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Whenever My Fair Lady plays on my stereo (or now on my ipod) I am always taken back to being six-years- old and going to see the movie version of the Lerner and Loewe musical with my father. He took me because I was infuriated that Audrey Hepburn had beaten Julie Andrews out for the Academy Award that year. I could not imagine how Eliza Doolittle could possibly have been better than Mary Poppins! Daddy took me to the movie because he wanted me to see what was so special about My Fair Lady.
I had seen Mary Poppins for my 6th birthday. It was a memorable birthday all round. After attending Mary Poppins, I came down with a case of lice - much to my mother's horror. I remember sitting in the living room of our home, Mother picking through my hair with some ghastly medicine burning my scalp - the both of us crying all the while. But I digress.
I recall sitting transfixed through My Fair Lady and can say that it was quite possibly the moment I fell in love with musical theatre. I remember bounding through the front door of our house on Resh Place and reciting Henry Higgins' famous "Damn, damn, damn, damn" to my mother and not getting in trouble for cursing - "I've grown accustomed to her face..." what a line! What a moment. My heart was utterly captured and the course of my life was set.
The role of Eliza eluded me as a performer, but I still have every word of the score memorized as if I'd played her. In fact, it will always be the role that got away.
Funny how those roles stay with us. Last night I saw the movie Quartet. It is a charming film about a group of aging singers and musicians who live together in a retirement home for musicians in England. As I sat in the audience, I couldn't help thinking of how I'd fallen in love with My Fair Lady at six and how I was sitting in another movie theatre forty-seven years later, gray and vocally out of shape, watching these grand thespians, opera singers, and musicians still clinging to their favorite roles, reciting the number of curtain calls they'd taken. Roles that last a life time.
It is touching and life affirming. I fell in love with the theatre all over again. The passion, the eccentricity, the ego, the pride, and the poignancy of the inevitable passage of time reflected in dressing room mirrors and shaky soprano voices.
I adore the bigness of personality and the joy that comes from a line, verse, or chorus belted out by a group of performers gathered around a piano.
To this day, I hear the swelling of those strings at the end of "I Could Have Danced All Night," and my heart soars, my throat tightens and my eyes brim with tears. Sitting in that movie theatre last night, watching Quartet, I was grateful that Daddy had taken me to see My Fair Lady when I was six- years -old.
I am grateful that I have spent my life loving musical theatre.
Showing posts with label musical theatre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musical theatre. Show all posts
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Did You Hear the People Sing? Another Critique of Les Miserables the Movie
What choice do I have? Everyone's a critic, right? So can you blame me for weighing in on the most anticipated movie event of the season? Especially when the movie is a musical? The musical I just directed last spring? Indulge me.
The movie version of Les Miserables is a cinematic masterpiece. Director Tom Hooper gives the viewer the panoramic scope of revolution and the close up brutality of its effects on Victor Hugo's iconic characters. The movie drags you along through the dank, dreary, and desperate time through streets, sewers, and along the Seine with tight frames and sweeping cinematic shots. Les Miserables the movie does what a movie can and should do as a visual medium. Naturalism and realism are expected in film and Hooper delivers.
Which is why Les Miserables the cinematic masterpiece made me appreciate Les Miserables the theatrical masterpiece even more.
There have been other non-musical movie versions of Les Miserables, the most notable being the one with Liam Neeson as Valjean. Hugo's story is epic and requires epic story-telling one way or the other. It's a great story.
What makes Les Mis the musical singular in the history of musical theatre is its score! Boublil and Schoenberg wrote and composed a score as powerful and soaring as the story. It is in the best sense, an opera. Schoenberg's music serves the story note by note, measure by measure from crescendo to crescendo - from recitative to soaring ballad - forte to pianissimo - the music is what makes the musical.
And the music is what was missing in the movie. Oh sure it was there - kind of. Boublil and Schoenberg both are credited as part of the screen writing team. Somehow, in the mix, Boublil forgot about his partner. In a musical that makes my insides explode with emotion with the thunderous and brilliantly woven four- part barricade sequence, I was caught up in the realistic slaughter of idealistic students without the accompanying musical underscore. It was there, buried beneath the rubble - barely audible most of the time. There were selected moments when the music did what it is capable of doing - the heart breaking strings swelling as we take in the deadly toll of the battle but the music was secondary to the visually graphic cinematography.
Don't get me wrong - I know that movies are a visual genre. But oh how I missed Fantine's powerful belt in I Dreamed a Dream and the stillness of Valjean's Bring Him Home. Taking nothing away from Ann Hathaway's cheek bones, which we saw aplenty - or Hugh Jackman's mop of curly hair that barely grayed over the decades - both of whose performances I thought were credible with an abundance of tears in close ups that made the songs intimate at best and unmoving at worst...and so let's talk about Russell Crowe.
What were they thinking? Two of the best songs in the musical reduced to a semi-spoken, choked performance by a non-singer is perhaps the most grievous offense of all to the score.
In terms of storytelling, I thought the placement of I Dreamed a Dream was a startlingly good choice and the addition of the song Suddenly that Valjean sings about Cosette helped fill out a weak plot point in the musical.
Master of the House lost its charm although it had more than capable performances by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenardiers. Directorially, the much needed comic relief descended into the dark abyss with the rest of the story.
They might have shaved thirty minutes off the movie had they simply picked up the tempos which were at times dirge-like serving the close up naturalistic approach to the songs.
This worked best as Marius (Eddie Redmayne) sang Empty Chairs at Empty Tables - though "the grief that can't be spoken"was there in abundance as the tears poured down the young man's face. His voice still soared where it needed to. Hooper left most of the Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and Marius songs alone and that was a good choice.
But what happened to Eponine (Samantha Barks)? Somehow, her character felt diminished - albeit rain drenched for A Little Fall of Rain - she disappeared at the end - a love story lost in the shadows.
So what does this all prove? As a theatre director and advocate, it reminded me that plays and movies are completely different genres. The theatre by its very nature is larger than life and an epic story like Les Mis can be told simply, representationally, and effectively with the creative expanse that can happen only on the stage and in the imagination of the audience.
And a great score like Les Miserables should be sung.
The movie version of Les Miserables is a cinematic masterpiece. Director Tom Hooper gives the viewer the panoramic scope of revolution and the close up brutality of its effects on Victor Hugo's iconic characters. The movie drags you along through the dank, dreary, and desperate time through streets, sewers, and along the Seine with tight frames and sweeping cinematic shots. Les Miserables the movie does what a movie can and should do as a visual medium. Naturalism and realism are expected in film and Hooper delivers.
Which is why Les Miserables the cinematic masterpiece made me appreciate Les Miserables the theatrical masterpiece even more.
There have been other non-musical movie versions of Les Miserables, the most notable being the one with Liam Neeson as Valjean. Hugo's story is epic and requires epic story-telling one way or the other. It's a great story.
What makes Les Mis the musical singular in the history of musical theatre is its score! Boublil and Schoenberg wrote and composed a score as powerful and soaring as the story. It is in the best sense, an opera. Schoenberg's music serves the story note by note, measure by measure from crescendo to crescendo - from recitative to soaring ballad - forte to pianissimo - the music is what makes the musical.
And the music is what was missing in the movie. Oh sure it was there - kind of. Boublil and Schoenberg both are credited as part of the screen writing team. Somehow, in the mix, Boublil forgot about his partner. In a musical that makes my insides explode with emotion with the thunderous and brilliantly woven four- part barricade sequence, I was caught up in the realistic slaughter of idealistic students without the accompanying musical underscore. It was there, buried beneath the rubble - barely audible most of the time. There were selected moments when the music did what it is capable of doing - the heart breaking strings swelling as we take in the deadly toll of the battle but the music was secondary to the visually graphic cinematography.
Don't get me wrong - I know that movies are a visual genre. But oh how I missed Fantine's powerful belt in I Dreamed a Dream and the stillness of Valjean's Bring Him Home. Taking nothing away from Ann Hathaway's cheek bones, which we saw aplenty - or Hugh Jackman's mop of curly hair that barely grayed over the decades - both of whose performances I thought were credible with an abundance of tears in close ups that made the songs intimate at best and unmoving at worst...and so let's talk about Russell Crowe.
What were they thinking? Two of the best songs in the musical reduced to a semi-spoken, choked performance by a non-singer is perhaps the most grievous offense of all to the score.
In terms of storytelling, I thought the placement of I Dreamed a Dream was a startlingly good choice and the addition of the song Suddenly that Valjean sings about Cosette helped fill out a weak plot point in the musical.
Master of the House lost its charm although it had more than capable performances by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenardiers. Directorially, the much needed comic relief descended into the dark abyss with the rest of the story.
They might have shaved thirty minutes off the movie had they simply picked up the tempos which were at times dirge-like serving the close up naturalistic approach to the songs.
This worked best as Marius (Eddie Redmayne) sang Empty Chairs at Empty Tables - though "the grief that can't be spoken"was there in abundance as the tears poured down the young man's face. His voice still soared where it needed to. Hooper left most of the Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and Marius songs alone and that was a good choice.
But what happened to Eponine (Samantha Barks)? Somehow, her character felt diminished - albeit rain drenched for A Little Fall of Rain - she disappeared at the end - a love story lost in the shadows.
So what does this all prove? As a theatre director and advocate, it reminded me that plays and movies are completely different genres. The theatre by its very nature is larger than life and an epic story like Les Mis can be told simply, representationally, and effectively with the creative expanse that can happen only on the stage and in the imagination of the audience.
And a great score like Les Miserables should be sung.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Thank You, Mr. Sondheim
I have been slowly making my way through FINISHING THE HAT, Stephen Sondheim's instructional memoir about musical theatre. I say slowly, because each chapter is an in depth analysis of a different musical, complete with lyrics, anectdotal stories , biographical information, commentary, confession, and cautionary tales. I'm reading this book one chapter at a time.
Now this is less a review of the book (I'm only half way through - having just finished DO I HEAR A WALTZ? ready to jump into COMPANY) as it is a reflection on what I've learned thus far. I figure, as an aspiring writer, former musical theatre performer, lover of musicals, and all out musical theatre fanatic who has thus far failed to successfully create one of her own, I might as well learn from the best, right? Each chapter of FINISHING THE HAT feels like a master class taught by Mr. Sondheim.
There is much to be learned about rhyme scheme. He has strong feelings about what he calls the "sin" of the misplaced stress in lyrics. But, the one line in the book that hit me between the eyes, made me close the gigantic blue cover, sit back, desire to argue, and then force me to face my own conceit, was that writers "should not direct their own work."
He uses his experience with ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, the show that he and Arthur Laurents created, and Laurents directed as the basis for his warning. While arguably the first "absurdist" musical, it was by all rights, a commercial failure with some great songs.
Sondheim says that a writer, "creates." A director, "interprets."
"Yes," I thought. "That is exactly right. I am more of an interpreter than a creator." Now grant it, my directorial experience has primarily been in the field of educational theatre, thus it comes with the many layers of "teaching" along with interpreting. In fact, getting to the interpretation is itself an educational process. Through my directing, I teach how to analyze. Because it is my job to encourage young artists, my work with them is often their first collaboration.
There is so much for them to learn. I have never been a director who spoon feeds. At the point I'm forced to spoon feed, I have become desperate. It has happened only a couple of times in my career as a theatre educator.
No, my way is the way of digging, questioning, working with the actor to come to some understanding of the playwright's intent. It is my job as the director to make that clear - moment to moment -through physical and inner action, stage picture, pause, and delivery. As a theatre educator, each one of these aspects of an actor's performance includes teaching - the degree to which depends obviously on the innate, intuitive ability of the student. Sometimes the job requires a lot of "undoing" particularly with the "highly experienced" student whose background includes a lifetime of children's theatre.
More often than not, students come with no training, only performing experience. Moving them from "performer" to one who appreciates the "craft," is a process that requires immense patience and an understanding that the awakening of the artist may not occur until long after the rehearsal and performance experience is completed.
The young, new, actor is blindly trusting me to mid-wife their own artistry without realizing that that is what is happening. Through a uniquely individualized, nuanced process, the student, grows to understand that in acting, he is the instrument. A musician learning to play the violin must know how to read music, commit to a discipline of practice, and develop the technique of bowing. These skills ultimately move the player into the world of interpretation and artistry.
It is the same thing for an actor, only in his case, the instrument is himself.
Interpretation of a musical includes understanding the plot, characters, and story - "the book", the lyrics of songs, and the orchestration of the score. The role of music in a musical may seem the obvious distinguishing feature of the genre - but as a director, I spend as much time listening to what story the music is telling me through its style, melody, tempo, rhythm, crescendo, decrescendo, and structure as I do analyzing lyrics. The music often conveys a character's motivation, decisiveness, uncertainty, and feeling. How the lyrics fit with the music and how they interweave with the book are also part of the interpretation.
In FINISHING THE HAT, I have learned that the process of creating what, as a director, I interpret, takes enormous skill. It's not that I didn't know that. Nothing in art comes easy. But it is important to recognize in one's self, where one's expertise lies.
A writer "creates." A director "interprets."
The desire to create may be a driving force. Whatever the motivation to do so, wisdom, and Mr. Sondheim, dictate that there be someone with some aesthetic and emotional distance, to interpret what you have written.
Now this is less a review of the book (I'm only half way through - having just finished DO I HEAR A WALTZ? ready to jump into COMPANY) as it is a reflection on what I've learned thus far. I figure, as an aspiring writer, former musical theatre performer, lover of musicals, and all out musical theatre fanatic who has thus far failed to successfully create one of her own, I might as well learn from the best, right? Each chapter of FINISHING THE HAT feels like a master class taught by Mr. Sondheim.
There is much to be learned about rhyme scheme. He has strong feelings about what he calls the "sin" of the misplaced stress in lyrics. But, the one line in the book that hit me between the eyes, made me close the gigantic blue cover, sit back, desire to argue, and then force me to face my own conceit, was that writers "should not direct their own work."
He uses his experience with ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, the show that he and Arthur Laurents created, and Laurents directed as the basis for his warning. While arguably the first "absurdist" musical, it was by all rights, a commercial failure with some great songs.
Sondheim says that a writer, "creates." A director, "interprets."
"Yes," I thought. "That is exactly right. I am more of an interpreter than a creator." Now grant it, my directorial experience has primarily been in the field of educational theatre, thus it comes with the many layers of "teaching" along with interpreting. In fact, getting to the interpretation is itself an educational process. Through my directing, I teach how to analyze. Because it is my job to encourage young artists, my work with them is often their first collaboration.
There is so much for them to learn. I have never been a director who spoon feeds. At the point I'm forced to spoon feed, I have become desperate. It has happened only a couple of times in my career as a theatre educator.
No, my way is the way of digging, questioning, working with the actor to come to some understanding of the playwright's intent. It is my job as the director to make that clear - moment to moment -through physical and inner action, stage picture, pause, and delivery. As a theatre educator, each one of these aspects of an actor's performance includes teaching - the degree to which depends obviously on the innate, intuitive ability of the student. Sometimes the job requires a lot of "undoing" particularly with the "highly experienced" student whose background includes a lifetime of children's theatre.
More often than not, students come with no training, only performing experience. Moving them from "performer" to one who appreciates the "craft," is a process that requires immense patience and an understanding that the awakening of the artist may not occur until long after the rehearsal and performance experience is completed.
The young, new, actor is blindly trusting me to mid-wife their own artistry without realizing that that is what is happening. Through a uniquely individualized, nuanced process, the student, grows to understand that in acting, he is the instrument. A musician learning to play the violin must know how to read music, commit to a discipline of practice, and develop the technique of bowing. These skills ultimately move the player into the world of interpretation and artistry.
It is the same thing for an actor, only in his case, the instrument is himself.
Interpretation of a musical includes understanding the plot, characters, and story - "the book", the lyrics of songs, and the orchestration of the score. The role of music in a musical may seem the obvious distinguishing feature of the genre - but as a director, I spend as much time listening to what story the music is telling me through its style, melody, tempo, rhythm, crescendo, decrescendo, and structure as I do analyzing lyrics. The music often conveys a character's motivation, decisiveness, uncertainty, and feeling. How the lyrics fit with the music and how they interweave with the book are also part of the interpretation.
In FINISHING THE HAT, I have learned that the process of creating what, as a director, I interpret, takes enormous skill. It's not that I didn't know that. Nothing in art comes easy. But it is important to recognize in one's self, where one's expertise lies.
A writer "creates." A director "interprets."
The desire to create may be a driving force. Whatever the motivation to do so, wisdom, and Mr. Sondheim, dictate that there be someone with some aesthetic and emotional distance, to interpret what you have written.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
The Blessed Unrest
Haven't written much lately. No - lately my life has been about that other art form. The one that relies on the multi-faceted elements of live storytelling. The one that begins with text. Layers in music and lyrics. The one that is interpreted and translated through actors, dancers, and singers in order to become something off of the page - living, breathing, moving. The one that needs space not a desk. The one that comes into being moment by moment, piece by piece. The one that uses costume and light. The one that is best expressed through gesture and pause. The one that cannot simply come together with the final punctuation point, stroke of the pen, or tap of the keyboard of the solitary artist. This one involves a lot of people. It is a collaboration. The sum of its parts greater than any one part and those parts can't come together until the very end which is then, the beginning. As Stephen Sondheim wrote "Everything depends on execution. The art of making art is putting it together bit by bit." It is a process.
I've been at this art form for a long time. And every time I find myself nearly brought to my knees by the shear magnitude of details involved in mounting a musical. Ask Julie Taymor. I'm sure she would agree that executing one's creative vision takes a kind of courage and boldness. Right or wrong. Good or bad. Better or worse. Richer or Poorer - the marriage between director and musical is a commitment of one's life for a certain period of time.
Should the snake head puppet turn this way or that on the lyric, "no pain, no gain?" Should Cain clench his fists, drop to his knees, plie or stand in a wide second on the lyric "lost, slowly dying in the wilderness?" " What is wrong with that transition? Hold one more second, then walk away. No another second. " These directions, only after digging deeply into story, subtext, and character to understand exactly what story is being told.
In educational theatre, there is the added responsibility of teaching. Teaching the craft. Teaching discipline. Teaching commitment. Teaching technique. Teaching them to dance. Teaching them to sing. Teaching them not to play with the props. Teaching them what it means to be a team. And hopefully, inspiring them along the way. Instilling in them a love for the theatre.
This path is not for the faint of heart. It takes enormous stamina. And then the dreams begin. Whole numbers running through your mind at night when rest eludes and sleeping becomes found work time. I have staged entire numbers in my sleep.
It has been six years since last I directed a musical. Surprising to me, who for two decades marked the years not by dates, but by shows. '94 Into the Woods. '95 Carousel. '96 Fiddler. '97 Secret Garden. '04 King & I and so on. My six year hiatus from musical theatre was not a hiatus from the theatre. I directed plays, cabarets, dramatic collages - all in alternative, challenging, non-theatrical spaces. Expanding my imagination, sharpening skills that simply had not been developed having had the luxury of working in a fully-equipped theatre in my early years as a director. But most importantly, during this time, I saw a lot of theatre. I continued to hone my craft as a spectator.
Years of experience, a certain aesthetic, a propensity to zero in on minute details, the right collaborators, and an obsessive compulsive scheduling gene have brought me now to this point. Three more rehearsals until we come back for "tech." As I look out onto the vast set-less, costume-less, light-less stage, I see the makings of a show. I see it in its barest state before color, texture, and dimension are added. I see the work of the actors on their own telling a story with every ounce of their beings. The beauty of the theatre is that when all of the other production elements come together, something magical happens. There is transcendence.
In her famous quote, Martha Graham says,
I never tire of this quote. It inspires me every day. And so I keep on marching.
I've been at this art form for a long time. And every time I find myself nearly brought to my knees by the shear magnitude of details involved in mounting a musical. Ask Julie Taymor. I'm sure she would agree that executing one's creative vision takes a kind of courage and boldness. Right or wrong. Good or bad. Better or worse. Richer or Poorer - the marriage between director and musical is a commitment of one's life for a certain period of time.
Should the snake head puppet turn this way or that on the lyric, "no pain, no gain?" Should Cain clench his fists, drop to his knees, plie or stand in a wide second on the lyric "lost, slowly dying in the wilderness?" " What is wrong with that transition? Hold one more second, then walk away. No another second. " These directions, only after digging deeply into story, subtext, and character to understand exactly what story is being told.
In educational theatre, there is the added responsibility of teaching. Teaching the craft. Teaching discipline. Teaching commitment. Teaching technique. Teaching them to dance. Teaching them to sing. Teaching them not to play with the props. Teaching them what it means to be a team. And hopefully, inspiring them along the way. Instilling in them a love for the theatre.
This path is not for the faint of heart. It takes enormous stamina. And then the dreams begin. Whole numbers running through your mind at night when rest eludes and sleeping becomes found work time. I have staged entire numbers in my sleep.
It has been six years since last I directed a musical. Surprising to me, who for two decades marked the years not by dates, but by shows. '94 Into the Woods. '95 Carousel. '96 Fiddler. '97 Secret Garden. '04 King & I and so on. My six year hiatus from musical theatre was not a hiatus from the theatre. I directed plays, cabarets, dramatic collages - all in alternative, challenging, non-theatrical spaces. Expanding my imagination, sharpening skills that simply had not been developed having had the luxury of working in a fully-equipped theatre in my early years as a director. But most importantly, during this time, I saw a lot of theatre. I continued to hone my craft as a spectator.
Years of experience, a certain aesthetic, a propensity to zero in on minute details, the right collaborators, and an obsessive compulsive scheduling gene have brought me now to this point. Three more rehearsals until we come back for "tech." As I look out onto the vast set-less, costume-less, light-less stage, I see the makings of a show. I see it in its barest state before color, texture, and dimension are added. I see the work of the actors on their own telling a story with every ounce of their beings. The beauty of the theatre is that when all of the other production elements come together, something magical happens. There is transcendence.
In her famous quote, Martha Graham says,
"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others"
I never tire of this quote. It inspires me every day. And so I keep on marching.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
For All You Musical Theatre Junkies
http://nymag.com/news/features/greatest-new-york/70476/
This article is a fun must read for anyone who loves musical theatre. Enjoy!
This article is a fun must read for anyone who loves musical theatre. Enjoy!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
In Defense of Musical Theatre
Recently I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about "cultural resolutions." It profiled the goals of artists - musicians, writers, and film makers for the upcoming year. I scanned the list and my eyes landed on Robert Redford's name. He said that he wanted to spend more of his time "making art." Having invested so much of his energy into developing the Sundance Film Festival - he said he is ready to create his own work again. As the year turns over, I find myself reflecting on my work and the artistic life I live.
My book shelf contains three DVD collections - Ken Burns' JAZZ, Michael Feinstein's THE GREAT AMERICAN SONG BOOK and Stephen Sondheim's 80th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION IN CONCERT. Resting on my bedside table is an enormous tome entitled FINISHING THE HAT - Stephen Sondheim's collection of lyrics and critical analysis of the genre of musical theatre. Since Sondheim is my favorite composer/lyricist I have paid a lot of attention to what he has had to say during his various interviews and appearances. I will admit, I have not found it all to be terribly encouraging or inspiring.
Once again I find myself confronted with just another version of the cynical statement, the theatre is dead.
So what in the world does that mean for a drama teacher?
Is musical theatre irrelevant?
Is there any reason to explore the history of the genre? Does Agnes De Mille's ballet, the advancement of the book musical from early revues or the rhyme scheme of a song matter?
Should we care?
There is much to say on this topic. As a teacher, I know without a doubt that the process of creating theatre is a valuable. Collaboration, imagination, hard work, discipline are all skills learned through the rehearsal process.
But what about the relevance of musical theatre as an art form?
If Sondheim sees himself as a dinosaur where does that leave the rest of us?
Well here's what I say. In the simplest terms, musical theatre is another form of storytelling. We act out our stories. We sing our feelings. We dance to communicate.
And the genre itself continues to evolve.
I say evolve because I believe that in order to remain relevant it is important to reach the younger generation.
Case in point. I gave my two twenty-something children tickets to see AMERICAN IDIOT - the Green Day musical that received terrible reviews on Broadway. Why would I do such a thing, you ask? I did so because I knew they loved Green Day.
I chose not to go myself. Instead I went to see Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones in DRIVING MISS DAISY.
Now, my kids are sophisticated theatre goers who can dissect a scene and analyze a play's direction as well as any critic.
Over our post theatre drink at the Algonquin, I quizzed them on the show.
It had hit my daughter's twenty-six-year-old sweet spot. She related to every story point, lyric, and scene because it told her generation's story. The Millennial Generation.
I found myself thinking that for her, American Idiot had the effect HAIR must have had on the flower power generation.
She was moved.
It was relevant.
I think it is easy to sit where Sondheim sits and say that musical theatre has lost is relevance because on some level at eighty, we probably believe we have lost ours. It becomes harder and harder to keep up especially in today's lightening fast -technologically driven age.
So I'm putting a stake in the ground here in 2011. Musical Theatre is very much alive.
I couldn't go to work in the morning if I thought otherwise.
As a theatre educator, I must passionately promote its relevance and expose the younger generation to its power to move us.
So next week, when I return to school, I will be holding auditions for the Stephen Schwartz musical, CHILDREN OF EDEN.
A new generation of students will be exposed to the inventive story telling of the first nine chapters of the book of Genesis and will explore through music and dance the complexity of fathers, family, obedience, and rebellion.
And they will have to figure out how to become aardvarks, anteaters and antelopes. A highly relevant task, wouldn't you say?
After all, Sondheim himself wrote, "The art of making art...is putting it together."
And one more thing - for anyone reading this - go to the theatre and take your kids.
It matters.
My book shelf contains three DVD collections - Ken Burns' JAZZ, Michael Feinstein's THE GREAT AMERICAN SONG BOOK and Stephen Sondheim's 80th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION IN CONCERT. Resting on my bedside table is an enormous tome entitled FINISHING THE HAT - Stephen Sondheim's collection of lyrics and critical analysis of the genre of musical theatre. Since Sondheim is my favorite composer/lyricist I have paid a lot of attention to what he has had to say during his various interviews and appearances. I will admit, I have not found it all to be terribly encouraging or inspiring.
Once again I find myself confronted with just another version of the cynical statement, the theatre is dead.
So what in the world does that mean for a drama teacher?
Is musical theatre irrelevant?
Is there any reason to explore the history of the genre? Does Agnes De Mille's ballet, the advancement of the book musical from early revues or the rhyme scheme of a song matter?
Should we care?
There is much to say on this topic. As a teacher, I know without a doubt that the process of creating theatre is a valuable. Collaboration, imagination, hard work, discipline are all skills learned through the rehearsal process.
But what about the relevance of musical theatre as an art form?
If Sondheim sees himself as a dinosaur where does that leave the rest of us?
Well here's what I say. In the simplest terms, musical theatre is another form of storytelling. We act out our stories. We sing our feelings. We dance to communicate.
And the genre itself continues to evolve.
I say evolve because I believe that in order to remain relevant it is important to reach the younger generation.
Case in point. I gave my two twenty-something children tickets to see AMERICAN IDIOT - the Green Day musical that received terrible reviews on Broadway. Why would I do such a thing, you ask? I did so because I knew they loved Green Day.
I chose not to go myself. Instead I went to see Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones in DRIVING MISS DAISY.
Now, my kids are sophisticated theatre goers who can dissect a scene and analyze a play's direction as well as any critic.
Over our post theatre drink at the Algonquin, I quizzed them on the show.
It had hit my daughter's twenty-six-year-old sweet spot. She related to every story point, lyric, and scene because it told her generation's story. The Millennial Generation.
I found myself thinking that for her, American Idiot had the effect HAIR must have had on the flower power generation.
She was moved.
It was relevant.
I think it is easy to sit where Sondheim sits and say that musical theatre has lost is relevance because on some level at eighty, we probably believe we have lost ours. It becomes harder and harder to keep up especially in today's lightening fast -technologically driven age.
So I'm putting a stake in the ground here in 2011. Musical Theatre is very much alive.
I couldn't go to work in the morning if I thought otherwise.
As a theatre educator, I must passionately promote its relevance and expose the younger generation to its power to move us.
So next week, when I return to school, I will be holding auditions for the Stephen Schwartz musical, CHILDREN OF EDEN.
A new generation of students will be exposed to the inventive story telling of the first nine chapters of the book of Genesis and will explore through music and dance the complexity of fathers, family, obedience, and rebellion.
And they will have to figure out how to become aardvarks, anteaters and antelopes. A highly relevant task, wouldn't you say?
After all, Sondheim himself wrote, "The art of making art...is putting it together."
And one more thing - for anyone reading this - go to the theatre and take your kids.
It matters.
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