Minnesota musicians provided 'the glue' for Broadway's Tony-nominated 'Macbeth'

DULUTH — After "Macbeth" opened on Broadway this spring, musician Gaelynn Lea and her husband, Paul Tressler, made a leisurely drive back to their hometown — a purposeful meander following an intense month in New York City.

The classically trained violinist had just put the final touches on her original score for the revival of Shakespeare's play starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga — a show that has gotten mixed reviews, but was noted for its "foreboding aural effects" by the New York Times.

"We're taking it a little slow," Lea said during a stop in Gettysburg, Pa. "It was a really intense couple of months, but they were really fun and my creative brain was so happy. Everything about that process demanded 100% of your creative focus. That was really cool. Usually my job is like half administration, half creating."

Broadway is a new domain for Lea, part of an ongoing accumulation of high-profile moments in a music career that gained a wider audience in 2016 when she won National Public Radio's Tiny Desk Contest with the haunting folk song "Someday We'll Linger in the Sun."

Lea went from playing coffee shops and pizza parlors to an international fan base — which included Sam Gold, Tony Award-winning director of the musical "Fun Home." Gold tracked down Lea on Spotify to listen to more of her music. Then he cold-called her for help on his new project — a spare and modern take on "Macbeth."

Her lack of Broadway experience didn't worry him.

"She's an amazing musician, and she had made enough work that felt resonant with what we would be doing in the theater," Gold said. "Worst-case scenario: It would be us putting together something for the stage with someone who is not a theater person from music that seems really right. Best-case scenario: She'll be a collaborator."

He wound up with that best-case scenario. Lea worked closely with the production's sound designer, Mikaal Sulaiman, who earned one of the play's three Tony Award nominations. Negga and lighting designer Jane Cox also will contend for Tonys during Sunday night's ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in New York (7 p.m., CBS and Paramount Plus).

Lea stopped performing publicly and settled into Duluth at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was born with brittle bones disease and, with a small lung capacity, is high-risk. She planned to stay home and work on her memoir — but writing became secondary when Gold called to propose the collaboration.

Lea started by familiarizing herself with Gold's adaptation of the script. She listened to a table read by the cast, noting cues where music might enhance a scene. Then she created themes for the play's main characters.

To take the sounds she heard in her head and make them real, she turned to Minnesota musicians she has played with for years — Dave Mehling (keyboard), Al Church (percussion) and Jeremy Ylvisaker (guitar).

Another longtime friend, Jake Larson, recorded and edited the music. He and Lea spent countless hours putting together the pieces to create the work — including last-minute adjustments from his hotel room while he was in New York for previews of the play, which runs through July 10 at the Longacre Theatre.

"Her concept was that the music gets grittier and more disjointed the more Macbeth descends into craziness," said Larson. "There's a couple spots that we got to make pretty, but for the most part it's kind of war-and-murder vibes."

Sound designer Sulaiman described Lea's work as the "glue" and the "beating heart" of the production.

"There was so much going on in regards to different characters becoming different people," he said. "There's magic and murder. Gaelynn made a seamless connection between all of it so that it felt like a cohesive whole.

"What she made was really profound and beautiful, and scary when it needed to be scary and lovely when it needed to be lovely."

Lea grew up with access to stages. Her parents, Tim and Peggy White, owned Change of Pace Theater, a Duluth dinner theater best known for the interactive Scandinavian story "Ole and Lena's Wedding." In 2011, she paired with Alan Sparhawk of Low to create a soundtrack for the silent film "The Penalty" starring Lon Chaney — a one-time event at a small local movie theater.

Broadway, though, has been entirely new to her — but welcoming. While in New York, she recorded a song with Michael Stipe of REM that will appear on his upcoming solo album.

Lea has been back home in Duluth for three weeks, a period that has included a small outdoor show to cap off Homegrown Music Festival in addition to touring the elementary schools of neighboring towns. She doesn't plan to attend the Tony Awards, but certainly will watch them on TV.

She said she hopes to get back to Broadway.

"I'd totally do this again," she said, adding "like [Larson] said, 'I didn't learn how to do it to only do it once.'"

Tony Awards: 7 p.m. June 12, broadcast on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus.

"Macbeth": Through July 10 at the Longacre Theatre in New York City, macbethbroadway.com