. “About 10 years later, we enlisted the wonderful, wonderful Mark Hollmann to write music and lyrics for it, and that’s when we started making it into a musical in earnest.”
Mullally initially got involved with the production in 2014. At the time, she was cast in “It’s Only a Play” on Broadway alongside Nathan Lane, and she was asked to do a workshop for an early version of the “IceBoy!” script.
“Usually when you’re doing eight shows a week, you don’t want to add another thing, but I read it, and I thought it was so funny and weird and great,” she said. “That was what drew me to it. It’s genuinely funny. I mean, I love theater, but it’s pretty rare to go to a musical and have it be laugh out loud funny.”
The creative team was also a sell.
“We live in Los Angeles, so we don’t see everything,” she explained. “But, of the shows we have seen in our 26 years together, I think our two favorite musicals were ‘Urinetown’ and ‘Spelling Bee,’ and this show is the writers of ‘Urinetown’ and ‘Spelling Bee.’ I mean, it’s just crazy.”
Offerman attended his wife’s workshop reading, but he didn’t join the production until six years later, in 2020. He was equally impressed with the early script.
“The show is very funny and bright, but also really moving, and surprisingly moving for how stupid the narrative is,” he said.
For his part in the production, he joked, “I think the writers thought they really needed to have a leavening ingredient, someone to slow things down and put the audience to sleep a little bit before we then bring Megan back on stage.”
Mullally pointed out how much the creative team wanted Offerman to join the cast.
“They really liked the idea of Nick being in the show, but the role of Eugene O’Neill wasn’t extraordinarily compelling,” she said. “They really beefed up quite a bit for Nick. There’s now a narration aspect to the role, and he also is completely incorporated into the story. They added all of that because they really wanted Nick.”
The role is challenging because it requires Offerman to make funny a playwright known for penning tragedies.
“There’s a lot of deadpan humor, like putting [O’Neill’s] sort of dour demeanor up against a bright musical comedy. So, as long as I hold still and talk slow, people seem to laugh.”
But for the show itself, Offerman says he’s most excited about seeing his wife work up close.
“I’m such a big fan of Megan on stage,” said Offerman. “Of her many superpowers, I think performing theater, especially musical comedy, is just ridiculous. She’s the Lebron Jordan of musical comedy.”
Right on cue, Mullally jumps in, “Is that a deliberate Lebron Jordan?”, calling him out on the mash-up of LeBron James and Michael Jordan.
“People always argue about which one’s the GOAT,” Offerman replied. “I just call him Lebron Jordan. If they had a baby who could sing and dance?” With that he gestures to his wife.