New musical ‘cleaVage’ is a deep cut into Texas plastic surgery history

Dr. Ron Friedman was a musician stuck in a doctor’s office, until he found a way to bring his trade to the stage.

Taking inspiration from his plastic surgery practice – and a viewing of “Hamilton” – he wrote the soon-to-premiere musical comedy “cleaVage” about the history and process of breast augmentation. It’ll come to The Colony in North Texas in early October, just in time for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Friedman joined the Standard to talk about the musical, his inspirations and what it was like to create his debut show. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: I feel like the first thing people need to know about you is that you say you’ve always been musical. Though you were a doctor, this didn’t come from absolutely nowhere in your background, right? 

Ron Friedman: No, actually, I wanted to be a musician from the beginning.

I started taking piano lessons when I was eight. I started writing music when I was 10. I started doing demo recordings in a studio when I was 13. And I’ve done a series of songs, a series of recordings, but nobody seemed to take much interest until I started writing music about breasts. 

Well, the musical “Hamilton,” of course, was an absolute phenomenon. How did it inspire you to tell this story? 

I’d been thinking about doing this based on a suggestion from a friend for probably 15 or 20 years, and I’d actually written a song or two, but I didn’t really know where to go with it until I saw “Hamilton” for the first time in Dallas, and then again in Chicago in April of 2019.

And during the show, I had an “aha” moment and I said: if this is a musical about America, what could be more American than silicone gel implants? 

Well, and apparently more Texan. There’s a song you highlighted for us called “Houston Rockets,” which you say is really the only Texas-centric song of the musical. So the songs, other than this, might not be all about Texas, but how much of this is a Texas story at its core?

This is 100% a Texas story, because breast implants were developed by two plastic surgeons over in Houston in 1962. And in fact, if you wanted to see breast implants, which people frequently did at Rick’s Cabaret in Houston – which I believe no longer exists – you had to go to Houston in order to see this.

So the tagline for the musical is “the ‘real’ story behind fake breasts,” but “real” is in quotation marks. You’ve changed some names and such. How close is this to the real story? 

I would say this is about 75% accurate. The interesting thing about it is that the portions which you would think are made up are actually the real portions.

So, for example, the first breast implant recipient was a stray dog named Esmeralda and she’s even got her own song in the musical, and this is completely true.

A dog? Wow. Okay. Well, let’s talk criticism, because this is pretty clearly supposed to be fun, but I could also see folks being turned off by the topic, or maybe even accuse you of being self-serving, since you’re a plastic surgeon.

Have you heard any of that, and if so, what would you say in response? 

I think that people listening to it on the surface would say, well, “cleaVage,” this sounds like some sort of tawdry musical or a musical advertisement. But if you actually see the musical, it’s quite the opposite.

This is about body empowerment, this is about positivity, and in fact, I just posted something on social media today saying that this is not an advertisement for plastic surgery. In fact, it’s kind of a cautionary tale talking about the lawsuits, talking about various complications: rupture, capsular contracture, hardening of the implants, silicone immune disease, and we go through all of this.

I think it gives a balanced perspective and gives people more history, and more of a background to make an informed decision about the surgery. So far from advertising the surgery, we’re actually making this a cautionary tale.

Well, tell me about the plans for “cleaVage.” Folks can see it soon.

They can. We’re gonna be presenting eight shows over at Lakeside Community Theatre over in The Colony, starting in October. And of course, that’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

In fact, we’re having a preview performance on Oct. 2 for Women Rock, which is a breast cancer survivors organization based in Sherman. All proceeds from all merchandise sales for all of the shows will go directly to Women Rock.

Unfortunately, as of this morning, the last tickets sold out, and so we have no more tickets. All eight shows are sold out.

That’s incredible. Congratulations. What are your wildest dreams for this project? Where do you hope it goes next, and then what about after that? 

Well, when I originally started writing this – and I need to acknowledge the fact that I didn’t write this alone – I started writing in 2019.

In 2022, I was joined by Laura Goodenow, who is an accomplished writer and a movie producer, and she helped me with character development, suggestions for songs and a lot of the writing of the libretto, or the non-song portion of the book. So her help’s been invaluable.

The project is right now being directed by Rebecca Lowrey of Musical Writers, who is an amazing director and pianist, and I couldn’t do it without the help of both of these people here.

It’s a group project, not a single project, and it’s also important to know that we’ve got the voices of women, many women, contributing to this project. It is by no means a male-dominated project.

Having said that, our future plans would be to do this in a bigger setting, because of course everybody likes bigger “cleaVage.” We’d like a larger space to do this in, and we’re hoping that with the publicity for this, and with the feedback that I know we’re going to get back, which is positive, that we will have an opportunity to do another show in the next year or two.

Would you want to be the next “Hamilton?” I mean, do you think that that’s really within reach? 

You know, I sure hope so. That would be, of course, everybody dreams of that at this point. That is the golden standard.

But I do think it’s funny that when Texas Monthly wrote an article about “cleaVage,” they referred to it as “‘Hamilton’ with breasts.” I’m very happy to take that particular moniker. 

So people have heard you talk about the real impact, and the reality of breast implants. We’ve giggled a little bit about some boob jokes. But what do you think folks will really experience when they go to see the show? 

Sure. I mean, they’re gonna start with lots of boob jokes. We just get that out of the way, out the gate there.

But then we get into a real story about breast augmentation, breast reconstruction, and the impact of breast augmentation and reconstruction on so many people’s lives. It’s affecting millions of people’s lives.

I think people go in expecting this to be a superficial show, but actually it’s got emotional depth. It’s got hurtfulness, and it’s really told in a way that we can connect with the characters, and be educated in the process while we’re having fun.

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