Time after Ohio

Spend two days in Ohio (one night with Jeff Saver and the other in a Motel in Pittsburgh) and did some work on Time after Time after a 17 month hiatius. I know that the time spent on the show with Jeff did him good and there is no doubt that time away from the show gave me a perspective and a freedom to work on what was not up to par and to still love what is. I think we had some good talks and that we can make the show a lot better. It was a good trip...sad, exhilarating, sad, depressing, uplifting...Came back and recorded a couple of songs from Qatar to submit for the York Theater's NEO concert. Will submit two from that show and one from Time after Time. Nothing exciting moneywise has come up for SNAG and that's distressing, but not shocking. Right now Qatar is my best front burner bet. It's new, it's hip, it's really good and it's new. Did I mention it's new?

Why oh Why oh Why oh?

Why am I going to Ohio? Well, it's where Jeff Saver is and we are going to spend two whole days reviving our work on Time after Time. I am going to remind Jeff what is great about it and what we can make better. He is going to come back to composing in a small but important way. Even if he doesn't actually write music this week it will remind him who he is and that his life is important. His art and his collaboration with me. I am nervous about it, but I will surely have a good time. Also had lunch today with Thomas Z. Shepard, famous record producer and very nice man. We are talking about me possibly working on his book with him. Another ghost is born? Perhaps. He has had a great career and I think a great title would be Off the Record by Thomas Z. Shepard with Stephen Cole (same type please). More to come.

Blame It On My Youth

While I was out walking today I started to sing the beautiful Oscar Levant song Blame It On My Youth (Edward Heyman lyric) and before I knew it I realized that this could be the title of the play (musical? play? memoir?) I have been toying with. In fact using the song at the top of the show might be my way in. Maybe by using a real song that mean something ironic as a title and a device is my way into this play. Treating a play the way I treat a musical might get me into it. It's a memory play for sure and the lyric has a certain irony.

IF I EXPECTED LOVE WHEN FIRST WE KISSED
BLAME IT ON MY YOUTH,
IF ONLY JUST FOR YOU I DID EXIST
BLAME IT ON MY YOUTH
I BELIEVED IN EVERYTHING
LIKE A CHILD OF THREE
YOU MEANT MORE THAN ANYTHING
ALL THE WORLD TO ME

Already it feels right. A way to talk about the first kiss and how naive a 16 year old boy (no matter how sophisticated he thinks he is) can be. How this 40 year old woman wove a web of magic and romance and pulled him into it.

IF YOU WERE ONE MY MIND BOTH NIGHT AND DAY
BLAME IT ON MY YOUTH
IF I FORGOT TO EAT AND SLEEP AND PRAY
BLAME IT ON MY YOUTH

This boy gave up everything for this woman, for the chance to be adult, to be cared for, to be nurtured and understood.

AND IF I CRIED A LITTLE BIT
WHEN FIRST I LEARNED THE TRUTH

And eventually truth came crashing around his ears. The truth of obsessive love. Of adult emotions that he was not ready for. Of a love so intense he had no way of dealing with it. Neither did she for that matter, except to do all the wrong things.

DON'T BLAME IT ON MY HEART
BLAME IT ON MY YOUTH

But what could SHE blame it on? Her heart, her needs, her narcissistic need for the boy.

There IS something here. To intersperse her singing with his recollection and then let play with time. How I would love to keep this a two character piece, but for some reason I have already added another actor in this first scene. Well, it could all change tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow...Having lunch with Thomas Z. Shepard about the possibility of working on a book with him. Could be good. I will report back.

The Love of an Older Woman

I think because I am so excited and happy with The Road to Qatar! I am looking for another project. For some reason I feel that having gone to the well of reality and my life once and come up with gold, maybe I could do it again. The older woman in my life keeps coming back to haunt me. She yells "write me, write me!" as if she were the chorus in the opening number of Colette which closed on the road. She is gone now and maybe it's time to come to terms with the interesting story of a 16 year old boy and a woman twice his age who fell in love with his talent and then him and rushed him into her bed despite his natural proclivities and then betrayed him out of love, jealousy and passion. And the boy forgave her and they remained friends until her death. There IS a story here...Probably not a musical, but maybe my first play? I don't know yet, but something is pushing me to tell this story. It's connected to all the older women in my life. They all see something in me and either go too far or not far enough. This first one was very important. Wow, she would sure be shocked and possibly thrilled to become a part of my work. Can't wait to see where my brain takes me.

Never Look a Gift Arab in the Mouth

This afternoon David Krane and I sang the score of the Road to Qatar! for a potential director and it went very well. We were great. It's not easy playing all five parts, but the very fact of having to do three different Middle Eastern character voices at least distinguishes them from the two main character, which are easy as they are based on us! The potential director loved it all and now we shall see what we shall see...next step is probably to do this same dog and camel show for producers who might give us a reading. Maybe we will figure out a way to do a cut version...act I only perhaps. This time we did all the musical segments which is a lot! But in any case today went as well as it could and I am happy and tired.

Superfluous Duets

It's amazing how you can (or I can) actually feel what the structural problems of a show are by just singing thru the score. I felt really good last night singing The Road to Qatar, but I just knew that one reprise of the title song was just one too many. Original the song was in the spot where the reprise was last night, but in the total rewrite the song wound up being the second song in the show instead of the 11 o'clock number. It works much better there, but the delightful and delicious counter melody did not work at the top of the show, as it was specifically a lyric for the later part of the show. I thought I could have my cake and eat it by keeping the countermelody as a surprise for the reprise, but it turns out that I just didn't want to hear that number in that spot...it stopped the action for something great musically, but not great dramatically...So I decided today to just lift it out and see how it read...of course it read better without the reprise. So a wonderful countermelody bites the dust (for now...you never know) but a better show grows from the ashes.

Behind Every Story

For those of you who might have missed these articles by the great Peter Filicia. Here is the true story that inspired the musical work in progress I keep talking about here...The Road to Qatar! This will give you some background on what an amazing tale it is.
Something To Aspire To
By: Peter Filichia


"We want you to write musical. How much?" That was the cryptic e-mail that bookwriter-lyricist Stephen Cole received last February. It was followed by an instruction to call a number in -- of all places -- Dubai. Cole assumed it was "just one of those e-mails," but he wrote back, saying he wouldn't call Dubai and that the sender would just have to call him. "A second later," Cole says, "the phone rang and a broken-English voice asked if I'd write a musical for the Emir of Qatar."
Although Cole has written musicals produced regionally (Casper) and off-Broadway (After the Fair), he hasn't yet reached Broadway, so he was surprised to be summoned. The Dubainians told him that his website had gotten them interested in him. So, would he write an original musical? Says Cole, "I'd read how rich this country was, so I told my agent to ask for a lot of money. They came back with an offer of only a work-for-hire contract but with enough money to make me say, 'Take it!' " But Cole would have to accept their choice of composer. "I suggested ones I'd worked with, but they nixed them all," he relates. "None, you see, had a website. They told me David Krane would compose, and while I'd only barely met him, I knew I'd be dealing with someone who knew musicals."
Indeed, Krane -- who was equally stunned when he got his e-mail from Dubai -- has been writing Broadway dance music and/or arrangements since Carmelina in 1979. "Even though I haven't written a musical for Broadway," he says, "they were sold when they saw on my website that I worked on the Chicago movie." (Moral of the story, writers: Get a good website!) "They didn't offer enough money for a Rolls-Royce, but enough for a mini one," says Krane. "So I said yes."
Fine. But now he and Cole were told they had to deliver the show in eight weeks. The collaborators asked "What's the show about?" and were told they'd learn more after they flew to Dubai. After a 14-hour business-class flight, they met their producers. The first surprise was that the musical would be performed in English "because most of the audience would be foreign dignitaries," says Krane. "And the Emir spoke English, too."
Artistic director Nasser Abdullah Abdul Reda told them that the show would deal with a boy whose father would not let him go to a sports academy. Says Krane, "The show would open Qatar's newest sports arena -- the world's largest soccer stadium -- at the Aspire Sports Academy." Cole decided that he had his title: Aspire. "I was told, though," he says, "that the show had to include such Qatarian icons as the sea, ancient Greece, ancient Qatar, a pearl diving expedition and -- oh, yes -- Carl Lewis, the Olympic runner, and Zinedine Zidane, a French soccer star. I came to the conclusion that they had to be included because the Emir hoped they'd actually show up for the premiere. What's worse, I was expected to have an outline by the end of that first day! They even had set designers there from England, so they could get started working from my outline." (Those designers would eventually quit.)
By the second day, Cole had decided that the show's theme should be what one needed besides strength to be a good sportsman. "So," he says, "I landed on a sultan's son who goes on a tantrum in his room and learns a lesson when a star comes to life. The producers wanted a narrator, but I sold them on the star being personified as a Bette Midler-type. She teaches the boy wisdom, compassion, and courage. The Wizard of Oz always works," Cole adds with a knowing smile. Krane was able to hire crackerjack orchestrator Larry Blank and a music copyist. Cole and Krane then flew to Doha -- Qatar's capital -- to see the still-under-construction stadium, in which the show would premiere on November 19. "Then they took us on a wild SUV ride through the pitch black desert at what had to be 100 miles an hour," says Krane. "We arrived in an encampment where there was a belly dancer, and then we went on camel rides. We felt like we were in The Road to Morocco."

They got their advance. Krane also got a tape of Qatarian folk tunes, some of which would have to be assimilated into the show. ("People would expect to hear them," he was told.) Then Krane and Cole returned home to write, although the contract now said six weeks, not eight. The shortened time frame particularly worried Cole because he'd been working on Marni Nixon's memoir -- fetchingly titled Audrey Hepburn Dubbed My Face -- and it was soon due at the publishers. But Krane and Cole proved the adage that work takes as long as the time you have to do it. They finished Aspire, including the dance music and underscoring, in five weeks.
In July, they went to London to perform it for their producers. "Luckily," says Krane, "Stephen has a fabulous voice. He's the love child of Stephen Douglass and Ethel Merman." Be that as it may, once Cole finished singing and Krane ceased playing, the stone-faced Arabs didn't applaud. Says Cole, "Though I'd spent 90 minutes singing my heart out, I decided that the check's clearing was my applause."
Actually, Reda and his people were thinking where the collaborators had erred culturally. For example, it turned out that one of the Qatarian folk tunes used by Krane can only be played at Ramadan. Out it went. But the show got a green light. This meant that Krane quickly had to go to Bratislava, of all places, to oversee the pre-recording of the music by a a 70 piece-orchestra. "I had put in a chime but was told to take it out because it sounded so much like the bell that tells Muslims it's time to pray," he says.
Krane and Cole were astonished when they were told that they "wouldn't be needed" at casting sessions or rehearsals. They returned to America and waited until they were summoned to Qatar. We'll learn of that trip in my next column.
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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@theatermania.com]
http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/7577

Peter Filichia's Diary Feb 1, 2006


We Open in Doha
By: Peter Filichia


When we last left bookwriter-lyricist Stephen Cole and composer David Krane, they'd been commissioned to write an original musical for the Emir of Qatar. As I related on Monday, they were given six weeks to do it and miraculously accomplished the task in five. Their show, Aspire, was to open a new soccer stadium in Doha, Qatar's capital, on November 19, 2005.
Much has been made of Elton John not being on the scene to work on his musicals. Well, much to the surprise of Cole and Krane, they weren't weren't invited to stay in Qatar for casting or rehearsals. But they were summoned to the Middle Eastern country two days before the opening, so they could watch the final rehearsals on Friday and Saturday. What they saw was a bit of chaos. An LED screen on which projections were to be shown didn't work. (It had been shipped to Quatar at a cost of $95,000!) At each of the final rehearsals, the show never progressed past the third number. So Aspire, with its 175-member cast, would have to open without a full run-through or even a tech rehearsal.
Opening night! It's opening night! It's those Americans' latest show; will it flop or will it go? Before Krane and Cole started dressing for the occasion, they were told that they should take curtain calls, but they wondered, "What if the audience doesn't like it?" The show's stakes had been raised, for what had been conceived as a one-night-only performance had turned into a one-week run. Krane and Cole wondered if there'd be enough interest in Aspire for it to play out the week. Granted, the Emir was charging no admission for his subjects to see the show, but maybe it would be such a disaster no one would want to attend.
As the clock reached show time, something else was missing: The Emir. "Of course," says Krane, "we couldn't start before he got there." The collaborators killed time by chatting with the French and Korean ambassadors. They also scanned the crowd for Carl Lewis and Zinedine Zidane, the sports stars whom they were told to reference in their show. They weren't in attendance, as had been assumed; but Mark Spitz, another former Olympic champion, was.
Finally, a full hour late, in walked the corpulent Emir with his trophy wife. They took front row seats, and it was Magic Time. "It really was," says Cole. "I'd expected abstract sets, but oh, were these realistic. They'd been made in China and were bigger than you'd ever dream. The inside of tombs! King Tut's palace! Three enormous ships! And the cast! There were fire eaters, Croatian acrobats, Russian dancers, and jugglers who juggled things the size of houses. Funny, whenever we asked about the budget, they never told us what it was. They'd always say, 'Less than you think.' But this show sure looked expensive to us. It was like Jumbo, but bigger."




To their delight, the authors saw that the show itself worked. They sat back and enjoyed their tale of Mansour, the son of a Sultan. Since the death of the lad's mother, the Sultan won't let his 12-year-old leave the palace. Mansour is spoiled by his father's lackeys. When they say, "Your wish is our command," he snarkily decides, "I want that star in the sky to come down." Of course, they can't do that, but a Star does come down -- think Bette Midler -- to tell him off for being such a brat. Then she says, "Close your eyes and wish." Soon, Mansour is crossing the sea. He arrives in Greece, where he meets Odysseus, Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon -- and a Cyclops, whom the Greeks want to kill. Mansour asks them to spare the monster and invites him to dinner. The charmed Cyclops says that he could never eat them now that they're all friends. The Greeks learn, "A man can win a battle by using his heart."
Mansour then takes off on a flying carpet, arrives in Egypt, and meets a nine-year-old named Tut who's been thrust, not unlike Chulalongkorn in The King and I, onto the throne after his father dies. The boy king is scared and runs away, which thrills General Horemheb and henchman Ay, who expect to take over Egypt. The country's laws demand a 30-day waiting period before power changes hands; Mansour spends the time encouraging Tut to reclaim the throne and planning a ruse to quash the villains. It works, and Tut is forever grateful. Mansour then meets the aforementioned Olympic champ Carl Lewis and soccer legend Zinedine Zidane, both of whom encourage him to take a camel ride. He winds up in 1920, where a pearl diving expedition is about to take place.
Then came a showstopper -- "though not the kind you'd want," says Cole. "Right then and there was a sword dance, and then 25 minutes of Arabian music with nothing happening dramatically. We just had to sit and wait it out." (The Emir's emissaries had insisted on all this, and Cole and Krane couldn't fight City Hall, so to speak.) Eventually, the story resumed with Mansour meeting Saad, a 15-year-old who gets stuck in a small underwater crevice. Only the diminutive Mansour can get into the space to help release him. In doing so, he helps Saad to become a man.
Once the Sultan sees how Mansour has matured, he allows him to leave the palace and become a man. But Krane and Cole didn't see the end of the show. They had to get ready for their curtain calls and, considering that the stadium was so large, they needed 10 minutes to go from their seats to the backstage area. When they bowed, the Emir stood up and cheered -- and, needless to say, so did everyone else. David Krane and Stephen Cole felt just like Mansour, whose name is Arabic for "victorious."
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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@theatermania.com]

Tuesday Night in Qatar!

What a roller coaster a career in the theatre can be! Last night I was riding high after doing the backer's audition of Saturday Night at Grossinger's. The only fly in the ointment seemed to be that my agent didn't show up. This got me upset to say the least. Just when you need an agent to be schmoozing it up, you are alone. Then the shit hit the fan this AM via email that my agent was no longer my agent. Now, this has been coming for a while, at least via my ignored intuition. After all, communication has been at a bare minimal since...before December! Other big events were either not attended or attended half way (and by that I mean leaving after an hour of a hugely successful performance of one of my shows). This was getting to be unacceptable and to give the agent its due, the agent agreed that I was being neglected and deserved better. Still, this did not take the sting out of the realization that I have to move on and find someone new, especially since I chose this one over my last one and burned a bridge that remains burned to this day. Sad. But you go on...and tonight David Krane and I performed (or rather let three people watch a rehearsal of) our score for The Road to Qatar! And that went really well. I am very confident about 80 percent of what we have and that's pretty damned good for draft number two. We are rehearsing again tomorrow and performing for a director on Thurs. Not sure if this director is right for the piece but then the reaction will tell me a lot. I know we have a hilariously amazing small show here, based totally on truth, for whatever that means...what's important is the story and the characters and it really works. So far. I am proud proud proud of Qatar! Stay tuned for the director's reactions.

Monday Night at Grossinger's

The question is this: is a backer's audition successful unless you know if you got backing? Well, we did a great presentation in a great living room for a very nice crowd who seemed to really appreciate what we did. I sang and acted well. The others were their marvelous selves. Everyone seemed enthusiastic, but I guess I won't know the money situation until I know it. I am thoroughly exhausted in any case. And if I am tired, can you just imagine the two wonderful leads who too the red eye from LA last night and tomorrow morning at 445am will be on the road to Kennedy? Highlights were having Larry Silverton, Doris's widower, there. Larry is a great guy and Doris was one of the Co-creators (Rita Lakin, the other, was there as well) and has gone to the big blintz stand in the sky. I am in hopes that Larry who is well off to say the least will help us get this production off the ground. But those are slim hopes. You don't get rich by putting money into shows. Even shows that your wife created and loved to death. Literally. But we shall see. He had tears in his eyes and seemed to really love it all. So did many others. It was certainly hard though to get the comic elements in a living room. The stand up schtick works best with lights and a bigger audience. But Barry Pearl did a valiant and brilliant job. I felt good singing the counterpoint duet with Lynne Halliday. Old home week for us. We worked together as director (me) and performer over 20 years ago and now we were singing a song together. What fun! Well, here's hoping this all adds up to some bucks and that we can really do the show this summer or early fall at the York. Thank you Barbara Minkus, Barry Pearl, Lynne Halliday, David Armstrong, Matthew Ward and everyone at the York. With that I say goodnight and goodluck....zzzzz

A Busy Monday Expected

Barbara Minkus and Barry Pearl arrive early in the AM. Barbara will go to rest at her daughter's apt. and Barry will catch some winks at my place. At noon we all gather at Matt Ward's studio and plow thru the presentation, putting the pieces together and blending the West Coast rehearsals with the East Coast...ain't we fancy? Then at 5pm we will convene at Bobby Cramer's apt. and run thru the presentation, timing it. Fingers crossed it's about 50 mins. 6:30 the guest arrive, drink and eat and at 7pm promptly we start our presentation which has to end at 7:55 so that Matt Ward can get in a car and be driven to Forbidden Broadway where he goes on at 8:15! Show biz!!!!!!!!!

Notes on a Saturday Night

This is the most writing I have done all week...the people at the York asked me to write a short (ha!) history of Grossinger's...this is the result.

Author's Note by Stephen Cole

When Claibe Richardson and I first started working together we didn't have a project, so we just wrote some songs to get to know each other. During this time, Claibe would play me some Jewish sounding musical numbers from a show he had been working on for some time with Ronny Graham, Rita Lakin and Doris Silverton. This show was then simply entitled Grossinger's. I would politely listen and we would go on to our work which eventually turned out to be the beginnings of our musical adaptation of The Night of the Hunter. One day, early in our process on that serious and very ambitious project, Claibe asked me to read the latest draft of the big fat Broadway bound musical (it was being written for Lainie Kazan and Karen Morrow!). It seems that Ronny Graham had come up against a brick wall. So I read it. Well, they had strayed far away from the story of Jennie and the Catskills and Ronny had written a bizarre Mel Brooks-ian treatment that defied description. He had also realized how far he strayed, threw his hands in the air dramatically and said he had had enough of Jennie, the Catskills and the show. Ronny was very dramatic! In this script, though, I saw the kernal of a story...what they had started with, the story of Jennie and her indomitable will and how, she, as woman ahead of her time, had built an empire in upstate New York. A haven for the Jews. Having spent many a childhood summer in those very Catskill mountains, I knew who she was. I knew the territory. I was Jewish! (Oddly enough neither Ronny nor Claibe were!) I knew I could write this show. If I could start all over. Claibe and I put Night of the Hunter aside (for a while we wrote both at the same time...The River Jesus playing comfortably in the background while we wrote songs about blintzes) and wrote a whole new first draft, with new plots, new songs, revised lyrics, everything. And the first place we brought it to was the York Theatre, who gave us the most wonderful reading directed by Larry Arrick starring Tovah Feldshuh as Jennie. This was still the big Broadway version of the show and it was a smash for one night only. The York was turning people away at the elevator. People (including columnist Peter Filicia who wrote about it) were standing on stage with the actors and seated in the aisles. The laughter and fun was permeating the air along with the imaginary smell of Jennie's famous rye bread. From the York we took the show to Ft. Worth, Texas. Of course! There we cast Ruta Lee and Gavin MacLeod and the "goyish" version of Grossinger's ran for over a month at the huge Casa Manana. Somehow, even in Texas, the Jews found us. And you know what? They weren't all Jews. They just loved the show. After that, there were options, and promises and suddenly it was very difficult to get such a huge show off the ground. So when a small theatre on Long Island (after doing the four character After the Fair, originally produced by the York, not so incidentally) asked to do Grossinger's I told Claibe that he wouldn't be getting that big orchestra he dreamed about, but maybe a small trio. He countered with, "why don't we make the whole show smaller?" I thought he was nuts. Jennie's huge epic saga small? Then I got the idea of the Grossinger family telling us the story as part of one of their famous Saturday Night shows. The big stars are late and Jennie in her infinite egotism and brilliance saves the day and tells the story of how she made it all happen. Along the way, her family teaches her a lesson or two about herself. Wow! A whole new book happened, more song changes and a reading out on Long Island with Claibe and me singing the score (including the last song he would write ironically entitled "Dead on Her Feet"...for sadly, Claibe did his final Grossinger rewrite and departed for heaven before the production could take place). The production on Long Island happened (starring my good friend FD) and it was attended by my good friend Jim Morgan of the York, who gave me some great artistic advice and filed the show under "the future" in his head. I took the advice, did another rewrite and the show was produced in its 6 character version at Theatre West in LA, where it proved a critical and popular hit, running for four months...In LA time that's years! It starred Barbara Minkus and Barry Pearl and they made the show so much their own that when a new production was mounted last Winter in Ft. Lauderdale, it was inevitable that they once again play their roles. And now, "the future" has finally arrive and Saturday Night at Grossinger's is coming home to roast at the York Theatre once again. What a full circle! Janet Hayes Walker, who was there at that fabled first reading would be so surprised and thrilled. Ronny, who died in 1999 would be in shock! Claibe, who sat on the board of the York for years, would be delighted. As for me, well, it's like Jennie and the entire Grossinger family sings in the opening and closing of the show..."Welcome Home!"

Winter Watch

From 70 to snow, sleet and ice. Welcome to March. Today was so ugly out that I hardly got out the door. Still fighting a remnant of Monday's stomach thing. Doing some small edits and cuts for Monday's Grossinger thing. Not enough money is coming but all we need is one big one. One fish. Maybe Piano Bar will benefit from Grossinger's on Monday. Hate to be cryptic, but it could happen. Stay tuned.

The Singing Jew

Woke up this morning to rehearse with the lovely Lynne Halliday and the lovelier Matt Ward for monday's backer's thingie of SNAG (Saturday Night at Grossinger's) and felt a little like a relapse was upon me. But then the phone rang and Matt postponed the rehearsal for an hour and that was okay with me. At noon we rehearsed and I sang my little heart out for two hours. The adrenaline must have kicked in as I did feel better after singing. The second part of the day was taken up with watching the footage from Piano Bar with my co-director and producer of that hilarious project. It was scary to see at first but then I really got into how funny it was and how amazing the audience reaction was. No sweetening needed here. They were screaming at everything. Why this show isn't running every night is beyond my comprehension. But Joe is working as hard as he can and I am sure we will get a good run out of it someday soon. Tomorrow the singing Jew continues as I rehearse The Road to Qatar! for a presentation next thursday. I guess all those singing lessons are coming in handy...not! The older I get the more I know how to just belt it out and let the chips fall where they may. The ghost of Merman possessed me and I'm off to the races. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Between Murders

The story goes that Libby Holman, the great torch singer, who stood trial and was acquitted of murdering her husband Smith Reynolds (she was pregnant with his child...shades of Chicago!), was backstage at some show when Tallulah Bankhead introduced her..."this is my friend Libby Holman...she's between murders now." That's how I feel sometimes. If you equate shows with murder. Last week I was just recovering from the Kander and Ebb ( the sad news is that there is no video, but there are many great still photos and I hope to post them one of these days) and now I am getting ready for Monday night's backer's audition of Saturday Night at Grossinger's as well as a private audition of the score of The Road to Qatar for a potential director. All next week, meaning I put on my singing and acting cap and let the writer stand aside. The week after that back to writing as I go visit Jeff Saver in Ohio and get back to revising Time after Time. In between all this I got the famous stomach virus that has been going around and yesterday was not pretty...it made me miss the Pittsburgh CLO reunion, but perhaps I didn't really want to go to that anyway. I am feeling better today and need to get back to work. No more between murders.

Blightline

Well...Marni gets booked on Nightline on Friday night and it's a great piece except for one small detail...not one fucking mention of the book! The book sits there in full view on Henry Higgin's couch right between Marni Nixon and Cynthia McFadden and no one mentions it exists. National exposure down the drain. And to add a cherry on the sundae, McFadden gets the facts wrong..."so Marni, you sang all of Audrey Hepburn's songs and she got an Oscar nomination...do you think that was right?" Marni, flustered, said she thought that was fine. But Audrey was denied a nomination literally because of all the brouhaha over the exposure of Marni's voice coming from her lips...Julie Andrews being denied the role didn't help matters either. All Cynthia had to do what look at the book on the divan! Or even mention it. Arrrrrrrrrgh! Serenity now...serenity now...

Time after Grossinger's

Last night after American Idol (my good friend FD wants me to do a parody show called American Ethel, in which all the contestants have to imitate Merman singing all these contemporary pop songs...he swears it can be fixed and I can win, but I am leery), I finally got to editing and writing the script for the upcoming backer's audition of Saturday Night at Grossinger's. It was a very good thing to do, not just because I really HAVE to do it, but because having to write concise narration for scenes that we are not playing made me make sense of the end of the show in a way that didn't make enough sense in the real playing script. This has led me to think about how I might rewrite it and say what I really want to say. The ending is tough. It's fake in a way to have Jennie come to the realization that her family should come first. The real Jennie Grossinger was a business woman and a star first. The family came last. But I want to say more than what it says. I want her father to make her realize that she somehow needs to incorporate her family, her marriage and her children in her career. To be more fulfilled. It's hard. But I feel like saying what I want to say in narration might bring me closer to what I want to say in the show itself and that I might be on to something more interesting. Today I printed the script for Time after Time and did a little rewrite on the very opening of the show. Sending it off to a director who expressed great interest and loves the songs on the CD. And the good news is that Jeff wants me to come out to Ohio for a few days and work on the show. That's great for him that he feels he can work at all after what he has been through. But work is the great cure-all and he needs to write music. The book is in suprisingly good shape and reads very well. I don't really know what I want to do to it, but I know I want every song to be as good as the very best ones are. There are a few that are not there yet. And I want John to have better material (John being Jack the Ripper) HG and Amy have the best stuff now. Picked up the pics from Monday night's big Kander and Ebb Evening and they are fabulous. I will try to post the group shot on here for anyone who is reading this to see.

My Fair Marni

Went to the 10am dress rehearsal of My Fair Lady at Avery Fisher. It was surprisingly well done...well directed by Jim Brennan, well cast...two very strong leads...took Harry Arends who really appreciated it. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Marni Nixon afterwards. She had to do publicity. I wanted her to autograph the two books Harry bought (I already autographed them, but she would make them worth more!) I am so glad I met Harry. It's rare that I connect with a colleague this well...He is smart and nice and I hope we can work together more in the future. The film stuff we have done together is so rewarding. Unlike live theatre, it's there to see again. Otherwise I relaxed today. Tomorrow I have to get back to the gym and write the script for the Grossinger backer's audition on the 19th.

Tuesday Afternoon at Grossinger's

So, after waking up feeling like I had been hit by a truck...a truck named Kander and Ebb...we all gathered (we being Barbara Minkus, Lynne Halliday...formerly Lynne Kolber...David Armstrong and Matthew Ward) to go thru the songs we are going to perform on Mar. 16th as a backer's audition for Saturday Night at Grossinger's. Minkus of course knows her stuff, but Lynne has never heard it and as for me, I may have written this and sung it forever, but I have never really sung backup or played Paul who has a new song I adore, but hey this is hard shit! I might have to actually learn the song which is a counterpoint song. I can't just get by on my good looks and loud Merman notes. That's for the star to do. Minkus goes back to LA to rehearse with Barry Pearl and Lynne and I will rehearse again next Weds with Matt...then they return to NYC the day of the evening and we rehearse a little and do it...hoping to raise 250 thousand dollars in 45 mins. Stranger things have happened. Stay tuned.

A Triumph!

What a day! I know that putting together all star tribute benefits is gruelling and that it all comes together (or not) on the day of the performance when the sound, lights, and performers all come in and do their thing during the day of the show and then show up and do the show without ever having run it through. It's vaudeville at its scariest. Today was the first time I was totally in charge as producer, director and writer of the event and for the most part it went well. There were sound issues in the hall but we solved them eventually by calling in pros (thank you Barbara Minkus) and the evening's event went extremely well. The video montage was spectacular and the talent was beyond reproach with Marin Mazzie killing with Ring them Bells, Karen Ziemba moving me with Love and Only Love, Deb Monk doing her thing with Everybody's Girl. Barbara Cook was the highlight just mesmerizing with Among My Yesterdays from the Happy Time. Liza was valiant and courageous and did her three number, but a cold held the high notes in check. Still she is a trouper and a half and she was THERE! A big big star. Kander was moved and loved it all I think. It was a triumph. The birthday cake at the end...everything. I was proud of me and now may I please collapse? No. Tomorrow I have to rehearse Saturday Night at Grossingers. Well, back to reality and my own shows.

The Day Before Kander and Ebb

Well, tomorrow is the big Kander and Ebb Tribute and I am nervous. Everything is going fine, but the strange lack of control I feel and the enormous burden of being all alone on this is leading me right to valium closet. There will be sound and light checks in the afternoon...some people are not coming in, but Liza IS. What a pro! I finished the script for Sheldon Harnick early last evening after having seen the matinee of Curtains! I am so glad I got to see the show so that I could hear the song that David Hyde Pierce is going to sing tomorrow night before tomorrow night. It's a charm song and I placed it slightly differently after hearing the gentleness of it. It's very sweet but not a drop dead show stopper. So I switched it in the program with Everybody's Girl sung by the great Deb Monk. That we know is a show stopper. So how did I like Curtains? I liked it, but am still formulating my feelings. As someone close to the show said, it's not art...although there is an art to not being art as well. There are some good songs and all the performances are top notch. I can't wait to see how the critics deal with it. The audience certainly had a good time. I did too, but I think the first fifteen minutes needs trimming and I wish there were a killer opening number. The show really starts when the detective shows up. He is the star. David Hyde Pierce. I also wish it were a more emotional show in some way. I really miss the big emotional grandeur of John Kander's Rink, Spider Woman and Visit scores. But this is an out and out musical comedy and the choices were made. It's interesting comparing it to my own Road to Qatar! I don't have much emotion in that either. It's an out and out musical comedy. Would I like my own show if I paid to see it? Good question. But content dictates form and both shows content dictated musical comedy approaches and not a lot of emotion. How did The Drowsy Chaperone do it? I was in tears at the end. They pulled off the big trick. Funny funny funny and then wham...tears. I think that's why it's a great success. Well, the next time I write here will be a report of tomorrow at the Morgan. Fingers crossed, legs broken, mirrors covered...no, not that...I'm not sitting shiva! Wish me luck anyone who is reading this!

PS on Kander and Ebb

I have dedicated Monday's evening to Daniel McDonald and Memby...

A Kander and Ebb and Qatar Week

Well, most of this week has been spent producing the Kander and Ebb Tribute coming up on Monday evening. Everything is moving along, getting sound checks together with the stars, figuring out the order of the evening, even writing the intros that Sheldon Harnick will read. Then it all comes together on Monday. Scary! I still have my big stars...Liza is still singing three songs, Barbara Cook is still on board...all the Curtains guys! It's exciting and scary. Doing this on my own is odd...producing (not really directing, but conceiving) and writing. But I can do it and it will be a great success...Also heard the rest of the changes for Road to Qatar and now it's time for David and me to rehearse the score so we can present it well. This new draft seems good to me, but we will not know till we do another reading. Comedy is hard. Next week, after Kander and Ebb is done, on to Grossinger's and rehearsing the backer's audition.