For too long, director Michael Arden was the best kept secret in the American theater. Insiders knew he was good. But it took a while to appreciate just how good.
In a series of long-shot successes, beginning with the 2015 Broadway revival of “Spring Awakening” with Deaf West Theatre, Arden has proved himself to be an expert at solving complex musical riddles.
His 2017 Tony-winning revival of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s “Once on This Island” not only made the 1990 musical politically viable in an era more scrupulous about racial representation and cultural appropriation, but the vibrancy of the staging uncovered new realms of enchantment.
“Parade,” Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s 1998 musical about a historic miscarriage of justice involving a Jewish man wrongly accused of murder in the Jim Crow South, was considered a succès d’estime. Arden’s Tony-winning revival showed just how short-sighted this was. His thrilling production, which arrives at the Ahmanson on June 17, managed to convert even some of the musical’s most vociferous doubters. The Tonys acceptance speech he delivered, passionately addressed to the queer community, capped off the triumph with defiant dignity.
This season, Arden has given Broadway its most surprising and heartwarming new musical, “Maybe Happy Ending.” The show, which originated in South Korea, is a futuristic rom-com about two robots nearing the end of their life cycles who meet, fall head over heels and are forced to confront difficult questions about love and loss.
Nominated for 10 Tony Awards, “Maybe Happy Ending” exemplifies the qualities that have made the 42-year-old Arden not just an acknowledged Broadway maestro but a collaborative visionary. With scenic designer Dane Laffrey, his producing partner and frequent collaborator, Arden has formed At Rise Creative, dedicated to exploring “dynamic storytelling with innovative design and technology.”
Not all the projects that At Rise has a hand in are ones that Arden is slated to direct. This Broadway season the company was a co-producer of “The Roommate” starring Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone as well as of Jamie Lloyd’s kinetic revival of “Sunset Blvd.” starring Nicole Scherzinger.
Being on the front end of projects has given Arden a window onto how make-or-break artistic decisions are made. At Rise is a clear sign of his holistic approach to his work. He doesn’t limit himself to what happens in the rehearsal room. He cares about the artwork for a show and how it’s marketed, for example. And he wants his company members to feel part of a collective concern.
“I approach directing as a truly collaborative process,” he said. “I want the actors not just to feel but to be immediately included in the work we are making. And I want the design, the visual part of the production, to be at the forefront along with questions about what story we’re telling and why we are telling it.”
He described his relationship with Laffrey in ways that sounded refreshingly non-territorial. “He has a director’s mind and I have a designer’s mind,” he said. “And we kind of yin-yang together.”
Boundaries are necessary and hierarchies serve a purpose, but creativity depends on flexibility. “Because it’s an industry filled with wildly talented and complex minds, I say, ‘Stay out of your lane.’ Because oftentimes that’s where the magic happens.”
Wearing a sweatshirt from his alma mater, Juilliard, Arden was coming to the end of a long day at the midtown Manhattan studio he’s been using. “I don’t really live here,” he joked, as he reached into a nearby suitcase for a change of clothes after our interview.
Evening had fallen, but his day was far from done. In addition to the frenzy of “Maybe Happy Ending” and the touring excitement of “Parade,” Arden has two new Broadway musicals in the works. In the fall, “The Queen of Versailles,” an adaptation of the Lauren Greenfield documentary starring Kristin Chenoweth, opens at the St. James Theatre. And in spring 2026, “The Lost Boys,” based on Joel Schumacher’s 1987 cult film, is set to open at the Palace Theatre.
Yes, it’s daunting to bring two new musicals to Broadway in such close proximity, but Arden is relieved that they couldn’t be more different. “Because it feels as if I have to work on both at the same time, it’s a little like ‘Severance,’ ” he said. “I get in the elevator and then come out the other side and exercise a totally different part of my brain and aesthetic sensibilities.”
Arden’s artistic calling manifested early. “I grew up in a trailer park in Midland, Texas, and used to force all the neighbor kids to do plays that I guess I directed,” he said. “Mostly it was an excuse to set things on fire. The fact that there’s not much live flame at the end of my work these days is shocking to me.”
His obsession with the stage was cultivated at a youth theater company. “I loved every facet of it,” he said. “I would build sets in my grandparents’ garage. So I was interested in mise-en-scène even before I was acting. But then once I was able to perform, I completely fell in love with it.”
The arts brought forth opportunities that otherwise would not have been there. He won a scholarship to Juilliard and was firmly on the acting track.
“Juilliard is so intense that it’s like if you are an actor, it’s all you must do,” he said. “It must be your Holy Grail, and I definitely followed that for a while.”
Arden was still at Juilliard when he was cast in the 2003 Broadway revival of “Big River.” This Roundabout Theatre Company production with Deaf West Theatre was directed by Jeff Calhoun, who became a crucial mentor. Coincidentally, “Big River” was the first musical Arden had seen growing up in Texas. That community theater production lit a flame in him. This landmark production with Deaf West opened a magic door.
“Jeff gave me my break, really,” Arden said. “He directed the Deaf West ‘Pippin’ at the Mark Taper Forum, which I also did, and then I kind of followed in his footsteps. I learned so much working with deaf actors and about deaf treatment of material through my work with him. He also taught me a lot about stage pictures and movement and transitions — he’s a fantastic director, obviously. I credit him with my start both as an actor and as a director.”
The Taper production of “Pippin” convinced Arden to give L.A. a go. He joked that he came out for the musical, but stayed for the weather. “I did some film and TV work, but then ended up not working for a year,” he said.
While working behind the counter of a gift shop in Los Feliz, he wrote a play for all his unemployed actor friends to be in. To get the production off the ground, he formed a theater collective, aptly named the Forest of Arden.
“That was the first thing that I directed,” he said. “It was an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s ‘La Ronde.’ It was a site-specific, immersive, promenade production, highly illegal. I’m shocked we weren’t all arrested for doing it.”
Schnitzler led straight to Frank Wedekind. When Deaf West asked if Arden would be interested in directing for the company, he had a title already in mind, “Spring Awakening.” Arden had been chatting with his husband, actor Andy Mientus, about the Tony-winning musical by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater spun from Wedekind’s drama.
“And that became my first ever real directing job and only the second thing I ever directed,” he said.
The Deaf West production of “Spring Awakening” had its premiere at Inner-City Arts in downtown L.A. in 2014. The next year the production opened at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills to rave reviews, paving the way to Broadway and a Tony nomination for musical revival.
Arden wasn’t quite able to crack the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth puzzle that is “Merrily We Roll Along” at the Wallis in 2016. But he had a novel triumph with “Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol”, powered by the protean virtuosity of Jefferson Mays in the unforgettable 2018 Geffen Playhouse premiere that launched a new holiday classic for savvy theater lovers.
The road to becoming one of today’s most sought-after Broadway directors didn’t just pass through L.A. Arden was intimately acquainted with the city’s creative byways. New York is once again home, but Arden is too much a maverick to fall into the establishment trap. He wants to shape his own artistic destiny. It’s a main reason he started At Rise Creative with Laffrey.
“In terms of my own work, I wanted a seat at the table,” Arden said. “Often the director is kept at arm’s length from the producing. My North Star is Hal Prince. The way he thought about his work, not just from a director’s point of view but also from a producer’s point of view, really interested Dane and me. We want to be able to support work that we want New York to see.”
That matters not just to New York but to the rest of the world because what happens on Broadway isn’t confined to the city’s theater district. Arden is thrilled that his production of “Parade” is going to Ahmanson. “I’ve worked at the Taper as an actor. And I almost had a show at the Ahmanson with ‘Once on This Island,’ but it got canceled because of COVID-19. So I feel really fortunate that ‘Parade’ will be there.”
He has been keeping close tabs on the touring production, not wanting his handiwork to get smudged in transit. Arden, to state the obvious, cares too much to be blasé about the quality of his work.
Did he by chance see the production of “Parade” at the Taper in 2009 that originated at London’s Donmar Warehouse? Arden admitted that he not only saw it but had auditioned for it. So how did he brilliantly succeed where other directors only managed earnest respectability? Simplicity, he said, is what saved him.
“It’s an epic, sprawling musical, and I was tasked with rehearsing it in two weeks and mounting it in a day and a half at New York City Center,” he said. “So that was the first hurdle. And honestly, what a good one, because it forced me to think, What is the simplest way of doing this? How can I tell this really complex story with a ton of characters and a lot of historical specifics? There’s a trial, for God’s sake. How can I tell this clearly and yet keep it emotional?”
For all of Arden’s showman proclivities, his passion for innovative design and kinetic sceneography, he never loses sight of a work’s beating heart. It is for this reason that “Maybe Happy Ending,” which stars a perfectly matched Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen, is favored to win the Tony for musical this year. Visually, this musical about nonhuman characters resembles at moments the screen of an iPhone, but the humanity of the story is always in sight.
“Technology can never overshadow the actor unless there’s some specific reason,” he said. “That was kind of my guiding principle.”
Arden reflected on the unique challenge posed by the musical: “How do you design the future?” The answer Laffrey and he came up with involved remembering the past.
“We’re always looking for ways to look forward and backward at the same time,” Arden said. “The futuristic design, you’ll notice, is very retro. It’s a meld of old and new that hopefully makes it classic. You have to look in all directions for inspiration while supporting the story and allowing the audience to focus on the actors.”
This prescription might actually constitute Arden’s directorial signature. No one would call him a minimalist, but his holy of holies is not to allow his productions to eclipse his performers.
“I have to be really honest with myself and ask whether I’m trying to get my name or the characters’ names in the review,” he said. “I think the characters have to win.”
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