A Weekend Among Friends

Just back from Memby's viewing and funeral service in Ohio. I was lucky to get out of Pittsburgh this morning with the freezing rain conditions. Jet Blue cancelled the flight and with the help of my private, personal and very handsome travel agent, I booked on American and got in. I was overwhelmed by the numbers of people (hundreds) who lined up to view Memby's close casket and console Jeff and her incredibly large and warm family. I think all of Youngstown was there. She was so loved. The funeral the next day was SRO as well and beautifully handled with music and prayer and speech and celebration for her life. The most amazing part of this trip was meeting so many of Jeff Saver's friends from childhood and high school. They took me into their group and made me feel a part of them. They all knew our work and of course Jeff has spoken of me, but to meet them was akin to meeting his family back in 1995 when they all came to see Dodsworth at Casa Manana in Ft. Worth Texas. His whole immediate family was there (including his late parents) and they took me into their tribe and we sang them freshly minted songs from the score and cried together from the beauty of it. It's an occasion I never will forget. My family was not there. But it wasn't just that I was jealous of his closeness but that for the first time I saw that such families exist. And this weekend I saw how longlasting friendships can nurture and heal as well...Jeff is very special and has surrounded himself with special people. I am proud to part of the circle. It's going to be very hard for him now to come back to his life, but I am in hopes that Time after Time will come back to life and we will get to work again. Meanwhile I want to have Jeff a tune for the lyric I wrote about Kander and Ebb and present it to John Kander for his 80th birthday. This would be therapeutic for Jeff I think. I hope so anyway. May I just say this goodbye to Memby who was a wonderful wife to Jeff and a great mother to Mariela and Rosalia. They are her legacy.

A Lyrical Thought

I have been thinking about the new lyric I tossed off (David said I wrote it faster than the title song for Aspire, which I know took me ten minutes or as long as it took to type it) the other day and which David says is an Arabic soft shoe...In the shower I was thinking about the larger implications of the lyric...the song basically says...One More Payment, One More Check, Give 'Em What they Want, or make 'em think that you do. It's about placating them and that its ok if they say we stink as long as we get what WE want, which is the money. Does this have political implications as well? Is this just what countries do? Make nice with certain Arab nations to get what they want...ie. the oil (incidentally the title of the Opening number of the show). Is this whole insane story of two short Jews writing a musical in the Middle East and enduring zany Arabs who have power over them a parable for what the US is going thru? Or is it just the true story? I always thought that this show was bigger than what it seems and suddenly this hit me. This song is very interesting and important...as David says. But what am I really saying?

Write or Wrong?

Why does a theatre writer have to be a producer as well? Spend the afternoon meeting with the not for profit theatre that Saturday Night at Grossinger's planning our backer's audition for March 19th. How I would love to just say "see you there!" But it's a) not in my makeup and b) not possible in this day and age to just be a writer and hope that others will take your show on to success...was it ever? Either way, I am heavily involved in the planning and execution of said backer's audition including trying to get the right money people in the room. In the end, would I have it any other way? No. But I am stressed with the Kander and Ebb coming up (Liza is going to sing three songs...I am thrilled!) and having to hop a plane in the morning for Pittsburgh to get to Youngstown for Memby's funeral. I want to go of course and don't at the same time. Doesn't everyone feel that way about funerals? Meanwhile work goes on for Road to Qatar and David is very excited about the new music he has written and that makes me happy. I will hear it after Ohio and when I am back in nyc. Can't wait to report.

Charlotte Rae Day

Went to Barnes and Noble to see Charlotte Rae and she drew a huge crowd. She did a whole nightclub act and was really marvelous. 80 years old and can still do it. Her comedy is right on and she still has a lot of voice left. She is shorter than my mother and that's saying a lot. My mother is so short she can walk under a coffee table in high heels and a picture hat. Charlotte is shorter. But she did take my mind off my up and down sadness today. I would love to be Charlotte's ghost and help her write her autobiography...I will try to push that.

Sad day

Sad to report that Memby Saver has passed away. I have been guarded about talking about it, but it's been well over a year since Memby was diagnosed with colon cancer and it's been a long and valiant battle. She was in much pain and this morning she was finally taken out of it. I have known and collaborated with Jeff Saver since the early 90s and have known Memby since he met her and she has been a great booster of our work and a wonderful wife and mother. She had many great talents of her own. I will never forget going to see her perform as a Salsa singer at a club in New York. This modest thin girl turned into the sexpot of all time on the stage as she undulated and entertained in a way that I have never seen. It was a total theatrical transformation and was astounding. I will miss her. I will miss complaining about Jeff to her and knowing that she not only understood him, but was rooting for us to be wildly successful with our shows. We will be and she will know it.

Voice from the Past

Yesterday I heard a voice from the past on my answering machine. The greeting began "Hello, Genius of the Universe!" I knew that hyperbole could only belong to David Bell, my collaborator and delightful partner in crime on Casper the Musical. I had called David's cell phone last week as a favor to Jeff who found out that David was now teaching (heading the dept?) at Northwestern U and Jeff wanted an intro. I was so happy to call David who, as it turns out was in Paris doing a show, which is why it took him a week to get back to me. His message was long, effusive, complimentary and dear...everything that David Bell is. He mentioned my shows (both with Jeff) Dodsworth and Time after Time, especially the later. I assume he got the CD we made of the live concert that featured those two shows sung by Judy Blazer, Liz Callaway, Christian Borle and Walter Charles. David seemed very interested in helping us get Time after Time on and that would be just dandy for so many reasons, not least of all the fact that the long term option was uncerimoniously dropped recently and that to have the prospect of a production would be so good for the show and even better for Jeff. I hope it can happen. I hope to talk to my voice from the past and get working with him again. He also mentioned me coming to Northwestern to do some master classes...wouldn't that be a kick! I have a lot to teach and would love to do that.

Give 'Em What They Want

Working through all the new and revised Road to Qatar material inspired me to come home and write another new lyric where a reprise was not quite cutting it. I thought it was good but when your composer questions you and you don't have the right answers, you start to realize perhaps you could come up with something better. So instead of the reprise that underscored the scene, this new lyrics "Give Em What They Want" doesn't just comment on the scene but helps to propel it as one character tells the other to make the Arabs happy even though they are giving tons of notes. Cause it's all about getting that final payment. I think it's going to be a great new addition to the score. Hurry up David and write the music.

Afternoon Delight

Had a lovely lunch with the delightful Susan Jacks. Susan has played Gypsy in all of our Piano Bar incarnations and has always more than killed with her brilliant 15 minutes (she's brilliant and so am I)She makes the audience laugh and feel great and I adore working with her. Hope we get to do it again real soon. Afterwards I went to hear most of the musical changes for Road to Qatar! David did a wonderful and incredibly speedy job, rewriting, recomposing, writing new stuff, stitching, hemming, everything that was prescribed and needed. He got up to the new audition sequence and we figured out a better way for it to happen and so he is redoing some of what he already redid. This is a very important moment and needs to be a kind of mini showstopper I think. It's all based on the song Behind Every Story, which was the opening number of Aspire. There will be five counter melodies and they will all come together in a musical tour de force if we are lucky. Behind Every Story was the first song that we wrote when the commission for Aspire came through. It was a lyric I had worked on way before Aspire and then redid as soon as I realized it would work as an opening number for that show. I can recall hearing the tune for the first time and realizing that I was a very lucky boy to have been arbitrarily paired up with Mr. Krane. He was able to capture everything in that first song. The Qatarian folk themes, the grandeur of the song, the telling of the story. Now we are taking the basic song and building on it. Can't wait to see how it works out. Other news of the day is that Liza is almost definate for the Kander and Ebb. This is amazing...I dare not even hope too hard. She is the finale I needed and of course she should be there but getting a major A list star is a coup for me and for the Morgan Library. The line up is now Karen Ziemba, Deb Monk, David Hyde Pierce, Cady Huffman, Jason Danieley, Marin Mazzie, Barbara Cook, Liza with Sheldon Harnick as host! Wow!

Post Script for a Saturday Night

Jeff called and it's only a matter of days not weeks, he said. Unfair is the word...

Another Saturday Night of Winter

Finally let Act II of Road to Qatar go and sent it off to David Krane. I am very pleased with it on paper and have even changed all the names from Stephen and David to Michael and Jeffrey...why? A good friend asked me why change the names...well...I just had a feeling that I would be freer to do what needed to be done with the story if I wasn't tied to the real names. Then if it's not totally true, it's the story of Michael and Jeffrey, not Stephen and David. Actually it has become truer, if more dramatized. I also wanted to have as little to do with Title of Show, which not only used the author's names, but had the authors play themselves. Their story if not our story, but another show about musical theatre writers has got to not be like theirs...and then there's Guttenberg...wonder how that is doing or even how it IS. To me it sounds exactly like the very funny but strangely unsuccessful show of a few years ago called The Big Bang (authors played themselves in that too...I am happily retired from playing me in a fictional piece...I have enough trouble playing me in real life. Anyway, I will miss rewriting Qatar, but I have a funny feeling I will be doing so again...and soon. No news from Jeff and I am worried of course. I was oddly affected and saddened by the passing of Daniel MacDonald and I think I was thinking more about Jeff and Memby. I am so very worried.

Friday Night Wrap-up

Well, I really had hoped to write in this blog every day (although who the hell is reading it, I don't know...anyone out there?), but it seems that every few days is more likely. The backer's audition for Saturday Night at Grossinger's is all falling together. It will be on Mar. 19th and both Barbara Minkus and Barry Pearl, the stars of the LA and Florida casts will be flying themselves in to perform in an elegant living room that has been donated by a very generous friend (she is also donating the coffee, cakes and booze, wow!) Matthew Ward, my collaborator on After the Fair, Casper, Merlin's Apprentice and the recent Drama League Gala will play for us and we hope to actually get some checkbooks open. This show could be so good for the York and for all of us, if marketed correctly. Bring in the Jews please. My Jews. My people who know the Catskills and are still alive enough to buy tickets. It will happen. Still working on the act II rewrite of Road to Qatar! David has done all his revisionary work on Act I and waiting for the rest. It's getting there. Polish, polish, polish...Had a meeting this AM with Ned Ginzberg about Kiss Me Guido and the rights etc. It will take some more time to get that sorted out and I hope that I really want to do it. The lack of phyical proximity between the songwriters (us) and the book writer (in LA) makes me very nervous, and his inexperience in crafting a musical theatre libretto, which I am so good at. Well, my biggest fear is that I will wind up writing half the book (or structuring it) and getting no credit or money for it. I have to sort that out in my mind. The Kander and Ebb is coming together, but so far no Liza...hmm...thinking of either having Sheldon sing Meeskite (if he will) or getting Ruthie Henshall and the boys to do All that Jazz. If I do that I have to change the video and I don't know if he has edited yet. I will write to Harry and find out and then make a decision (if she is even available and we can get the boys...maybe too much trouble) so the juggling of projects continues.

Tuesday Night with Stephen Cole

Been busy with the continuation of Road to Qatar rewrites. Act I emailed to David Krane and today he read it and LOOOOVED it. Horray. He laughed out loud. I am excited. Act II is done but I am not happy enough to email more than half of it yet. The transition to Qatar (the last 1/4 of the Act) is not right yet and by moving the title song to Act I, I am denied the 11 o'clock number and even though I am reprising it with a new counter melody, I am not as excited about it. How to solve? Hmmm...not sure yet. Kander and Ebb continues as well. Things are falling into place musically and the only person I haven't heard from is Liza. I am concerned about certain budget items as we might have to shell out more for one of the accompanists than one would like, but the person being accompanied is worth it. Hope that works out. Had a meeting with the York people about Saturday Night at Grossinger's and it went well enough. We still have to raise a lot of money and are planning a backer's audition in March. After talking to David Armstrong today, it was agreed that it would be best to have not only Barbara Minkus do Jennie but to also have Barry Pearl come to NYC and do Sheldon's numbers and schtick for us. This will help raise more money than me doing the songs...brilliant as I am. I am not him. He is him. And David was so sweet in saying I was just too young and cute. I think he is a great director already. Barry and Barbara are both willing to come on their one buck. They know this is a great opportunity and that they will get to do the show in NYC and these are great roles for them as has been proven in LA and Florida. Now we just have to pin down dates and places...What a schmear! Onward and up as I say. We shall see what we shall see as Lucia says.

SATURDAY NIGHT

Continued working on the rewrite of Qatar. Well into Act II now and I think I have fixed the audition sequence and made it slide into Bratislava, which I had skipped in the first draft. The work is fun and I am having a good time as long as I am writing away. The Kander and Ebb saga continues. Jeff will not be coming in to play or rehearse the show after all...something I have known would happen. So I need to make sure everything is covered musically. Charlotte Rae called again today and she is still unsure about doing the evening, even though she really wants to. It's all about staying an extra week in cold, freezing NYC. Who can blame her? If she does it, it would be great. If not, we will still have enough of a show for 45mins...I am sure we will have too much in fact. Took Granny to dinner tonight for his 70th. The food was great and we laughed a lot. Came back and watched Carol Channing's 1956 Person to Person. Granny fell asleep...like old times. Channing was interesting then. Almost human (not that I don't like her as a caricature...I do.) and watching her with her then football player husband and 2 year old child is odd...no wig, not much affectation. Just a person. I like her better as a character. More work tomorrow on Qatar and talk to David Krane...oh yes, it's time to change the lead characters' names from David and Stephen to Neil and Michael...They are not us anymore but people in a show. Frees us up I think...it's all still true, but hyper-true. And we have changed our names to protect...well us.

The Best of Days, the Worst of Days

Did some very good work on Qatar today...not as much as the last couple of days, but sketched lyrics for each character that would counterpoint with Behind Every Story in the audition sequence...each character would sing their inner thoughts as the lyricist is singing the opening number of the show within a show to them. The Egyptian producer would sing about not understanding one word but that doesnt matter as long as he OWNS ever word. The Qatarian Movie star would sing about this year it's a musical and next year a movie starring me, without the songs of course, making him the Middle Eastern Tom Cruise. Nazirah, who has a crush on the American lyricist would fantasize about being married to him and moving to New York, finally leaving the Middle East behind. The composer at the piano would be singing about how they all seem rapt and loving his music (that is until he hears a stray snore coming from the producer). I think even the lyricist singing will have his inner thoughts revealed...he will realize that no one is listening to anything he is singing and that it's horrible to be performing in the window of a piano store just two blocks from the 2005 London Tube bombing. This could work. Saw Follies at Encores tonight. I knew I was letting myself in for a disappointment. I am now one of those people who say "but I saw the original!" Well, I did. And everytime (including the very exciting Philharmonic concert in the 80s) I see another Follies I cannot get the original out of my head and it will never be as good and that's that. Returned home to phone message and then two phone calls from my collaborator Jeff and his wife is not well at all. It is getting more obvious that he will not be coming to NYC to work on the Kander and Ebb (on a happier note, spoke to Charlotte Rae today and she MIGHT stay in NYC and do the show and sing YES from 70 Girls). Tomorrow we shall find out who will be playing the piano and musical directing the evening. It all makes me very nervous and there is too much on my shoulders here, but it's the way it is. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Catching Up is Hard to Do

Yesterday, after going to bed late (Rainbow Room see below) I woke up early (for me)...thank you Jet Lag! But I need all the waking time I can get. I gave one of my lectures for the Elderhostle groups I adore. I have given many of these now over the years. They are about, well, me! It's about my career as a writer in the musical theatre, but recently I have taken to including my writing of books as well. I usually cue up several videos and talk about how I have written musicals since I was 15 and show clips of my work. Lately though I have been telling the amazing but true story of how David Krane and I wrote Aspire as the first commissioned American musical to be presented in the Middle East. This story always goes over brilliantly and now that we have actually written (still writing) a musical called The Road to Qatar! The story has a great punch line and is a big hit. The upside of doing these lectures is always that the people are so marvelous. These elders are far from hostile. They come from all over the country to enjoy theatre and learn something about the inner workings. And they appreciate every word I give them. The laughs are great. I love performing and I come away with more than they do. Yesterday was no exception. I came away with a very clear understanding of what is great about the story and I was inspired to really get down to finishing my rewrite of the first 20 or so pages of the show. So now I have new and reshaped material to send to David and he can get to work on recomposing (as opposed to DEcomposing, which one of my other collaborators is doing, but that's another story, never mind). I am excited again about the show and the truth of the matter is, the real fun lies in the writing. The rest is just the rest. Today I had a meeting at the Morgan Library about the Kander and Ebb evening and made some strides in the producing end. Got a sound and light guy and asked my friend Elliot to stage manage it for me. Still need some more talent, but it will come. Who knew I would have to produce this? Well, produce, direct and write...that's now my label. Onward and up! Taking a first class ride as we hit the road to Qatar!

After the Rainbow Room

It's early Tuesday morning and the Drama League Show went very well. If it had been a first preview, we would know what to cut and prune and tomorrow it would be a much better show, but all in all, it went better than I expected. The videos went without a hitch and the material I wrote was clever and fast, even if there was a little too much of it. Dreamgirls started the night off with a bang and then my special material for Joanna Gleason and Jim Dale went very well. The Way You Look Tonight was lovely and the dance was stylish and Astaire-ish. The next two numbers were just okay and it took a while to recover. Heather MacRae following the wonderful post war musical film video montage brought the show up again...although in a ballady soft way. What we needed was a big dance there but we had several slow numbers in a row. The Tarzan number with film went over well and the flop medley did pretty good too, Brinberg is good, wish we could have made him funnier tho...if I had been here I might have helped with that. The other Flop medley people were great troupers...loved them. Rita Moreno was surprisingly good singing I Never Has Seen Snow. Much better voice than I suspected. I boldly approached her about writing a book with her. She was sweet but non-committally offputting. I will pursue it tho. All that Jazz went over very well and Ruthie Henshall certainly gives her all. I should ask her to be in the Kander and Ebb...the video was good at the end too. Spring Awakening was nice but not the Finale I wished it was. The evening was too long and boy did I have to pee! Still, in all better than the last one I wrote and saw (didn't see last year's) and Jim Dale and Joanna really gave their all. Dear people. Of course I came home and got blue immediately...from the high to the low...that's part of a theatre writer's life. And so the sun sets over the Rainbow Room and tomorrow I do my elderhostle lecture and they will surely revitalize me. On to Kander and Ebb...on to Qatar...on to on to on to...and to sleep...zzzz

Over the Rainbow Room

It's been a few days since I have been able to write here. Last time I blogged I was on my way to London. The whole trip was heaven. From the business class seats on BA to the suite at the Berkeley (not Barclay) Hotel to the two brilliant shows (Billy Elliot...better the second time and Frost/Nixon) we saw and the two magnificent meals (one at the Boxwood Cafe and the other at the famous Ivy in the West End where Noel and Gertie dined after Private Lives). We also walked our feet off, taking no subways (the weather was great) and walking all the way up to the top of the dome at St. Paul's. Saw Granny for dinner at his place (He is coming over here today for a month and his 70th birthday) and all in all had too short but a wonderful trip. Today I returned to the freezing cold New York weather and climbed (in an elevator, thank you very much) all the way up to the 65th Floor at Rockefeller Center to the fabulous Rainbow Room to attend the rehearsal for tonight's Drama League Gala. There was some interesting and aggravating drama, but everything was resolved and now I am dressed to kill and ready to see what the hell we wrought. I think it's going to be a lovely evening and I going to be spending it with a dear friend who just became a grandmother but doesn't look it in the least. Dinner, show and glamour. And whatever I wrote will be said and sung and all will be well. I will report on the truth of that statement in my next post. Now, it's over the rainbow room for me.