The York Theatre Company hit its 100th Musicals In Mufti on November 8 with their production of Stephen Sondheim’s Saturday Night. The company's dedication to nurturing lesser-known works deserving of a second look has earned its shows 31 Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, AUDELCO and Callaway Awards to date. I recently had an opportunity to speak with Producing Artistic Director, James Morgan about the birth of the Mufti Series.

James How did you come to be involved with the York Theatre?

After [college] I moved [to New York]. My aunt and uncle went to the church where The York used to be. At the time I was sort of depressed about various connections I thought I had set up during college that would suddenly pay off and I would have a career. I asked my aunt if they knew anyone. She said we really don’t know anyone in theater but there is this dear little theater group at the church. Maybe you would like to meet the woman (Janet Hayes Walker) who runs it. I figured it was community theater, it turns out it wasn’t. It was The York.

Was The York Theatre Company when you first met them?

It was formed [in 1969] by a group of actors who had worked together in regional theater. They wanted to be seen in New York, in shows that they had some control over and they could have a say in the quality and the choice of material. The mission then was [to present] classics, not musicals.

How did the York come to present musicals?

I came to find out that Janet had a background in music. She has a Masters of Music from New England Conservatory and had studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. She came back here to be a classical singer, eyeing a concert career. She ended up doing 6 Broadway shows including the original cast of Golden Apple and Plain and Fancy. She was Barbara Cook’s under study in The Music Man, Julie Andrew’s understudy in Camelot and in Anyone Can Whistle for its entire two week run. When I found this out I said, “Why aren’t you doing musicals?” She said they are just so difficult. But out of that conversation we began doing one musical a year.

The York has a reputation of presenting musicals that may have fallen out of favor or out of notice. Was it always the case?

[The musicals we chose] were always sort of out of the ordinary, out of the mainstream kinds of shows. This was before Roundabout, Encores and all of that. They were shows that deserved a second look. The first one we did was She Loves Me. At that point it was looked at as a nice try that didn’t really succeed. It was well written but it was not a commercial success. We ended up doing a lot of obscure, unusual and unexpected shows such as The Golden Apple, The Grass Harp, Anyone Can Whistle.

Eventually The York gave birth to the Musicals in Mufti Series. What does Mufti mean?

It is actually an East Indian word that was picked up by the British Army to mean ‘out of uniform’. We use it to mean bare bones production with clothes basically brought from the actor’s closets.

Do the actors actually bring clothes from their closets to costume themselves?

…and they end up looking very put together. A director may suggest a color scheme or an idea so there is an over-all look even though there isn’t a costume designer. Of course, if there is something special like a fur coat we will provide that. We aren’t expecting the actors to provide that although there haven been actresses who have brought in fur coats. It is amazing some of the looks we’ve seen just out of their actor’sclosets.

The Muftis are presented as “Staged Readings”. They are directed and rehearsed but on a short schedule. How long do the actor’s rehearse?

They rehearse for five days. For people who haven’t done it before it can be very scary. There is a little bit of terror involved but when they get into the swing of it they realize that our audiences are very supportive.

For your 100th Mufti you have chosen Stephen Sondheim’s Saturday night.

We’ve done more Sondheim Shows than any theater in New York City. And that’s even with us not having done one in 20 years. Saturday Night will be number nine.

How did you land on Saturday Night as your choice?

We kept thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice to do a Sondheim [show] but what haven’t we done? What hasn’t been done recently?” I thought about Saturday Night. Then I thought, “Oh its been done so recently at Second Stage”. Well, I came to find out that was 15 years ago. I emailed Steve [Sondheim] and asked him what he would think about us doing Saturday Night as number 100 in the Mufti series and within 20 minutes I got his reply, "Sure why not?"

The York Theatre Company will present Saturday Night, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Book by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein, Directed by Stafford Arima, Musical Direction by Paul Gemignani, November 8-9 and 12-16 at the York Theater.

My Favorite Year will close out the Mufti Season with performances December 5-7.

For tickets and further information go to www.theyorktheatre.org