Look out for Monsters!

The development of any Broadway show involves literally dozens, if not hundreds, of major and minor revisions: a word changed here, a plot point revised there, and a musical number dropped or added.

But in bringing her show Monsters! to life, playwright Gail Phaneuf recalls that one of her most important alterations was to give one of her lead characters a sex change on the casting couch. Phaneuf's most recent, re-gendered staging of Monsters! took place at an October reading in New York City.

"I had originally written the role of Bonny as a woman, modeled after Pat Carroll, who did the voice of Ursula in [Disney movie]The Little Mermaid," says Phaneuf, a long time resident of Boston's equally animated South End neighborhood. She's referring to one of the show's titular monsters; one by one, a series of these metaphoric baddies descend on lead character Samantha on her 40th birthday, each representing a different aspect of her psyche and each reveling in the joy of contributing to her mid-life crisis of both self-doubt and self-seeking.

"This monster [Bonny] is obsessed with the way you look, and the comments that the character was making were flip," says Phaneuf. The character has a lot of lines that are about being insecure, envying, and outrageous [remarks] about your body. ... Eventually, I realized that it was ... I don't want to say a gay man, necessarily, but it was definitely a man criticizing!"

"Frankly, it started to feel like my friend Sam's voice," laughs Phaneuf.

She's referring to her friend Sam Belanger, an actor who wound up playing the role in the NYC reading, which the production's team hopes might be one of the last steps in bringing the show to off-Broadway status. The workshop reading also starred Broadway veteran Andrea McArdle, best know for originating the role of the redhead, mop-topped orphan in Annie.

If the success of Phaneuf's latest revision of Monsters! is any indication, the show may be that much closer to joining past hits under the bright lights of the Great White Way.

"It went wonderfully," says Phaneuf. "He [Belanger] walked that line perfectly, the balance of insecurity plus pompous-ness, and the character became a little broad and a little flamboyant."

It's been a long road since Monsters! first hit the stage in 2006 with Boston's Centastage theatre company. Since then Phaneuf, who has acted on New England stages for more than 20 years and won numerous awards and accolades for her previous original productions, has learned much about the challenges that confront anyone trying to break their show on Broadway.

Some of those hurdles, she said, include recording a concept album, finding big name actors - like McArdle - to make the show stand out when shopping it around for financing, and of course, finding a composer.

To fill the latter role, Phaneuf turned to longtime friend, musician, composer, and fellow Massachusetts native Ernie Lijoi. Ironically, Lijoi had originally suggested that Phaneuf leave the show as a straight play, as it was in its earliest incarnation. But since musicals tend to be eligible for more contests that offer production grants as prizes, the collaborators decided to make that first major change to the structure of the show.

"Stephen Schwartz once said, 'Writing a musical is like going to war; you better know why you're doing it and what's worth fighting for,'" says Phaneuf, paraphrasing the composer and lyricist behind musicals like Wicked, whom she cites as a major influence.

"It's fun, but you begin to realize why very few shows are super successful," she continues.

Phaneuf says she is excited and encouraged by the feedback that has come out of the latest NYC reading, and plans to record a concept album to help continue the promotion of the work-in-progress.

In addition to Monsters! the South End playwright is also hard at work on a new children's musical, and continues to teach scriptwriting at Curry College.

For more information on Gail Phaneuf and Monsters! visit: www.monstersthemusical.com