She turns Minnesotans' love stories into song at Guthrie's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

To mark their 31st wedding anniversary, Minneapolis maintenance instructor Steve Menard surprised his wife, Diana, with tickets to the Guthrie Theater's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The experience turned out to be, in her words, "the greatest present we could ever have gotten."

That's because they were part of a sweet bow that ties up Joseph Haj's music-infused production of Shakespeare's most popular romantic comedy.

[Spoiler alert: This story reveals secrets about the show that closes Sunday.]

Royer Bockus, who plays smitten lover Helena in the show, asked the Menards at the beginning of a recent performance about how they became a couple.

"He was going out with somebody else at the time when we first met and they weren't getting along," Diana said. "And she asked me to call him and find out what was wrong. So I called, and we talked for eight hours straight."

Whenever she was offstage from playing Helena, Bockus used the details that the Menards gave her to compose a song. She then performed that meet-cute number at the end of "Midsummer."

Hearing it caused them to have an out-of-body experience, Diana said. "It was a magical moment that elevated our lives to be in this great play by Shakespeare."

The Menards were on the receiving end of a gift that has mesmerized Guthrie theatergoers since the production opened in February, with patrons calling Bockus "brilliant," "amazing" and "genius."

The ukulele-playing actor has composed an original tune for a couple at every single performance of the show since previews began Feb. 1. By Sunday's close, she would have written and delivered about 60 unique songs, all in different musical styles.

Tight creative process

"What she does feels a little like sorcery to me," Haj said. "The fact that she's playing Helena all night, which is a big job, then also does this interview with a couple, writes this song and sings it back to the folks — that's just miraculous."

It was a miracle born of necessity.

"You'd be amazed what comes out of you in a high-pressure situation that I like to describe as jumping off a cliff and building an airplane around you as you're falling," Bockus said. "By the end, hopefully, you're airborne and haven't crashed."

The 35-year-old San Antonio native studied communications at Northwestern University, intending to go into marketing or public relations. But she'd always done theater on the side and moved to New York after graduation to give it a try.

She auditioned for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and immediately booked it, becoming a company member. She has never looked back, working across the country, including at Minneapolis' Jungle Theater in 2017, in the small musical "Fly by Night."

The frame for "Midsummer" was set in 2020 when Haj and his creative team, including composer Jack Herrick, staged it at OSF.

"Based on the research that Shakespeare wrote this play as a wedding gift, we thought, wouldn't it be cool if somebody came out and did this little kind of interview thing with a couple and then made a song that the company would sing back to them," Haj said. "I had the idea before I knew there was a human who could do it. And then Royer walked into the [audition] room."

Bockus had taken up the uke at Northwestern, but her practical training came from a volunteer gig on a public access show in New York where she wrote jingles and, for the credits, a new song each show.

"Joe asked how long it took, and I said probably 10, 15 minutes," Bockus recalled. That was enough. Haj booked her in the role but their joyful experiment was short-lived. OSF's "Midsummer" was shut down after a couple of performances because of the pandemic.

When the Guthrie considered doing the show five years later, Haj had no doubt who one of the essential components had to be.

"If Royer had said no, I don't think we would have made this production," Haj said.

Bockus writes music and lyrics in the tightest of windows between being onstage as lovestruck Helena, who is fond of a fellow who is in love with someone else, and darting backstage to the low-ceilinged props closet that serves as her songwriting "office."

There, during the first four-minute stretch where she's not in character, she types quickly on her laptop.

"As I'm walking back to my office, I ask what is the most interesting thing about the couple," Bockus said. "I write my first idea — usually a lyric — and it gets at what I want the thesis or meat or punchline to be."

One favorite recent example was of a couple who met after the future wife made too much spaghetti and then invited neighbors over for a meal. That led to a pasta pun.

"If you make enough spaghetti, you might spa-get-a-man," Bockus recalled. "That was all I had time for in that first four-minute chunk. Then I went to do my scene."

In her second block of time offstage, about 10 minutes, she develops the idea, zeroing in on what makes the couple unique.

"That's usually when the ukulele comes out and I start experimenting with melodies and chord progressions," Bockus said.

Then she gets back onstage as Helena.

'A lifetime of loving music'

Bockus draws from a broad musical vocabulary, with some of the songs sounding like Irish jigs, others like modern pop garnished with a little patter and still others like banjo-begging Americana. She also has numbers where you can almost hear the drum machines used in so much pop music.

She styles herself after favorite female singer-songwriters, including Sara Bareilles and Ani DiFranco.

"I consider my work to be largely pastiche — I'm drawing on a lifetime of listening to and loving music," Bockus said.

She continues to work during another two-minute break offstage and completes the song in the final 15-minute frame.

The whole number is done before the big fight scene in the first act.

"In terms of the shortcuts, I use a verse-bridge-chorus structure," Bockus said.

Because she has so little time, she doesn't experiment much. Instead, she proceeds with a first-idea, best-idea policy.

The theater prints the lyrics during intermission, and she gets to the floor of her office with a pencil, writing chord progressions and signing it for the couple. She also gets in a final practice.

There is no time in the second act to work on the number.

Bockus admits that there are times onstage when she cannot remember how the song starts, or the melody.

"I have just enough information, and I have to hold a lot in my head," she said. "But I find it to be the most thrilling part."

And audiences are not just forgiving, they remain in awe of what she does.

"To them, it's always a miracle, and it is," Bockus said. "It's a crazy bit of mental engineering that, as much as the advancements in AI have been, I don't think a computer could do."

She has written songs for all kinds of couples — young, old and at least three same-sex pairs. "I'm gay. So it's meaningful to see queer couples who have been together a long time," she said.

After one of the shows, she heard from a couple who thanked her for the "once in a lifetime experience." The wife had recently been diagnosed with cancer. The husband said, "sometimes you hit a bullseye that you weren't even aiming at."

"That's the beauty of this," Bockus said. "Joe [Haj] has created this very earnest world of love, kindness and acceptance and I approach the songwriting with that spirit of generosity."

Retired educators Ben Lewis and Shanda Waller, both 68 and of Chisago City, Minn., share that spirit. The pair met on a beach, naked.

"We were babies and our families had cabins next to each other," Lewis said. The couple are coming up on 47 years of marriage. Bockus' song focused on their long love, and because they have a copy of the lyrics, with notation, they hope to continue to renew the feeling they had at the Guthrie performance.

"My son plays piano and so, we'll be hearing it again soon," Lewis said. "It's a gift that will last a lifetime."

'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

Who: By William Shakespeare. Directed by Joseph Haj.

Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 S. 2nd St., Mpls.

When: 7:30 p.m. Fri., 1 & 7:30 p.m. Sat., 1 & 7 p.m. Sun.

Tickets: 612-377-2224, guthrietheater.org.