Writer Robin Schiff on Romy and Michele’s journey from stage to screen and back again

Before penning Romy and Michele's High School Reunion or its current musical adaptation, Schiff wrote her title characters as bit parts in a whole other play.

Summary

• Robin Schiff discusses the origins of the characters of Romy and Michele and adapting their story for stage and screen
• The characters began as minor parts in Schiff's play Ladies' Room before being adapted for the film Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
• The stage adaptation Romy & Michele: The Musical plays off Broadway at Stage 42

It's not just a high school reunion: Romy & Michele: The Musical, now playing off Broadway at Stage 42, is a homecoming. The title characters got their start on stage, after all.

Yes, long before they were requesting the "businesswoman's special" or claiming they invented Post-it notes in the 1997 movie Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, the offbeat duo were minor characters in Robin Schiff's 1988 play Ladies' Room. Played by Christie Mellor and, in her professional debut, Lisa Kudrow for the comedy's L.A. world premiere, they were catty Valley girls gabbing in a restaurant restroom. Memorable lines include, "I hate throwing up in public." "Me too!"

That's the only bit of dialogue that eventually made the jump from Ladies' Room to Schiff's screenplay, which turned Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Kudrow) into L.A.-based BFFs who lie about their careers to impress their former classmates in Tucson, Arizona. The writer never expected to reexamine their story yet again, decades later, to adapt her script for the musical version starring Laura Bell Bundy and Kara Lindsay.

"It is a full-circle moment, but it wasn't anything I imagined or aspired to," Schiff said of the Off-Broadway production. "So much of my career has been accidents, me saying no to stuff that I ended up doing."

Romy and Michele's leap from stage to screen was one of those things: Schiff initially sold Ladies' Room as a TV pilot, with the promise of an accompanying stage production, but she backed out after being denied cast or director approval. It was years later, after multiple rights transfers and a second Ladies' Room staging in San Francisco, that Romy and Michele caught the attention of movie producers.

Romy & Michele: The Musical was another; Schiff rejected a couple spec songs she received for a potential musical adaptation about 25 years ago.

"I was in the Groundlings comedy group at the time, and I was like, [...] 'This is like a bad Groundlings sketch of a Romy and Michele musical,'" she recalled. But it got her wheels turning about what a real show would look like: She envisioned music a la The Go-Go's and a changing booth on stage.

The Off-Broadway show does sport an '80s and '90s-inspired pop score by Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay, and while there isn't an onstage changing booth, bathroom stalls do the trick as needed. Schiff was able to tweak a few of her original plot points to her liking (no spoilers!), though she said it was challenging to make sure she satisfied fans of the movie while not being "hamstrung" by it.

"The movie was 87 minutes. It blew by," Schiff said, "and this just gives you an opportunity to go deeper into the emotions and the humor.”

The musical's core themes are the same ones that have always interested Schiff: "how platonic friendship can fill you up and be enough, and that you should be true to yourself." She said Romy and Michele mirror her and her own high school best friend in southern California, who would "lie inside and eat candy and watch movies" much like the onscreen pals do.

Schiff also went to her own high school reunion with a similar aim as her characters. "I was a professional writer, so I knew, to a degree, that was going to be impressive," she said. "I cared about impressing people, even though, as it turned out, there was really nobody I cared about impressing."

Clearly, the Romy and Michele saga is a deeply personal project, so it's no wonder Schiff returns to it time and time again. She even hopes Ladies' Room can return to the stage someday, especially with the musical and an upcoming film sequel ushering in a Romy and Michele renaissance.

At the same time, she appreciates that the characters have become something bigger than her. "They, from the very beginning, had their own thing, had their own life, had their own plans," Schiff acknowledged. "And they clearly had plans to be back in New York City."

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Photo credit: Romy & Michele: The Musical off Broadway. (Photos by Valerie Terranova)