Post-Show Update, SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM, iPhone App!

My show this weekend went really well! Unfortunately my collaborator is still out of the country and couldn't be there, but from what I told her (and from the photos I took) she seemed happy with how the show turned out. When she gets back, we're going to work on it some more and possibly expand it--I think it could be a 90 minute show, instead of the 17 minute one it is now. Besides, working with Hailey is so amazing I want to write as many songs with her as possible.

Aside from being my first non-academic, open to the public, performance of a musical, JADE RABBIT is also my first professional piece, since I got paid for writing it. Not like, an exorbitant amount, but I got a check for writing a musical, which is pretty much the dream at this point in my career. It's funny, I actually almost forgot about that because getting a production alone is exciting enough. Anyway, it was a great way to start my post-Tisch writing career (even though my boyfriend was away at school and couldn't be there...sad face), and I'm glad I don't have to think about the moon landing and Korean folklore for a little while. Now onto modern China and the Cultural Revolution!

I saw SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM a few weeks ago, and I really loved it. My favorite aspects were how the show really went out of its way to stress how human Sondheim is, particularly by having him talk about his writing process. As a writer myself, I found that especially fascinating, and there's something reassuring about hearing Sondheim say he likes to write lying down because it's easier to fall asleep (I fall asleep while writing too!) and how he writes with soft pencils because sharpening them frequently is a great excuse to procrastinate (I make up reasons to procrastinate that I can pretend are productive, too!). I was never someone who ran around idolizing Sondheim--I deeply love a fair number of his shows, but there are definitely some I don't care for--but it's comforting to know that even the man who redefined what musical theatre can do finds the art form difficult.

I also loved the parts of the show that re-created scenes from shows, especially from MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG. I almost cried when the show started with the MERRILY overture--I hadn't been expecting that at all, and I honestly never thought I'd ever hear that overture in a Broadway house. MERRILY is one of my favorite Sondheim shows and one of my favorite shows, period, so having so much MERRILY love in SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM was incredible. I mean, Euan Morton's "Franklin Shepherd, Inc" is probably the best case for a MERRILY revival (please...make this happen). My only complaint about the show is that there wasn't even a mention of PACIFIC OVERTURES, which is another favorite show of mine, and "Someone In A Tree" is my favorite Sondheim song (sorry, the scores of SUNDAY IN THE PARK, COMPANY, and MERRILY). I feel a little spoiled complaining about this when there was that lovely revival a few years ago, but I was only able to see it once, and I miss it.

I actually volunteer ushered during the show, which was so interesting. I think it's really important for everyone working in theatre to experience as many different jobs as they can, and I'd never really ushered before. Handing out programs for general seating readings was the closest I'd gotten. It was really awesome to be in the house an hour before the show; theatres have a different vibe to them then.

I also loved being able to glimpse what ushers have to put up with from audiences. Not that anyone was rude to me, but it made me more mindful of how I treat ushers and how I can make their jobs easier, which I think is really valuable for anyone who goes to the theatre.

I want to write about ANYONE CAN WHISTLE and EVERYDAY RAPTURE, but I'll save that for later. Before I end this post, though, I just want to let everyone know that Theatermania has a new iPhone app that's available for free on iTunes. I don't have an iPhone myself, but the app looks really awesome. Try it out and let me know how it is!

Like Science and Flowers?

If you're free this Friday and Saturday and are looking for some good new theatre, check out my show! My show, JADE RABBIT, is part of THE LEGEND OF FLOWERS, which consists of four new original 15 minute musicals. The shows are all written by Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing alums (all but one are classmates of mine), and they're all inspired by the Japanese space program project that sent cherry blossom seeds into space. Mine is about a high school girl trying to stop the 1969 moon landing, and Korean folklore plays a central part in the story.

Performances are Friday at 3:30 and 8 at Lincoln Center and at 2 and 3:30 Sunday at Queens Botanical Garden (mine is in the 3:30 performance on Sunday, but on Friday both performances include all the shows). You can find more information here. I hope you can come!

Scott Pilgrim & Kick-Ass Vs. The Movies

I have a deep love of the Scott Pilgrim books; it's actually one of the few stories I've read that I would love to musicalize. Of course, there was no way I'd get the rights to that even if there weren't a movie coming out, so instead I've had to content myself with re-reading the books every few months and daydreaming of the Scott Pilgrim tour of Toronto I will embark upon the next time I'm back there. (I've been in love with Toronto since I was there for barely 24 hours a year and a half ago, and Scott Pilgrim has only made it worse.)

But there IS a movie, and its official trailer was recently released and it looks awesome. There's so much going on in those books: there's the beautiful, genuine way the characters and their relationships are written; the way Bryan Lee O'Malley celebrates Toronto while establishing the city as a character; the fantastic yet natural use of video game and classic comic book conventions; the expert and delicate balance of Scott's straightforward mission (to defeat Ramona's 7 evil exes) with his more subtle mental journey and, similarly, with Ramona's own internal arc.

I was concerned that a lot of those things would get lost in a movie, causing it to end up as yet another indie romance. This trailer, however, has me confident that the movie won't disappoint. It's not always wise to judge a movie by its trailer, but there are so many little things in this one (such as the comic-book style sound effects and the integration of the video game elements) that to me are enough to show that the movie has got it right. The tone seems perfect; it's taking itself seriously, in that those weirder aspects aren't cartoonish and are taken in stride, but it's not by any means a heavy film, and watching the trailer is fun.

I don't want to get my hopes up, but it seems like the movie does full justice to one of my favorite series. I can't wait to see for myself.



I am also extremely excited/apprehensive about the Kick-Ass movie, for somewhat similar reasons. I love graphic violence in my comic books as much as the next person (...maybe a little more than the next person...I'm a big fan of Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis, after all...), but for me, Kick-Ass is more about...well, kicking-ass. It's about the role comics in general and superheroes in particular play in our lives; it's about the consuming loneliness that drives a high school kid to put on a wetsuit and face off against mobsters, even after being beaten to a pulp. It's about hating who you are so much only a mask lets you be who you want to be.

I hope all that's in the film. Letting the awesome action sequences and the premise overshadow the pain at the root of the story would be really too bad, and a missed opportunity.

Regardless, I'm thrilled that there have been so many comic book movies lately, especially since lately some of them have veered away from bigger, more mainstream ones. I never would have thought Scott Pilgrim or Kick-Ass would be adapted to film, so to have them both coming out so close to each other makes it even more amazing. And, like with musicals, anything that gets people to read comics is fine by me--even if it's not perfect.

Too Much Heaven On Their Minds

I didn't grow up with musical theatre, which is another post in itself, and my love for theatre came gradually, with a few show pushing me along until a weekend in New York six and a half years ago tipped the balance. The first musical I discovered on my own that I actually liked was JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR when I was in seventh grade.

My parents, who are neither into musicals nor into rock music, somehow had the concept album of JCS on record. I don't know which of them had bought it in the early 1970s--both being practicing Catholics, it could have been either of them, since I assume the title is what caught their attention--but it was there in the study amongst my dad's folk music records. Back then, my sisters shared a room and we kept our one computer in the study, so I that's where I wrote all my middle school and high school papers. We had dial-up until the early 2000s (late high school for me), but even though the internet wasn't really a distraction back then, music certainly was. There was a whole stereo system up there (and still is, when that room was converted to a bedroom for one of my sisters), complete with CD, cassette, and record player, so I used to search through my dad's CDs and records when I wanted new writing music. In seventh grade, I was starting to get into rock and heavy metal, so I would look through his record collection in hopes of finding an album by The Doors or Jimi Hendrix. Instead, I found an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

I don't remember why I tried listening to it--probably because of the title, since I certainly hadn't heard anything about it before--but when I did, I was floored. The only musicals I had heard up to that point were movies of a few Rodgers and Hammerstein (which were all right, but felt stuffy and unrelatable...except for THE SOUND OF MUSIC), HELLO, DOLLY (which I hated), Muppet movies, and Disney movies. JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR sounded nothing like any of those movies. It was rock music--early '70s rock, but rock nonetheless--and it put the gospels, which I had been reading my whole life, in an entirely new context. "Heaven On Their Minds" quickly became one of my favorite songs for how it concisely and beautifully depicted Judas as someone who did love Jesus, but whose concern for the bigger picture and persistence in viewing Him as simply another radical led to that Thursday night in the garden. I loved how it focused on Mary Magdalene and Simon Peter, two figures I'd always particularly liked for their sheer humanity. While I still don't really like "Gethsemane," I loved how the song gave voice to Jesus' doubt and reluctance to follow through with His crucifixation. And I loved how so many of the lyrics were directly from the Bible.

I was obsessed with that album, listening to it over and over every time I had to write a paper for school. I soon discovered that we had the movie version on VHS, which I loved for how deliciously campy it was. And for Carl Anderson's incredible performance as Judas (who honestly gets the best songs--I mean, "Heaven On Their Minds?" "Damned For All Time/Blood Money?" Seriously). Years later, when I was a freshman in college, I saw the tour with Carl Anderson a few months before he died. Seeing my favorite Judas in my first time seeing that show staged during Holy Week was tremendous. By that point, I'd also gotten the 1996 recording (with Zubin Varla, who I loved a Judas and would later love as Freddie in CHESS), and knew all the lyric differences between the tour, the '96 recording, the concept album, and the movie.

I don't listen to JCS that often, but I do listen to it every year during Holy Week, when I also usually watch the movie (and the video of the 2000 production). I have probably six recordings of JCS (my favorites are the '96 one for its completeness and for Zubin, and the Australian cast recording for its amazing, rocked out arrangements), which I cycle through during that week.

I'm much more of a Sondheim/LaChiusa fan now than a Lloyd Webber one (though there are some shows of his I love), but "Heaven On Their Minds" is still one of my favorite theatre songs--and once I started writing theatre myself, I realized just how complex that song really is. For one thing, there's no real hook. The structure is verse intro/AABAA/abbreviated A, but the As don't all share the same phrase--the same lyrical place to rest. Most, but not all the A sections start with "Listen, Jesus," but musically that's not a hook; it moves too fast and is too unresolved. That's pretty unusual, but it makes perfect sense given Judas' character and the tension he feels between his loyalty to Jesus and his deep concern that Jesus is attracting the wrong kind of attention. "I Don't Know How To Love Him" is a much more standard AABA song structurally and lyrically, with the hook in the first line of each A.

The other weird thing about "Heaven On Their Minds" (which is AWESOME) is the time signature. Most rock and pop music is in 4/4 (four beats per measure, with a quarter note getting one beat). Musical theatre songs are much more varied; A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC is largely in 3/4, for instance. But "Heaven On Their Minds" is in 7/8--seven beats per measure, with an eighth note getting one beat. Writing lyrics to a song in 7/8 is a little crazy; I can't imagine what learning a song in that time signature must be like.

And of course, there's a lot going on lyrically, as Judas switches from addressing Jesus directly to talking about him ("Table, chair and oaken chest/Would have suited Jesus best"). Judas moves from expressing his fear that if the other apostles knew Jesus really was just a normal guy, not the Son of God, they'd turn on him, to his concern that the Roman authorities will think Jesus is a revolutionary and crack down on them. It's an honest, harried message that, though misguided, is clearly well-intentioned. Which is probably the only way you can introduce Judas, whose name has became to basically mean "traitor" over the past two thousand or so years.

So today and tomorrow, I'll be listening to a lot of JCS, and probably watching the movie. It wasn't the show that addicted me to theatre, but it cracked open the genre for me, so listening to it (in addition to having Easter significance) reminds me who I write theatre for: those kids growing up without really knowing what theatre is. If one of my shows can do for someone what JCS did for me, I'd know I'd done my job.