Emma Clarendon chatted to Mark about transforming his life story into a musical, which is heading to Wonderville Live from the 3rd to the 16th June.
Hi Mark, how does it feel to be bringing The Finellis musical to London? I’ve been blessed to have worked in fifty two countries throughout my (now) very long career. Two cities burn for theatre more than anywhere else in the world, New York and London. Having lived in both cities (I’m a native New Yorker), I can say with assurance that London’s passion for theatre burns even hotter than New York’s. To have the World Premiere of “The Finellis Musical” take place 2 minutes from Piccadilly Circus, smack dab in the heart of the West End is a dream come true. It’s beyond a dream, it’s a great honor. The entire cast and creative team are all thrilled!!
What was it that made you want to bring your story to the stage in musical form? The original idea for “The Finellis” was a 13-episode Sitcom with live musical sequences. From the very beginning, one of our unique selling points was that all the concert sequences in the sitcom would be sung live, in contrast to nearly all other TV or film projects with music. In that sense, “The Finellis” was always a “sort-of” musical. The thirteen episodes for the first season of the TV Sitcom were already written and Ulf Weidmann (our composer) and I had written music for a lot of the episodes. The transition for “The Finellis” from screen to stage was, of course, a journey but perhaps not as difficult as some other “film to stage” transfers.
We had filmed 3 1/2 episodes of the Sitcom when the pandemic hit. As you can imagine, COVID made it nearly impossible to finish the Sitcom. Once the restrictions lifted, I wrote a new connecting storyline, we went back into production and turned our existing footage into what became “The Finellis Movie.” I had seen “The Finellis” (both the Sitcom episodes and the Movie) at screenings with thousands of people from all walks of life in numerous countries. Their reaction to “The Finellis” was pretty uniform. When the movie came out in 2022, my gut feeling was confirmed with a 7.4/10 Rating on IMDb and 5-Star ratings on Amazon Prime and AppleTV in the USA, UK, and Germany, so we knew we had something special.
In the Fall of 2022, I suggested to Ulf and our investors that perhaps we should put the Sitcom idea on the back burner and turn “The Finellis” into a stage musical first. Ulf and I went to work turning the dialogue scenes into songs. We finished Act One of the musical in a few months. At that point, we decided to do a producer’s presentation. We presented Act One of “The Finellis Musical”in May 2023 at the Phoenix Arts Club. We had a great cast. The event was sold out. The audience loved the show, and we raised enough money that day to finish writing the show, and produce the Wonderville Production (which will be the World Premiere) of “The Finellis Musical.”
What do you hope that audiences will take away from The Finellis Musical? The Finellis is a story of hope. It’s the story of a survivor (Tony Finelli) who, no matter what life throws at him, never gives up and keeps fighting for his dreams. Right now, our world appears to be quite devoid of hope and dreams. There is war, destruction, and inhumanity everywhere we look. Political discourse is at an all-time low. People go to the theatre or look to art to be inspired and to help them dream their dreams. My job as an entertainer is to help my audience forget their problems for a short while to be moved, touched, and inspired. If “The Finellis” can make you laugh and cry, what a cathartic experience that will be for an audience member.
What was the starting point for the show? There is a saying “write what you know.” The Finellis is a loosely based, quite fictionalized version of my Biography. However, my real-life story is truly stranger than any fiction. Long story short, for 10 years, I was the “Poster Boy” for Scientology in Western Europe. The fallout of that was that I became a target of the Verfassungschutz (the German Equivalent of the American CIA, or the British MI6) and got caught in a public “war” between the Scientology organization and the German Government. The enemies of Scientology in the German government came after me to make an “example” out of me — with everything they had. Seemingly overnight, I went from being a celebrated stage and recording star, to being “persona non grata“ throughout Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and France (which was where the base of my career was).
I was arrested. I was blackmailed. My phone was tapped. My mail was opened. I had death threats and everything else. 2003, was my personal “annus horribilus” where everything came to a head. The sh*t hit the fan with gale force! The protests against SCN were at their worst. I was broke. I hadn’t auditioned in nearly seven years. I was blacklisted and regularly slandered in the media, and I needed police protection to perform. In my moment of greatest need, Scientology left me to fend for myself.
My connection to SCN cost me everything – my career, all my money, my reputation, my family and it nearly cost me my sanity. There were even two or three situations where I considered suicide because I saw no way out of the situation that I was in. Thankfully, I stopped rationalising Scientology’s abhorable behaviour and left that sect for good in 2003. I then spent four and a half years, fighting thirteen lawsuits (the legal fallout of my SCN connection). To add insult to injury, I then had to pay off EURO 250K in debts that were incurred as a result of my connection to SCN. It was a LOT!
In 2011, I wrote my autobiography: “Naked in the Spotlight“ and started to rebuild my career – itself another incredible journey. After working on TV and in films in Europe for a few years, in 2016, I began to look for a way to turn the disaster that my life had become into a relatable story. Tony Finelli was the solution. That’s how “The Finellis“ were born.
Instead of Scientology, you have a prison sentence and the Mafia. That’s a direct analogy of my years in that cult. Of course, Tony Finelli is based on Mark Janicello, but he’s not really me, certainly not anymore. To create “The Finellis”, I took my own personality and split the different aspects of it into three very distinct characters. Tony Finelli is the “Good” Mark. Jürgen Drahtseil (Tony’s manager) is the “Bad” Mark, and Nonna, Tony Finelli’s 90-year-old demented Grandmother is the “Crazy/Creative” Mark. Tony and I share some traits, but the longer I have worked on this project, the more Tony Finelli has become a separate, quite individual personality. That said, there are still some scenes that are very, very difficult for me to play — because they are based on relationships and situations that were quite personal and some of them were very painful. Tony gave me the “mask” to hide behind and allowed me to write as “close to the bone” as I could stand it. I knew that if I did that, the authenticity of the characters and the situations would make a genuine impression on the audience. All the nominations and awards that “The Finellis Movie” won during the pandemic are a testament that my gamble paid off.
I consider The Finellis my life’s work. Every skill I have accumulated over these many years of writing, producing, recording, and performing has been used at its utmost to bring this story to life. I am convinced that I survived everything I did, because I was meant to tell this story. “The Finellis” is a story that only I could tell, because I lived it, and I survived (more or less) intact. I believe in this project more than anything I’ve ever done. It is also why I’ve invested everything I have in “The Finellis.”
How would you describe the show musically? I can promise anyone reading this that you will leave the theatre whistling all the incredible melodies in our show. Like Jerry Herman, Ulf Weidmann has the ability to write catchy tunes with melodies that won’t let you go. He’s is a phenomenal composer who writes in virtually every musical style. During the course of “The Finellis” you’ll hear, rock, jazz, country, big band, disco, as well as purely theatrical dramatic, and comedic numbers. We’ve got power ballads like “Here I Am Again,” “Love Will Never Die” and “The Journey” as well as songs that are so intimate, that they’ll keep the audience on the edge of their seats. Forgetting the book, the lyrics and the performances, the songs themselves are mind blowing! If you love great music, come and watch “The Finellis Musical.”
What are you most looking forward to about audiences experiencing the show? I cannot wait to hear the audience laugh. There’s nothing better than that! As a comedy writer, you live for the moment when the joke comes alive onstage and the audience reacts. That’s the thing I’m most looking forward to, sharing the pure, unadulterated joy that is at the heart of “The Finellis Musical.”
By Emma Clarendon
To experience more about the show and to book tickets visit: https://linktr.ee/thefinellismusical