Thoroughly Modern Millie

[Mr. Wormwood]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 12:53am

I know the content of Thoroughly Modern Millie has been discussed on here before but I was perusing MTI's site and noticed that the show is "Totally Restricted Through 2023" (here's the link: https://www.mtishows.com/thoroughly-modern-millie)

 

I assume its problematic elements are being re-written for licensing but is there any official confirmation of that or an article related to that officially happening?

[Kad]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 11:01am

I had heard that the rewrites that were planned for the now-canceled Encores production were being implemented for the licensed version. 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 11:04am

Didn’t Encores say they were still committed to doing that show?

[Kad]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 11:19am

Jordan Catalano said: "Didn’t Encores say they were still committed to doing that show?"

Last I heard from people closely involved with Encores, it is not on the table at the moment.

 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 11:33am

Maybe I’m confusing it with something else but I do remember getting an email about a show I had tix for that they said was definitely going forward at some point. 

[Ke3]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 12:05pm

Three years with no productions of Millie? High school girls with strong tap skills are weeping.

[TheatreTeacher88]

Posted: 1/16/23 at 8:30pm

I think about this show all the time. What’s the status update on this production or the rights being released? 

[BETTY22]

Posted: 1/17/23 at 1:25pm

I don't think this show can be performed anymore.

Grateful how far we have come. 

[JSquared2]

Posted: 1/17/23 at 1:49pm

BETTY22 said: "I don't think this show can be performed anymore.
 


Nonsense.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 1/17/23 at 2:07pm

JSquared2 said: "BETTY22 said: "I don't think this show can be performed anymore.

Nonsense."


- The existing show depicts a white woman running a sex-trafficking business, posing as an Asian-American woman, and everyone believes that she's indeed Asian. The trafficking business is not treated with the weight or seriousness that such things should be given.

- The portrayals of Ching Ho and Bun Foo are deeply uncomfortable and problematic.

- Millie joins Sincere Trust with the goal of marrying its boss for wealth. Most of the young women in the show are depicted as man-hungry, money-hungry, and flighty with not a ton of agency.

- beyond that, there are simply clunky and overly corny elements to the book and lyrics.

The show has been an embarrassment since it first premiered. Beyond Sutton's performance, it still boggles the mind that it won Best Musical. It needs to be revised before anyone performs it again –– whether that revision premieres at Encores or elsewhere. Simply casting an Asian-American actress as Mrs. Meers won't cut it, I don't think. I think anyone who can find fault in TOOTSIE or SOME LIKE IT HOT or MORMON should be able to find triple the problems in MILLIE.

But if a coalition of Asian-American female critics & theatre artists feel the show is defensible as-is, I'd be glad to read that argument.

Updated On: 1/17/23 at 02:07 PM

[Bill Snibson]

Posted: 1/17/23 at 2:15pm

While I realize that this show is beloved by many you have to be able to see all the flaws and how inappropriate it is now for a 2023 audience. It was teetering on cringe back when it premiered. I'm curious about how the writers have updated it in hopes of trying to make it still work. Casting Ashley park as Millie is confusing alone considering that a major plot-point is "white slavery" and Mrs. Meers needs a complete overhaul. 

[pethian]

Posted: 1/17/23 at 2:40pm

JSquared2 said: "Nonsense."

 

Nonsense? Hardly. And for all the reasons already cited by others in the above two well-articulated responses. This show would need a top-to-bottom overhaul, if that's even possible.

 

[Ke3]

Posted: 1/17/23 at 3:06pm

I first saw Millie in middle school and even at 12 I was flabbergasted by the depiction of Asian characters. It felt like something out of the 1950s. It's almost laughable that it premiered the same season as a revisal of  Flower Drum Song that was trying to remove the orientalism out of that piece. 44 years between the original Flower Drum Song and Millie but the latter manages to be somehow worse at depicting race.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 1/17/23 at 3:18pm

I don't intend to defend the property, but I don't care for the implication that the show or writers are racist because of their adaptation of material that was already problematic in the first place. Francis Jue had some complimentary opinions of the material in 2018.

https://playbill.com/article/why-this-original-thoroughly-modern-millie-actor-says-mrs-meers-and-henchmen-were-revolutionary

[emilyfaye48]

Posted: 1/17/23 at 3:19pm

"It felt like something out of the 1950s."

well it is based on a British musical from 1956

[Ke3]

Posted: 1/17/23 at 3:40pm

I'm aware that Millie was based on prexisting material but we all do realize that makes it *worse* not better, right? They all saw that racist material built-in to the structure and thought "good old fashioned fun!" 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 8/21/25 at 9:24pm

Per the New York Magazine Micaela Diamond, Hannah Solow, and Anna Zavelson took part in a reading of TMM directed by Sam Pinkelton. Not sure who was who, both Anna and Micaela would make incredible Millie’s.

Updated On: 8/21/25 at 09:24 PM

[Dreamboy3]

Posted: 8/22/25 at 9:15am

Ke3 said: "I'm aware that Millie was based on prexisting material but we all do realize that makes it *worse* not better, right? They all saw that racist material built-in to the structure and thought "good old fashioned fun!""

Ok, but the writers departed from some of the more problematic aspects of the film (including that Dorothy chooses Ching over Trevor).  Clearly not enough for many.

[BJR]

Posted: 8/22/25 at 10:00am

Yes and most problematic character is…the villain. By intent. 

But the goal of the Encores production that covid scuttled was to further make this clear. 

The writers have said they were increasingly uncomfortable as the popularity of the show had it being done across the country, in settings where people were less aware they were being critical of the racism (as they felt was clear in the bubble of NYC). 

[Kad]

Posted: 8/22/25 at 10:11am

In the original book of the stage show, Mrs. Meers’ decision to present herself, in yellow face, as a Chinese woman talking in pigeon English is entirely inexplicable and never really addressed. She’s given a backstory as a failed actress, and her henchmen are given a bit of sympathetic fleshing out, but her racist disguise is kind of just there as a comedic character gimmick. 

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 8/22/25 at 10:45am

The film of Thoroughly Modern Millie was a foundational touchstone for me. I discovered it as a Saturday afternoon movie when I was probably 9 or 10 and I couldn't quite believe what I was watching. It wasn't just silly, it was batsh*t crazy. It's the first time I understood was camp was and I knew that the movie's sensibility was going to be something I would connect with for the rest of my life. I was so excited for the stage show. And then I saw it.

How did it end up MORE racist? Bea Lillie certainly was costumed in an 'oriental' fashion (problematic enough) but she wasn't in actual yellow face. She didn't speak in pigeon English. I'm certainly not going to defend the characterization in the film, but I sat in horror as I watched someone actually do yellow face in front of me. And people laughing and applauding. It was shocking. 

I actually can't think how this property could be salvaged. 

[Kad]

Posted: 8/22/25 at 11:22am

Yeah, they are certainly backed into a corner with the character. Even if you make Mrs. Meers legitimately Chinese, who code-shifts in public to play on the white characters' expectations, you're then left with... well, a scheming, predatory Chinese dragon lady stereotype. 

If you drop the Chinese plotlines entirely, and change the nature of Meers's disguise, what do you do with her henchmen? They don't really make sense if you have Mrs. Meers disguise herself as some other identity- and you've eliminated the 2  actual Asian characters in the show. And having her just be a woman with an Orientalist bent, as in the movie, it's still uncomfortable - even if Orientalism was very much in fashion at the time and another 20s trope the musical can send up. 

The potential Encores revision with Ashley Park seemed to suggest that having more Asian performers in the show may help smooth this over, but that is certainly very tbd since nobody's seen that version. 

Updated On: 8/22/25 at 11:22 AM

[darquegk]

Posted: 8/22/25 at 11:30am

I've seen many productions of Millie at both the professional and amateur level. The ones that made Mrs. Meers work had one thing in common: she is depicted as absurd in-universe. If her yellowface is played as convincing, or at least as just campy, the role becomes cringe. When it's intentionally badly done, and when both the white and Asian characters both react as though she is a crackpot, THEN it works. (It also requires Ching Ho and Bun Foo to be some of the strongest performers in the cast; if they are played as one-dimensional comic relief, it compounds the racism of Meers's role instead of deliberately serving as a foil for it.)

It's like the difference between Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and Robert Downey Jr. in "Tropic Thunder:" Rooney is playing a racial stereotype straight, in a film that does not critique or lampoon his performance. On the other hand, Downey is playing a narcissistic idiot who is clearly depicted as doing a very stupid and ignorant thing. 

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 8/22/25 at 12:39pm

I can't confirm first hand but Hannah Solow had an instagram story the other day saying something like hearing Micaela Diamond sing "Gimme Gimme" was amazing so I assume Micaela was Millie and Hannah was either Mrs Meers or Miss Flannery. Anna Zavelson could be Millie or Dorothy but that would mean another character sings Gimme Gimme.

I've always thought you could easily swap Meer's disguise to be anything over the top and kooky such as a Swedish Chef accent, a thick Scottish brogue, an absurd Monty Python style French accent, etc etc removing the racial aspect entirely (and the character can be cast as any race). The point of the "disguise" to me is she can more easily charm and/or brow beat people into doing what she says and frankly, nobody takes eccentric kooky people seriously. I could be entirely wrong and it would still come across uncomfortable no matter what, but I would think it would be worth doing in a reading to see.

[darquegk]

Posted: 8/22/25 at 1:04pm

Maybe they've phased out the human trafficking element entirely? In a post-Epstein, post-Diddy world, a fun family comedy about human trafficking is going to be a harder sell than it used to be. 

This all calls to mind a similar conundrum in Anything Goes, the "Two Chinamen." From the thirties to today, those two characters have been revised repeatedly, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Currently they've been entirely replaced by Spit and Dippy, two Bowery-type "bad little boys" who are often inexplicably played by grown men like gangsters. I hate Spit and Dippy with a passion.